“You’re right, it does not seem fair.” Jonah, Matthew 20:1-16

Here’s the deal, let’s just get this over with right off the top.  God is going to do what God pleases to do, and there isn’t much that you or I can do about that.

          As strange as that may sound, that is precisely the problem most of us have with the scripture lessons for today. 

The point of the Jonah story is that God is going to choose to have mercy on those rotten Ninevites no matter how much Jonah tries to thwart God.

Jonah wants those lousy folks in Assyria to fry!

Jonah wants to see Assyria punished for what they did to the Northern Tribes of Israel, his own people! 

He wants God’s judgment rained down upon them.  He wants to see them consumed in the righteous anger that he believes they so rightly deserve!  

And so, when God calls upon him to go and preach to Israel’s mortal and sworn enemy, tell them of God’s compassion and love toward all people, Jonah promptly decides to go in the opposite direction.

Jonah knew that God would forgive Assyria if they responded to the call to repentance.  

So, despite all his evading of the trip, being swallowed by the fish, and his lousy preaching style once he actually got to Ninevah, God did have compassion on the Ninevites anyway!

The only one who ends up suffering in this story is Jonah, and that’s because of his own stubbornness.

Well, Jonah and the plant.

In this Gospel lesson what usually sticks in our craw is how unfair this whole situation seems to us.

It doesn’t matter in the Kingdom of God, if you’ve sweated and born the heat of the day all day, or whether you just had an hour of work and were one of the last ones in the field…you get the same wages!

          It doesn’t matter if you worked your hands raw, or whether you just dropped a few grapes in the basket at the end of the day.   The wages are still the same!

          It doesn’t do you a lick of good of you to complain about it to the landowner (to God) about it!

The landowner is just going to go ahead and do what he wants to do anyway.  

In fact, the landowner in the parable goes out of his way to set up the situation in which all can see what he intends to do! 

He specifically orders the workers to be lined up for payment so that the folks who broke their backs all day long get to see that the late-comers are paid.

          What is the point of that?

          This is a parable of the Kingdom. 

The whole point here is to help us see that the way things work in this world is not the way things work in the Kingdom of God. 

          And that, my friends, is meant to annoy us.

          Why?

          Because we are so in bondage to the ways of this world!  

We are so ingrained in the concept of privilege existing.

We firmly believe that those who do more should get more. 

We are invested in the firm belief that you get what you pay for, and that you get what you deserve, and that is how it ought to be in this world.

          Much as we want to believe in grace, when push comes to shove, we really don’t want to believe in grace at all.

          We like the general concept of grace when it works in our favor.   

We are perfectly content so long as we are God’s own people and are due preferential treatment.   

That is the definition of privilege, after all, advantages you receive without you even being aware of them. 

These good things that we receive, they apply to us, and we expect them, but that person over there? 

Well, he or she should get a little straightening up done before they are eligible for the same treatment we enjoy!

          We want to believe in grace when it is for us.

We hold out a little as it appears to be meant for others.  

          Let’s take this table here, the Lord’s table.  

          Your pastor stands up here and announces that this is an open table…. anyone can come, open their hands, and receive the gifts of God that are given here; Everlasting life, the forgiveness of sins, and salvation.    

I don’t even ask if you’re baptized!  

I don’t check your membership, or your giving status, or anything…even to children who come forward, if they thrust their hands out and want some “Jesus,” I give it to them too!     

Radical, open grace is extended here every week… and I’m pretty sure that annoys the dickens out of at least a few people.

          It is meant to!

          It is meant to be a visible reminder that God doesn’t play according to the rules of this world and if God plays any favorites, God is always playing favorites toward the unexpected. 

This is Christ’s body given for you, shed for you, no matter who you are! 

Jesus has this habit of welcoming all, particularly sinners and the marginal in society.  

These gifts are for you, whoever the “you” might be.

This bread, this wine, this is Christ’s body and blood and all the gifts that Christ Jesus has to give are given without price and without restriction.

          There is no nice way to get around this.

The point of the lessons today is that the Kingdom of God is not ours to manage.  

It is not ours to control.

It is not ours to put parameters around, and not ours to make decisions about.

          You and I, we are a lot more like Jonah than we ever want to admit.  

We can praise God with our lips, but in our hearts still harbor all kinds of criteria and restrictions about who God wants around.  

This is who we’d like to have in church with us.  

This is who we’d like to see in membership here.  These “kind” of folks.

          We need more kids.

          We need more young families.

          We need more volunteers to serve on committees, more readers and communion assistants and choir members.

          It sure would be nice to have some more folks come and join us here…but in the back of our minds the thought creeps in of the “right kind” of folks.

          As soon as we start to think like that, to think about who it is that we would like to see here, we end up applying the standards of this world, making judgments as much as Jonah did. 

Our thoughts quickly become focused on how we would like to see things around here, instead of focused on the Kingdom and what God might already be doing, the invitations God might be offering.

