Sermon
Sunday, September
21, 2008
“BUT
THAT’S NOT FAIR, THANK GOD!”
The Reverend Dr. E. Neil Hunt
The United Church of Marco Island
“BUT
THAT’S NOT FAIR, THANK GOD!”
The Reverend Dr. E. Neil Hunt
Sunday, September 21, 2008
MATTHEW 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out
early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for
the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he
saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into
the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and
about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and
found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here
idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to
them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the
vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay,
beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock
came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought
they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they
grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one
hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day
and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend,
I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I
choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with
what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the
first will be last.”
LET
US PRAY: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable to You O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Fred
Craddock, a real preacher’s preacher, tells this story about being on an
airplane back when they still had smoking and no smoking sections. He was seated in the no smoking section, on
the aisle. Across from him sat a man who
pulled out a long black cigar from his pocket and lit up!
As
you might guess, soon the area all around him was filled with foul smelling
smoke from his cigar.
Craddock
stopped the flight attendant, a very attractive young woman, and said, “Am I in
the wrong section? I asked for no
smoking.” Realizing what he was saying,
she said to the man with the cigar, “Uh, sir, this is no smoking.” He ignored her and kept right on puffing. Craddock complained again. Again she reminded the man that he was in the
no smoking section, and again, it did no good.
As
you would guess, Craddock was infuriated.
Later on during the flight, the
flight attendant was coming down the aisle with a tray of drinks. She was right between Craddock and the man
with the cigar when they hit an air pocket.
The sudden turbulence caused her to dump the drinks right into the lap
of the man with the big cigar. But that
is not all. Seeking to correct her balance, this very attractive flight
attendant fell backward………right into Fred Craddock’s lap.
Says,
Craddock with a sly grin in his voice,
“Now, don’t tell me there’s no God.”
I
wish life always turned out so neatly, don’t you?
I
wish that the wrongdoer always got what was coming to them and the folks in the
white hats always came out on top!
I
read a story about some burglars in
Sometimes
things do sort of even out, but, many times it seems that they do not.
Former
business leader and Chairman of Chrysler Corporation Lee Iacocca tells about an
incident that occurred when he was in the sixth grade. The incident involved the election of the
captain of the student patrol, a job that he really wanted. Iacocca lost by two votes. The next day one of his classmates pointed
out to him that the total number of votes was greater than the number of
students in the class. But when Iacocca
told his teacher, she simply advised him to let the matter rest. It was he recalls, his first lesson in the
fact that life would not always be fair.
How
many times have you and I looked at life and complained, somewhat bitterly,
“Life isn’t fair.”
Or
how many times have we heard our children shout at us “But that’s not fair!”
And
sometimes it seems to us that not even God play’s fair!
In
our scripture reading for this morning we heard Jesus tell a parable about the
landowner who went into the market place early one morning to hire some
laborers. This is a common practice in
some rural communities even today. Those
he hired he agreed to pay the standard wage for a day’s work.
Three
hours later he saw that he was going to need more laborers if the work was
going to get done. So he returned to the market place and hired some more, then
about noon he again found it necessary to hire more workers, then again at
three o’clock, and again at five.
Quitting
time was six o’clock. At six he had his
foreman line up the laborers to be paid.
He began with those who had worked but an hour. He paid them for a full day. Watching were
the ones who had worked since six in the morning. They were rubbing their hands together in
delight. “Wow,” they thought to
themselves. “If he pays them a full day’s wage for working just part of the
day, think how much more he will pay us!” When their time came, however, they
also received the standard wage for one day’s work. They
were mad! They had worked all
day and they were receiving the same amount as those who had worked just one
hour.
YOU
CAN ALMOST HEAR THEM SAYING “BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR!”
But
the landowner said, “Didn’t I pay you what we had agreed on? If I want to be
more generous with these others is it not my right? Is it not my money to do
with as I please?”
Boy,
this is another one of Jesus’ hard teachings, particularly when it is applied
to the subject of salvation. Since most
of us in the church feel that we are those who have labored since six o’clock
in the morning, this may be one of Jesus’ most difficult teachings for us to
accept.
Is
it true? Can a person be an absolute
scoundrel right up until the moment of their death and then repent and receive
the gift of eternal life as if they had been a saint for their whole life?
That
is the way this scripture is most often interpreted.
Ty
Cobb, that great Detroit Tiger, is generally regarded as one of the greatest
baseball players of all time. When he
was inducted into the Hall of Fame back in 1936, he received the most votes of
any player on the Ballot. Ty Cobb is
widely credited with setting 90 Major League Baseball records during his
career. He still holds several records, including the highest career batting
average, .366, and the most career batting titles. He retained many other
records for almost a half century or more, including most career hits, most
career runs, most career games played and at bats, and the modern record for
most career stolen bases. However, as
most baseball fans know, Ty Cobb was not a very nice man. He was an overt racist, and he was mean and
surly on the baseball diamond. He would not be on anyone’s list for preferred
role models. In 1961, Ty Cobb lay
dying. Reportedly a minister came to Ty
Cobb’s bedside during this difficult time and urged him to repent. Ty Cobb
looked up from his deathbed and said, “You’re not telling me that a whole life
of sin can be done away with by a deathbed repentance, are you?” The minister assured Ty Cobb that it could. So on that day, Ty Cobb repented and very
shortly afterward died. Our faith tells
us that Ty Cobb was given the gift of eternal life!
