September 21, 2008 | 8:00 a.m.

Good Work to Be Done

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 113
Matthew 20:1–16

We do not presume to come to your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own goodness, but in your all-embracing love and mercy. We are not worthy even to gather up the crumbs under your table, but it is your nature always to have mercy. So welcome us to your table, Lord, and feed us abundantly. Amen.

Loving God, you have so made us that we cannot live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from your mouth.
Give us a hunger for your Word, and in that food
satisfy our daily need; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Like many of you, I have been keeping up with the presidential race. At the end of the summer I watched as much of both the Democratic and Republican national conventions as time would allow, listening to the speeches of our nation’s presidential candidates as well as other political leaders of our nation. I couldn’t help noticing that many, if not all, of the speeches drew upon biblical symbols. And that reminded me of the power symbols have to shape our consciousness.

As Christians, our consciousness has been shaped by many biblical symbols. American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr argued that the kingdom of God is the master symbol of American Christianity. In his book The Kingdom of God in America, he argued that more than any other symbol that of the kingdom of God has pervaded American culture and American politics and has shaped the attitude of American Christians from the days of the early Puritans onward.

In the earliest days of our nation’s history, American Protestants believed in the kingdom of God not as something to be established by the design, will, and efforts of people, but as the living reality of God’s will. God was in charge, and human efforts were dependent upon God’s sovereign power. This belief that God is in charge has stood side by side—and sometimes in tension—with another prevailing belief about God’s kingdom, that is that through their actions, the people of God are responsible for actualizing God’s kingdom. Without a doubt, the humanitarian and philanthropic movements that have characterized American Christianity since the nineteenth century were motivated by the belief that Christians play an active role in bringing about God’s kingdom on earth.

Whether or not you agree that the kingdom of God has been the predominant symbol at work shaping the outlook of Christians in America, Niebuhr provides insight into the power of this symbol. It has the power to engender, on the one hand, humility on our part—a humility that confesses, as John Calvin did, “We are not our own; therefore neither our reason nor our will should predominate in our deliberations and actions. . . . On the contrary, . . . we are God’s; therefore let his wisdom and will preside in all our actions” (Institutes, Book III, chapter 7, paragraph i). On the other hand, the idea of the kingdom of God has power to stir us to action, to be agents who take responsibility for the work of the kingdom of God.

Over the years, the idea of the kingdom of God has functioned for better and for worse in America. In self-reflective moments, we recognize that at times we have perverted this powerful Christian ideal. The perversions we have been guilty of—such as a nationalistic belief in our manifest destiny or a misguided sense of self-righteousness and entitlement—stem from wrong notions about the kingdom of God.

None of us can know exactly what the kingdom of God is. Even when Jesus speaks to his disciples about it, he has to draw on metaphors and similes. “For the kingdom of heaven is like,” he says, and then he finishes with the parable you heard. Though the parable doesn’t tell us everything about the kingdom of God, it does tell us some very important things about it and, in doing so, corrects wrong notions maintained even by the most committed of Christians.

The parable we read this morning is a parable about good people striving to actualize the kingdom of God. It is about people who all their lives have strived to live morally, to work hard, and to take responsibility for the work of the kingdom of God. In this parable, they are the laborers who work in the vineyard from dawn to dusk. They could even be the disciples of Jesus, who have given up their family and their possessions to follow him. They are people who have made sacrifices and have been faithful over the long haul.

It is to such people that Jesus speaks, for in the parable they are the ones who grumble about and begrudge the generosity of the landowner to the laborers. They protest the fact that others who have worked far less than they nevertheless receive the same reward as they do. The eleventh-hour worker receives the same reward as those who have been working since dawn. This just doesn’t seem fair to those who have been working all day.

It doesn’t seem right to the disciples who are listening, just as it doesn’t seem right to us.

To the one who actually speaks up, the landowner responds saying, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” Whereas the protester’s complaint rests on expectations of just rewards, the landowner’s response rests on the recognition that grace, not reward, is the issue at hand.

In a book entitled Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, renowned rabbi Harold Kushner recalls that the first mention of sin in the Old Testament appears, perhaps surprisingly to us, not in the story about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but rather in the story about Cain and Abel. Furthermore, sin is mentioned in this story not in reference to Cain murdering Abel, but rather in reference to Cain being jealous of Abel. Overlooking his own blessing, Cain is consumed with envy for the blessing his brother has. Kushner concludes that such envy is the original sin.

I think we all have experienced such envy before. Sometimes it is accompanied by a sense of self-righteousness not unlike the attitude of the laborers who have been working hard since dawn, thinking that they are supposed to earn their reward at the end of the day. We are taught to admire those who put in the long hours and who keep their eyes on the prize, who have never expected to gain something for nothing and who have tried to live by an ethic of self-reliance. These are qualities that some have called the Protestant work ethic, and our appreciation of it runs deep in America.

As the parable identifies, the problem is that the sense of just rewards that sometimes guides this ethic blinds us from recognizing that the kingdom of God has more to do with grace than with reward. This is not to say that we have no active role to play, no progress to make, or no help to offer. Just as the landowner in the parable calls all those who are standing around idly to the work of the vineyard, God calls us all to do our part. The point is that when it comes to the kingdom of God, God’s grace will so outshine any reward we expected to earn that, in effect, we are all like the eleventh-hour workers. At the end of the day, not one of us will deserve the grace that God offers.

With the recognition that we are like the eleventh-hour workers, there is no room left for arrogance toward those who have earned less or for envy toward those who have earned more or toward those who have been rewarded unjustly. God’s grace makes it possible for us to be in solidarity with all our neighbors. Whereas an idea of the kingdom of God based on the principle of reward could not make such solidarity possible, the idea of a kingdom of God in which grace abounds does. Therein lies the good news about God’s kingdom. God’s grace makes it possible for us to let go of envy and instead to live and work in solidarity with one another.