When Equal Isn’t Fair

Sunday, Sep 18 2011

Speakers: Rev. James M. Rand

Scripture: Exodus 16:1-8, 13-16a, Matthew 20:1-15

A business book came out a few years ago called Jesus, CEO.  It’s already out of print.  Who would buy it?  Or believe it?  Stockholders would never let him in the boardroom, telling parables like that.

Can you imagine him running a business?  What time would all the workers show up the next day?  What would their mood be when they got there?  How much chance would the vineyard have before going belly up?

Union stewards wouldn’t like it, either.  They know that early-arrivers have seniority and therefore deserve better pay than the latecomers.  It’s one of those cases where treating everyone as equals is patently unfair.

Of course, Jesus didn’t come into the world to show us how to turn a profit.  He came to make us passionate – about God and for God.

He told parables, one commentator says, “to get our adrenaline flowing” (Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Sept. 1996, p. 47).  Or “our blood boiling,” I suppose.  And he succeeds.

Today’s parable has been known to make people grumble on the way out of church, “Keep your nose where it belongs, Preacher.  Stick to what you know.”

So I am not going to touch it.  Not me.  No way.  Not yet.

* *

Instead, I’ll talk about the Exodus reading.  In some ways it conveys the same message.  Generosity and kindness are apparent.  People get what they do not deserve.

But, unlike the parable, the story of manna is beloved.  Maybe it’s because one is about food and the other about money.  Or because in Exodus the generous one is God (not some business owner, obliged to turn a profit).  Or life and death are more obvious in a barren desert than in a harvest-ready vineyard, and that alters our sympathy.

Then again, deep down, maybe we just don’t believe story of the manna.  I mean, it is so unlikely.  We can’t imagine it actually happening.  Bread falling from heaven every day for forty years?  Get real.  We’ll never see that – whereas the story of a boss in a vineyard paying full-time wages for part time work as an economic stimulus (slash) jobs creation incentive program?  No, no, not that either.  Then again, who knows?  These are strange economic times!

The Israelites themselves didn’t believe it.  When they saw the manna, they asked, “What is it?” – which in Hebrew is “man huh?”  The bread is named for the question!

* *

Well, let’s get into the story.  The first theme of today’s Hebrew scripture is that God provides.  God provides for human needs especially where no resources exist.

God provides, where humans cannot provide for themselves.  God hears their complaints and sees the problem, and generously responds.

Even in a world that is certifiably hostile (with Egyptian soldiers behind and sand underfoot), God provides.

Curiously, the hungry Israelites claim that Pharaoh can do the same.  Isn’t it true that for every claim about the power and wonders of God, there is going to be a counter-claim that some human can do it too.  So the Israelites grumble to Moses that, at least in the land of Egypt, “we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.”  (Oh yeah, sure they did!)

Sounds like a luxury vacation, doesn’t it?  Egypt: Land of fleshpots and bread.

But it is false advertising.  It is so false, in fact it doesn’t even get a response from Moses or God.  They ignore it.  But you and I know that any food Israel ate in Egypt was not given freely or generously – as God gives it in the desert.  It came instead from their toil and hard work and enslavement and the sweat on their brows.  It was bought at an enormous and unsustainable cost.

How soon they forgot!

By contrast, in a wilderness without trees or rivers, rich soil, or other sources of life, God recreates for Israel a veritable Garden of Eden.  It doesn’t look like it.  But it has everything they need.  As it was for Adam and Eve in the Genesis 1 and 2, all Israel has to do is look around and find that whatever they need is right there – in the form of manna.

* *

That’s not the only similarity with Genesis.  Did you notice (as you were asked to notice) that three times the narrator talks about “evening” and “morning”?

 ·         In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord … and in the morning you shall   see;When the Lord gives you meat in the evening and you eat your fill of bread in the morning;

·         In the evening quails came up … and in the morning there was a layer of dew …

Sound familiar?  Try this:

·         And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

·         And there was evening and there was morning, the second day …

What happens with manna in the wilderness is a direct echo of God’s work on six days of creation. There’s an intentional link.  In both cases, a particular rhythm of life highlights God’s reliability and love – where everything appears lifeless and void.  Both passages affirm that night and day, God watches over us with love.  And provides.