God May even doing something that we wouldn’t necessarily approve of at first!

          That’s what is going on in this parable.  

These workers, who were just happy to have a job a little bit ago, happy to have received the customary wage, the agreed upon amount, suddenly sour when they see radical grace in action. 

 Immediately their minds go to comparing things, and they begin to impose their own expectations of what should be, and that’s when the trouble starts.

          This parable is meant to annoy us! 

The one thing that we have gotten really good at is comparing ourselves to others, and looking at what others are getting, and what they have, and what we think we should have.

          Those are the things of this world.

          They are not the things that make for the Kingdom of God.  

          And to make for things that are of the Kingdom, God does only one thing consistently.  

God invites, without questioning.  “Come in, and work.”

          God has no criteria about who would be good workers.

          God has no criteria about who might be the most useful to the task, or best suited for the job, or who would be most reliable or best able.

          If God did have any sense of criteria, in fact, God probably wouldn’t have recruited you, or me, with all of our faults, shortcomings, indecisions, cantankerousness and failings….

          But God is persistent with that invitation.

God is insistent in giving the same benefits to all, no matter what.

It isn’t “fair.”

          It isn’t incentive based.

          It isn’t the way we would do things or how we expect things to happen… but then that is precisely the point.   

It is the way God does things, and there isn’t a blessed thing we can do about it!

It doesn’t matter it seems, in the Kingdom of God, if you’re an early adopter or the last one in the field.

You get the same reward in the end.

          It doesn’t matter if you work your hands raw, or just drop a few grapes in the basket at the end of the day.  

The wages are still the same.

          It doesn’t do you a lick of good to complain about it to God, or to point out how you think things should be handled. 

God is just going to go ahead and extend grace as God pleases. 

          For which we can only say…. “Thanks be to God!”

It is Grace.

It is for us.

And such Grace is for everybody.

We’re just going to have to get used to that.  

And maybe…. Just maybe learn from Jesus how to extend such grace to others as well — without hesitation or condition.

“Lost in Transaction.” Matthew 18:21-25

We are most comfortable in the world of transactions.   

This is partly because of the consumer culture in which we live.  A day doesn’t go by where we aren’t engaged in some kind of “goods for services” exchange or system of trade. One can scarcely keep track of the number of transactions one makes on any given day! 

Setting aside all the transactions that are a part of normal commerce, (the trips to the grocery store, the stopping for gas, the vending machine run, the dance with wait staff over orders and the clicks of a mouse on Amazon,) there is another whole level of transactions in which we engage daily.

Did that good-bye kiss from my spouse before I rushed out of the house this morning come to me without expectation, or was there an expectation of some return of affection?   Did I give her proper attention in that moment, or will it come back to haunt me later?

When I barter with my grandsons to “go-potty” before we get in the car for a trip, am I doing that strictly for their own benefit or is there an element of my own self-interest involved?  A hope to not have to stop along the way, delay my travel, have to deal with the “convenience items” stationed near the gas station door? 

This is the air we breathe in 21^st century consumer society. 

Peter’s question makes perfect sense to us.   

In a world that runs on transactions, where predictability of outcome is valued, when does one decide that “enough is enough.”

“How often should I forgive?”

We all eagerly await Jesus’ response.

Why?

Because you and I, we all have our list, don’t we?   

Our list of folks who have wronged us.

Our list of people who irritate us.

Our list of people with whom we do not agree, and never will agree.

You know this list.

It probably popped up the moment Peter asked his question in the Gospel reading today.   We keep such lists in our mind, like notes on our phone or slips of paper used for a bookmark in our lives. 

“Yes, Jesus, do tell, when can I finally scratch this person off?  Write them off?”

Since we are most comfortable in such a world of transactions, (and Peter’s question is a thoroughly transactional one) – we want to know.

“How often?” 

When Peter tries to introduce the number “7” as a number of heavenly perfection, Jesus sees what Peter is doing, understands the move to deal with “the list.”

So, Jesus instead of doing what Peter expected of taking that as a good figure, ups the ante and makes it a multiplier.

Jesus does the unpredictable, and unpredictability always makes us suspicious.

“Not 7 times, but I tell you 77…” which is not a very satisfying answer if you are looking for a tit-for-tat concrete “transaction of this world” number!

And then, as if to double down on the illustration Jesus tells this parable about the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is thoroughly transactional.

This King wants to “settle” his accounts.

This King sets about “reckoning” with the slave who as it turns out owes more than he could ever repay in twenty lifetimes!   

The point of the debt in the parable is that it is NOT a transaction that can be satisfied by any normal means!  

Patience is what the slave begs for, (although all the patience on the part of the King in this world would never avail him because the sum owed is beyond any hope of repayment!)

Mercy and forgiveness of the debt is the only way forward here.

