The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Proper 20A
September 24, 2023
In this parable, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of heaven operates differently than we expect. The landowner has gone out to hire laborers. He offers them the usual daily wage, and the laborers go into the field. There’s still more work to be done – and so, instead of going into the field and yelling at the laborers to work harder for the same pay, the landowner goes back out to hire more laborers. Clearly, this landowner hasn’t gone to business school; modern business schools would say to squeeze out every drop of value from the laborer before you hire another! But the landowner goes out and hires more people. And then he goes out again, and again, and finally at the last hour, the landowner goes out and hires more people to go into the field for one hour of work.
I can’t imagine this approach working nowadays. In the modern age, big businesses are encouraged to keep labor costs as low as possible in order to secure the biggest return for shareholders. Labor costs in the modern day are not seen as an investment in the laborers or the community, even though laborers and workers take the money they earn and put it back into the community in which they live. No, in the modern day, labor costs are seen as a drain on the quarterly earnings report instead of an investment in people and communities.
But this is the Kingdom of God, and God invests in people and communities.
So the landowner goes out at the end of the day and pays everyone the fair wage for the day. Those hired at the beginning of the day get paid the same as those at the end of the day. Each gets paid the same. The generosity of the landowner ensures that those who were hired later in the day still have the wages they need. Their families will be fed, clothed, and have medicine. The community is benefitted by this generosity.
God cares about people and communities.
When the prophet Jonah is sent to Nineveh, he grumbles. He wants to see Nineveh destroyed. He tries to run from the call, he does a terrible job as a prophet. And yet the people of Nineveh repent. Jonah is one of the few prophets we would say is successful in his mission. And so Jonah goes off and grumbles angrily.
A bush grows up and gives him shade, and Jonah is happy. A worm attacks the bush and it dies, and Jonah is angry. “Angry enough to die,” in one of the best lines of the Bible.
And God reminds Jonah: “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
God cares about people and communities and animals.
The Kingdom of heaven is not like the ways of the world. The ways of the world see people and communities and animals and plants as ultimately disposable and replaceable. But the Kingdom of heaven sees people and communities and animals and plants as filled and infused with the sacred worth from creation.
As we think about our stewardship, our stewardship of parish resources and our stewardship of the created world, hold that close to heart: the sacredness of creation. As we get ready for our pledge campaign, we see the sacredness of what we offer to the ministry of the parish community. We think of how we share our wealth, our wisdom, our work. We make an investment in one another, we make an investment in our community because we know the good it does.
And we think of the created world around us – we think of the needs of the bees and pollinators, the need for water to be protected, the need to cherish and safeguard what God has made. In the Kingdom of heaven, God is cherishing people and communities and animals and plants. And when we stand in the midst of the Kingdom of heaven, we see how much God cherishes all things. The Kingdom of heaven is not far off; it is very, very near to you, to me, to us. The sacredness of the Kingdom of heaven is here – let us bring the Kingdom of heaven into our hearts and share it with all creation. Amen.