A SERMON FOR SEPTUAGESESIMA SUNDAY
One of the first complaints a
child learns to make is familiar to all parents. “It’s not fair!” And indeed, often it isn’t. Children seem to have a very heightened sense
of what is fair and what isn’t. They
usually view it from the perspective of the victim. “I’m not being treated as well as so-and-so,”
“This sibling gets favored, but you always pick on me.” And so on.
Children, of course, have not yet been exposed to years of such unfair
treatment. They haven’t yet developed
the tolerance for situations where others are favored over them; or the
cynicism that comes with being habitually disrespected. It’s refreshing sometimes to see things from
the perspective of a simple child, especially when it’s a question of justice
and what’s fair. We should try it more
often perhaps.
We adults, though, never quite
lose that sense of unfairness, especially when we see ourselves as the victim
of that unfairness. The parable in
today’s Gospel, however, reminds us that what we might see as unfair sometimes
is not unfair. Here we have a
householder who is trying to manage the workers in his vineyard. When he pays the laborer who shows up close
to quitting time the same amount as those who have worked all day long, who
have “borne the burden and heat of the day,” the union bosses erupt at the
injustice of it all. They’re so outraged
you’d think they’re ready to call everyone out on strike.
But the householder responds to
their complaints. He says, “Here,
look! What am I doing that’s so
wrong? I told these guys I’d pay them a
penny a day, and by golly I paid them a penny a day. What’s it to you if I gave everyone a penny,
even if they showed up late looking for a job?”
Our instinctive reaction, as conservatives,
probably tends to side with the hardworking folks who had spent the day in the
vineyard, and not with the folks who had been “standing idle in the
marketplace.” Surely, these lazy guys
aren’t entitled to the same wage as the real laborers? But we would be wrong, and for one simple
reason: they weren’t standing around idle in the marketplace because they felt
entitled to being paid for nothing.
These weren’t welfare recipients who stay at home all day, demanding the
government feed, clothe, house, educate and medicate them for nothing, just
because they deserve it. No. The reason they aren’t working is because
they can’t find a job. “Why stand ye
here all the day idle?” “Because no man
hath hired us.” That’s the reason
they’re in the marketplace. They’re
trying to find work, but haven’t been able to.
And so when the householder pays
them the full day’s wage, he is performing a true act of charity. These unemployed have bills to pay, children
to feed, homes to maintain; and it’s not for lack of trying that they haven’t
been able to find work.
So if we find ourselves
sympathizing with the complainers in today’s Gospel, we should perhaps re-examine
our own way of thinking. It doesn’t mean
we should believe in entitlements, that real welfare bums are entitled to the
same income as those who work hard all day for a living. It’s not that those out-of-work men who showed
up at the last minute were entitled to that charity. If the householder had shown only justice and
no mercy, he would have paid them by the hour, whatever Bernie Sanders decides
is the minimum wage this week, and sent them on their way. On the other hand, if he had shown mercy and
no justice, he wouldn’t have bothered hiring them at all—he would have just put
them all on food stamps indefinitely, and turned them all into welfare bums.
Whether our own personal tendency
is towards justice or towards mercy, we must always remember that God is
infinitely just and infinitely merciful.
Whichever way we might happen to lean, we’re never going to achieve that
perfect balance between these two perfect attributes of God. And so, we are called upon by our Lord in
today’s Gospel to be careful. We mustn’t
let our natural tendency towards one or the other push us either way into an
unbalanced view of the world. If we are
overly sentimental, the goody-two-shoe type, maybe verging towards being
liberal or even progressive, we have to rein in our tendencies to give
everybody everything they want. Because
it simply isn’t fair to give taxpayer money to people who stay in bed all day, watching
Jerry Springer while they drink their beer and munch on their cheez-its. Meanwhile, though, and this is where it’s
more tempting for us conservatives, we mustn’t withhold financial help to those
who are in genuine need. And that might
need a little re-thinking on our part…
I’ll give you a
for-instance. Should illegal immigrants
receive free healthcare? Now that’s a
huge question, and it has an equally complex answer that we haven’t time for
here. Suffice it to say that while
they’re certainly not entitled to it, and while our justice-leaning tendency
would be inclined to deny it to them,
mercy must also be considered. If
an illegal immigrant’s child is involved in a traffic accident, for example,
are we going to let that child just die in the street? Of course not, nobody would advocate such a
cold-hearted thing. But think it through:
there must be some line somewhere beyond which we should not go, but up to
which we must go. Find that line,
and you find the will of God.
“Is thine eye evil, because I am
good?” asks the householder. When God
shows mercy on a sinner, who are we to complain because maybe we were not so
favored? Remember the brother of the
Prodigal Son—he complained bitterly to his father, who had killed the fatted
cow when the prodigal returned home, something he had never done for the “good
son” who had stayed home all those years.
The father explained his actions to the son, just as the householder in
today’s Gospel explained his payroll system to the workers. Neither of them needed to make this
explanation, and neither does God need to explain his justice and his mercy to
us. And yet he has explained it. He explains it through the father of the
Prodigal Son, and he explains it through today’s householder. It’s up to us to learn the lesson.
The last shall be first, and the first
last. One other way of thinking about
that profound little phrase, is that the just shall be merciful, and the
merciful just. Don’t limit yourself to
being only one or the other. Whatever
your natural inclination, make sure you push yourselves a little now and again
in the opposite direction. Otherwise,
when many are called and few chosen, and you find yourselves on the unchosen
list, don’t complain that “It’s not fair!” few chosen, and you find yourselves on the unchosen
list, don’t complain that “It’s not fair!”