* *

I don’t know what you’ve picked up over the years about Old Testament studies. Tradition says Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.  But scholars generally agree that there were multiple authors.  And each one leaves a distinct fingerprint on the text.

·         One is called “J” because every single time God is mentioned, the name “Yahweh” is given.  (In German Yahweh is spelled with a J instead of a Y, hence the “J” source.)

·         Another writer is called “E” for consistently using Elohim as God’s name.

·         A third writer is known as “P” – not for a name given to God in those passages, but for highlighting priestly concerns.  That author tells God’s story in clear and methodical ways, often inferring that God’s people should do things as God does: “decently and in order.”  So instead of the Priestly source, maybe the P should stand for Presbyterian!

It turns out that the manna story (Ex. 16) and the first creation story (Gen. 1) come from “P.”  That’s why the language matches.  And that’s why both talk about “evening” and “morning.”  It is all part of the writer’s intention to describe a reliable and trustworthy God – a God who is with us for the long haul, and who makes it possible for us to live with endurance and trust even when things are not quickly and easily resolved.

There’s one more thing to know about “P.”  As the Priestly (or Presbyterian!) source, this writer is concerned not only with the history of God’s deeds, but our human response.  This author wants to form us as a community dedicated to God’s ways.

The author intends to shape us in the image and likeness of God. (Think of Genesis 1:26 – “made in the image of God”); so that we are gathered as a faithful and unified community, in order to be holy people engaged in holy practices.

 

Because God’s reliability and love are visible “evening and morning,” day after day for forty years back then – and 4000 (or 3000) years ever since – “P” expects that same reliability and love to rub off on us.  “P” expects us to live in the same steadfast manner.  Day and night, God shapes us as holy people, and propels us to holy activities of generosity and grace – even in a hostile and alien world.  That’s what both of these passages are saying.

* *

So, now think of the parable of the vineyard again.  Understand that Jesus, like the writer we call “P” – was intent on creating holy people to do holy things.  When we look at the parable from that angle, it no longer has to do with a foolhardy business practice.  Instead, it becomes the story of a person and community engaged in the holy practice of making sure no one has too much at the end of the day … and (more importantly) no one has too little to survive on.

Does that still make you nervous?  It will for some folks.  But at least now we can admit that we are not nervous because of the outrageous economic model, but because we see that God wants to change us … from who we are, into holy people who take on holy practices.  Our discomfort is that Jesus expects us to live in a way that sets us apart from the way of life we’ve long taken for granted.  And we know change is hard.

Frankly, I think it’s okay to be a little nervous about that … as long as we stick with it.

* *

As long as manna was freely given by God every day, Israel didn’t have to worry too much about changing.  I dare say, however, that even on its first manna-laden morning Israel knew a day would come when the manna would cease.  Instead of abundance, scarcity would be the whispered buzzword, and anxiety the root emotion of life, & people would grab all they could. (Some economists and many of us say that’s where we are now – no longer on Easy St.)

Like Adam and Eve exiting the Garden, Israel knew that its needs would not always be met 100%.  They knew that some day they’d have to choose what sort of people they’d be ever after.  They’d have to choose whether to be like Egypt – providing food at great cost by the sweat of the brow and letting the gap grow between haves and have-nots, and between workers and the jobless (or semi-employed) – or to truly be a holy people – the people of God, engaged in godly deeds of generosity and grace.

That is our decision too as the church.  We make it every time we think about how much effort we will put into raising, supporting, teaching, and caring for the children we baptize.  We make it every time we consider whether or not to participate actively and fully in mission outreach to the downtrodden and victims of natural disaster or human injustice.  We also decide whether or not to be holy people with holy practices every time we reach for our wallets or checkbooks and decide what to drop in the offering plate.

The good new is: God has shown us how to be holy people with holy practices. God has shown us: with manna in the desert … a living wage for all laborers in the vineyard … and with the gift of Jesus Christ himself, living, dying and rising to new life – even those who clearly don’t deserve it.

It comes down to whether we believe these texts or not – which is to say: whether or not Jesus has captured our passion.  Whether or not he has gotten our adrenaline flowing.  And whether or not he has made our blood boil …

To the glory of God.