Now
I know what some of you are thinking as you sit there this morning: why not, then, just go ahead and live a life of
sin and wait until the very last moment to repent? I mean, after all, if we are all going to get
the same reward, then why not just party hearty right up until you can’t party
anymore and then repent? This teaching
by the way is not exclusively a Christian teaching. Our Jewish friends wrestle
with this same question.
Herman
Wouk, in his book, this is My God: The Jewish Way Of Life, tells a story about
his grandfather, a learned and pious Jew.
His grandfather had in his apartment a lodger less learned than himself,
and much fiercer in piety. One day when
they were studying the laws of repentance together, the lodger burst from his
room. “WHAT!” he said. “The atheist guzzles whiskey and eats pork
and wallows with his women all his life long, and then repents that day before
he dies and stands guiltless?” while I spend a lifetime trying to please
God?” The grandfather pointed to the
book. “So it is written,” he said
gently. “WRITTEN!” the lodger’s
roared. “There are books and there are
books.” And he slammed the door as he
walked angrily back to his room. The
lodger’s outrage seemed highly logical, says, Wouk. Then his grandfather pointed out that
canceling the past does not turn it into a record of achievement. It leaves it blank, a waste of spilled
years. A man had better return, he said,
while time remains to write a life worth scanning. And since no man knows his day of death, the
time to get a grip on his life is the first hour when the impulse strikes him.
It
is a fascinating question, and, on the surface, it can be troubling. Why turn
to God now? Why not just wait? A Rabbi
said, “Turn to God one day before your death.” His disciples said, “How can a
man know the day of his death?” The Rabbi answered them, “Then you should turn
to God today, perhaps you may die tomorrow, thus every day will be employed in
returning.”
So
how would you answer such a question?
Why not go ahead and live a life of sin and just wait until the very
last moment to repent?
I
don’t think that question is as difficult to answer, as it at first seems.
First
of all, the question assumes that a life of sin is more desirable than a life
of faith. Why else would we be concerned
about waiting until the last moment?
But
let me ask you another question: What would you change about your life if you
knew there were no heaven and no hell?
Would
you be less loving toward your family?
Would
you cheat on your spouse?
Would
you be dishonest in your business dealings?
I
really don’t think so.
The
old saying that “virtue is its own reward” is true.
There
are other reasons that we maintain our wedding vows, run our businesses in an
ethical way, and love our families besides the fear of hell. We seek to live virtuous lives not out of
fear, but because we have looked around and seen that the moral life is truly
the best way for the world to live. We
cannot imagine a world without moral values or family ties.
Oh
sure, we all joke about the attractiveness of sin, but deep down in our own
hearts we know that a life of sin only leads to dissolution and destruction of
everything that is good and lasting and ultimately satisfying in this world of
ours.
So
what would you honestly change about your life if you knew that there was no
heaven or no hell?
I
suspect that you would change very little.
Oh
some of you are probably sitting there thinking that you wouldn’t sit through
any more boring sermons if you had that knowledge!
Did
I hear an Amen?
Actually,
if it is the fear of judgment that brings you to church every week, you probably
do not get much out of worship anyway.
When
we come to the mature realization that we seek to do right not to please an
angry God, but because it really is in our own best interest to do right, then
we no longer envy the scoundrel who makes that deathbed confession. Indeed, we might pity them for taking so long
to see what we have known all along.
It
has been said by someone that “No one ever repented on their deathbed of being
a Christian!” and it is true.
No,
we are not perfect, but we are wise enough to see that there are certain laws,
moral laws, spiritual laws, if you will, that govern this universe as surely as
does the law of gravity.
By
the grace of God we do right not because we fear hell, but because in the long
run it is in our best interest and in the best interest of those we love and in
the best interest of this world that we all live in!
I
think there is yet a second question that comes out of our scripture reading
this morning: IF GOD WANTS TO BE
GENEROUS WITH OTHERS, THEN SHOULDN’T WE REJOICE?
Those
who had worked in the vineyard all day would not have been at all dissatisfied
with what they had received if they had not compared their wages with what the
others had received. There is something
very human about that.
What
is there within us that judges our lives not on the basis of what we have
received, but on the basis of what we have received in relation to others? Of course, when that gift happens to be the
gift of grace and salvation, the principle is even more critical. Shall we who
have been saved by grace not rejoice whenever any person receives that grace as
well, whether they receive it as a child, as a teenager, or at 98 after a life
of total degradation?
Here
is a truth that we all have been told repeatedly:
NONE
OF US DESERVES THE GIFT OF GRACE!
That
is why we sing with so much joy, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound!
We
sing because it is indeed amazing!
A
righteous God accepts you and me just as we are, just as if we had never done
anything wrong in our entire life!
Life
is not fair because it is rooted in grace!
Life
is not fair, thank God!
Amen.