Matthew 20:1-16
Last will be First
Thank goodness Jesus isn’t talking about money! Because we all know that whenever any preacher dares to talk about money everyone gets very nervous. My father-in-law says of such pastors – “You have crossed the line from preaching and started meddling;” with the clear expectation that it will stop – full stop!
Jesus isn’t talking about money. He is talking about grace, and about the kingdom of heaven and about the way God looks upon those who cry out to God for mercy. Jesus is teaching his disciples an important lesson about how to look upon those who enter the fellowship after we ourselves have already become firmly entrenched. I, for one, am very grateful for that.
Can I get a bit personal? And there is the likelihood that the one identified here might hear this sermon, so I have checked it out in advance.
One of my three children is not a church person. Well, actually, two of them. But one is more vocal in their criticism and their critique. Here is the thing – I love all three of my children equally, and I interact with them fairly. Even when one of my children (and all three sometimes fall into this category) says bad things about how my commitment to the Church has hurt and harmed even when I thought it was doing some great good. So, I have this child who is not among those who early in the day has gone out into the fields to labor. What will that mean, at the end of the day. Will God love that child less, or treat with difference? I love my children. And I won’t sit by while anyone does not love them too.
Let me further say, that I want no part of any “heaven” in which whatever level of comfort is received from the presence of others does not involve all three of my children. And for that matter, my brother as well! If God is going to be mean to the child whom I love because something about how the Church impacted my children resulted in their not being accepted and embraced – well, you can image which I will choose.
The good news is that I don’t have to worry about that. The passage which I just read to you is a guarantee that God is loving and giving – particularly to those who the world would see as undeserving. The God who it is my honor to bring to you week after week in sermons and to make real in your life through the bread and wine of the Eucharist is not a god who loves (and rewards) some children less than others.
We can all get on board with that –
right? While we have to be careful anytime
we start to “humanize” God, surely one of the human traits which we expect of
God is that God will love his children as much as we love ours. We know that our love is not contingent on
our children following a narrowly defined course of action. We know that is totally reasonable to love a
child who has said bad things about us, who has attempted to deny us, who has stolen
money from us – even a child who has broken our heart and whose actions have
wounded us too deep for words. We love
that child, don’t we?
There is no pastoral conversation so infuriating to me as the one in which a parent struggles to save face amiss an acknowledgement that while they know their continued financial support of an addicted child may be enabling their illness they just can’t leave that child to live on the street and starve to death. Of course, you must love that child! And anyone who would sham you for caring for them is the person I want to speak with next!
Jesus uses money in this parable because it was easy for him to talk about money. Those who were listening to his words were pretty low on money, and those who were already decidedly looking for ways to silence Jesus were the folks who had money. He knows his base, and his base would like the example he used – perhaps well enough to repeat his words, the next time in a context where more would be prepared to rejoice over a Lord (and a God) who does not discriminate among us based on the criteria of the world.
That is the kind of god, it is The God, whose goodness and mercy is proclaimed in every sermon I preach. That is the kind of god, it is The God, whom we confess and toward whom our liturgy directs us.
Some will choose a differing god. Some will choose an antikhristos; more will choose a pseudokhristos.
We are to never forget that Jesus’ murder required participation from the civil authorities, the religious rulers, and the crowd. The only thing powerful enough to unite all those forces is the utterly ridiculous concept of a God who would rip open every closed vault and made accessible every veiled space. There is reason why many join the ranks of those who choose an antichrist. Practically everything we have carefully crafted (from the tower of Babble to the benchmarks of capitalism) raise the rally cry of “anti” – we are against these things.
It much more insidious when the spectra of an “antechrist” emerge. An antechrist is a facsimile (a pseudokhristos), similar enough to the original that many will think it is the real thing. It is a “false Christ,” false in that it is wrong, but close enough to lure us away unknowingly.
As you read your bible, in preparation for worship this morning, you noted that Jesus speaks these words on the heels of the disciples trying to feel really good about their service. They have lifted up the ways in which they left behind family and life in order to follow Jesus. Jesus is no doubt pleased by this. But Jesus is very clear with them in noting that they ought not to consider themselves more loved or appreciated than those whom their words may have belittled. In case you miss what Jesus says to them, you can read it in the verses appointed for today. Matthew 19:30 is the same sentence as we read in Matthew 20:16. This whole story about the workers in the vineyards is to drive home the very same point: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The antechrist in me rejoices at that announcement. I am always the last person picked for the basketball team, and I LOVE BASKETBALL. I am also usually pretty close to the back of the line when it comes to being heard at City Council meetings.
I rejoice in those words, until I reflect on the places where I am the one who is “first.” “First,” in my self-righteousness and self-confidence that I know exactly what God is thinking. “First,” when I look at the place I have claimed for myself among the world’s population. “First” with regard to privilege and security. “First,” when it comes to protection under the law and likelihood to be exploited or abused.
“The last will be first and the first will be last.” It isn’t fair! It isn’t in keeping with our widely agreed upon standards! Like so many of the things which Jesus says, it turns our world on its head. Like so many of Jesus’ lovely words, these express what we feel in our hearts – even as we speak against them with the way we are shamed into living our lives.
Amen.
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