Sermon for Sunday, September 24, 2023 || Proper 20A || Matthew 20:1-16

This is one of those Gospel passages that leads to some very…spirited…discussions at Bible studies. There’s just something about this parable that rubs people the wrong way. We get all hung up on the fact that the various groups of workers in the vineyard don’t seem to be getting treated fairly. Some only work one hour, and they get the same pay as those who worked twelve hours! What?! We get stuck on that way of reading the parable and miss the larger point that Jesus is making. We miss the point that the generous vineyard owner keeps coming out and welcoming people into the vineyard all day long and treats even those who only had the opportunity to work one hour as if they had worked all day. That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like, says Jesus. 

But it’s that fairness bit. That’s what needles us. We talk a lot in my house about the concept of fairness. Kids have an innate sense – a Fairness Detector, if you will – that pings whenever they think they are not receiving a fair deal. Because we have twins who (obviously) share a birthday, we make sure to get exactly the same number of presents for each. We only have one Nintendo Switch, so if they both want to play it during tablet time, we set a thirty minute timer and trade off when it rings. We even weigh (I’m not kidding) we weigh their ice cream bowls to make sure they each get the same amount of ice cream.

In all these ways, we have promoted fairness in our house. But in the last year or so, perceived unfairness has crept in. Because the kids are in different classes at school, they get invited to different birthday parties, which means one might get to the trampoline park while the other has to stay home. We try to schedule equal amounts of playdates, but some friends are more available than others. And then there’s opening up packs of Pokemon cards. Sometimes there’s a really good card inside, but the pack that gets opened alongside it has a real clunker. In the end, it’s just really hard to keep things fair. And that’s just stuff in our own house.

Beyond making sure my kids get equal amounts of ice cream, the concept of fairness gets very complicated very quickly. A few years ago, my daughter had a great T-shirt that had all these bits of chemistry equipment on it. Each piece of equipment was labeled with a particular trait  – creativity, friendship, bravery, stuff like that – and they all distilled into the words “Girl Power” written on the last beaker. You know what they don’t make? “Boy Power” t-shirts, which doesn’t seem fair until you become well-versed in the history of patriarchy and gender inequality.

Concepts like “Black Lives Matter” and “Gay Pride” fall under the same umbrella as “Girl Power.” They acknowledge a long-running imbalance in opportunities and outcomes for historically marginalized groups, and they call on society to address the biases and policies that perpetuate those imbalances. But here’s the thing: proclaiming “Gay Pride,” for instance, doesn’t mean non-gay people shouldn’t take pride in themselves. Rather, “Gay Pride” positively asserts an identity that, for most of history, has been punishing or dangerous to claim.

Last June, I marched in the Middletown Pride parade with Bishop Jeff and a big group of Episcopalians. So many people came up to the bishop and thanked him for the witness of our church in its love for and acceptance of them. For many of the parade goers, their churches of origin had labeled them sinners because of whom they love or how they live into their gender identity. But there was Bishop Jeff embracing them with the love of God. Of course, the bishop will embrace anyone with the love of God, but for those particular folks, their past experience with church made the embrace that much more meaningful.

At a societal level, fairness is called justice. Fairness and justice are bigger concepts than simple equality; that is, everyone getting the same thing. Justice is more concerned with equity, which has to do with everyone getting what they need in order to thrive. These two words – equality and equity – get mixed up a lot because they are only two letters off from each other. Here’s how I think about it. I can reach the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, so I don’t need a stepstool. Justice does not automatically give everyone a stepstool. Instead, justice asks, “What do you need to reach the top shelf of the cabinet?” Because of our society’s history of many and varied oppressions, the necessary elements to achieve justice are different for different groups of people.

The overarching themes of the Bible have a lot to say about justice and equity. The main reason the Old Testament prophets warned ancient Israel that it would soon fall to conquerors was that Israel was not taking seriously God’s call to “let justice roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24). Israel was not taking care of widows and orphans, which is biblical shorthand for the most vulnerable people in society. Israel was paying lip service to fasts and sacrifices instead of allowing those rituals to spur them to “loose the bonds of injustice” (Isaiah 58:6). Because the foundations of their society were not supported by justice, the society crumbled in the face of the foreign powers of Assyria and Babylon.

But the book of Psalms reminds us again and again: “It is [the LORD] who rules the world with righteousness [and] judges the peoples with equity. The LORD will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble” (Psalm 9:8-9 BCP). Our God is a God of justice and equity, always showering upon Creation all the things the Creation needs in order to thrive. As we take seriously our call to build the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, we recognize in ourselves those feelings of envy that the earliest workers experienced in the parable. We recognize those feelings and remind ourselves that just because someone else gets something doesn’t mean we are deprived of it. And then we remember the generosity of the vineyard owner, who keeps welcoming people in at all hours and treats even those who only had the opportunity to work one hour as if they had worked all day.

Our God is a God of generosity and justice. When we embrace these paired values in our own lives, we move from the zero-sum individualism of a scarcity mindset to the abundance of a worldview built on solidarity, cooperation, and community. That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like.

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Photo by Courtney Cook on Unsplash.