I’ve been learning a lot about gardening lately, living in a home with a yard for the first time in my adult life. I’m learning the difference between trees and bushes, weeds and things you actually want there. I’m learning that it is hard work to sweat out in the sun to try and tend to all the living plants out there!
Our Scriptures for this week come from Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 and Matthew 20:1-16.
It’s with this new outlook that I read the Matthew story – I bet that vineyard work wasn’t very easy on the backs of the laborers. This isn’t a cushy office job, but a hard, sweaty, messy, exhausting job.
And it’s a job for a LOT of people. It makes me wonder just how big this vineyard is! And then they get paid, whether they sweated for one hour or all day, the same amount. Immediately we want to say along with the first workers “But that’s not fair! That’s not what we deserve!”
One of the most frustrating aspects of my yard is the weeds. It’s been a jungle out there, with no one tending to it for several years. No matter how many times I cut them down or pull them from the flowerbeds, they keep appearing. They don’t work according to my plan. And fortunately for all of us, neither does God’s grace.
I figure this passage is not really about the laborers, but the employers. It’s not about how long someone works, or any other of their merits. It’s about the employers – willing to call anyone for this job, willing to pay them enough. It’s about God, a God whose grace is bigger than our narrow systems of fairness. It’s about our God whose grace is like weeds, growing wherever God intends, not me, appearing in unexpected places and showing me just how small and how feeble my plan really is.
We don’t get what we deserve. And that’s a good thing. The radical gift of free grace, a gift that makes us shout at its unfairness, is offered by God to all. And thanks be to God for that!
Love,
Pastor Kate
No comments:
Post a Comment