That is something that is not even asked for by the slave, never considered.

Patience is what is requested. Time is bartered for.

The decision of the King however is not made on any transactional basis.  

It is an unpredictable outcome for the King to release the debt completely and to grant forgiveness with no expectation of repayment.

In other words, the King in the parable is throwing out the economy upon which all transactions of this world are built upon.

This is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like?

Do you want to know how God operates? 

God operates like this: “I therefore declare unto you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.”

And what does God now expect from you, the one forgiven in return for that?

Nothing!  

Nothing from you at all!

Nothing that returns to God in any transactional way.   

God’s list, the one that God could legitimately keep because we no doubt to do, no doubt irritate God, no doubt do not agree with God on all things—and upon whose list our name no doubt would feature prominently.. that name is gone.

It has been deleted, reckoned with.

It’s gone. 

But it’s not gone because God has written you off!

Rather, it no longer appears in the ledger of keeping score.  God has settled the account and reckoned you as “paid in full.” 

God has no more expectations from you of repayment.

And now, having received that, you have a choice to make yourself.

What will you do with your own list?

Will you join in the economy of the Kingdom of Heaven and this King, or will you remain operating in the economy this world, and operating on the basis of transactions and expectations of repayment?

Will you strike those names off your own list because you will no longer hold what is owed accountable to you?

Or will you revert to the transactional economy of this world with which you are ever so comfortable?

The parable hangs for an awful moment right here.

I want you to look at the parable again because there is something missing in this parable.   Something that should be located right after the slave has received release and forgiveness of his debt.

Something, that if it had been there before his own going out to meet his fellow slave might have made all the difference in the world as to his own outcome.

What is missing?

Okay let me put it another way.  

How many of you have car loans right now?     Go ahead, raise your hands.    How about mortgages?   Let’s see them, up in the air?    Credit card debt?  

Now imagine if when you opened the mail on Monday you received a letter that none of that was owed by you any longer.    

What would be the first thing you would do?  

Take a moment, clump up, talk amongst yourselves.  What is your first move?

Okay, now how many of you identified that the first thing you would do would be to write a note of thanks for the forgiveness of the debt?

How many of you were just giddy at the thought of what had happened to you, and would have done something nice for someone else who owed something to you?

What is missing in the parable is the thankful heart of the slave who received so much forgiveness.   

What is missing is the joyful, or relieved or surprised response from the slave for what has just happened to him.

We have no indicator that he was moved at all, no glimpse into his heart.

In fact, his actions upon leaving the presence of the king tell us everything we need to know. 

This man is so comfortable in the world of transactions that he can’t wait to get his hands on the neck of his fellow slave who owes him money!

 While patience is what was requested by him, here patience is similarly requested by the fellow slave, AND the sum is repayable, but it is denied.

There is no mercy on the part of the one who was shown much mercy.

No thankfulness in the heart of the one to whom much has been forgiven.

The world of transactions is back with a vengeance, despite the King (God) intervening in that world and saving this man from it.

And who is most disturbed by this?  

It is the slave’s community!   They are the ones who inform the King that the slave who was forgiven much has had no change of heart!

And, because there is no change of heart, the Slave being more comfortable with the world transactions than with the economy of the Kingdom of Heaven… that slave ends up consigned to that world with which he is so comfortable.

He is bound again by his own actions to a life of punishment from which he had been freed!

The tag line from Jesus for the parable is what makes us so uncomfortable.It is a warning to all those who still have their lists firmly in hand.

“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

No doubt about it, we are most comfortable in our world of transactions, and that is where we are left if there is no thankfulness in our own hearts over what God has done for us.

Transactions are an action of the head.  

How much, how often? How many times? Patience, I’ll get there, maybe later…” 

All those transactional phrases with which we are so comfortable, — those are head things and we really wish Jesus would just tell us when enough is enough and when we can write people off, as if the heart has no place and no say in the matter.

But the Kingdom of Heaven is not much interested in the matters of the head.  

It is instead very interested in matters of the heart.

So that list, the one that popped up, the one that resides in your head and is still in your hand?

It’s not that you owe anything to God.  

It is that you owe it to yourself, and to your community to forgive as you have been forgiven.

That’s how the economy of the Kingdom of God enters into this world takes over. God changes forgiveness from a matter of the head for us, into a matter of the heart, that we might never be simply lost in transaction again.   

“On Being A Person of Faith” Matthew 18, Ezekial 33, and Romans 13.

I don’t really like any of the lessons for today.  Let’s just get that straight right up front.  

Sometimes the appointed texts give you great things to work with, and sometimes they are a struggle.

          These are my excellent choices for preaching today. .

          The Old Testament lesson puts Ezekial in the spot of having to be a sentinel, a watchman.  He is to sound a warning to Israel, so that they can repent.   

          If they repent, they’re going to die, but that’s ok….Ezekial will not be held to blame for their death.  He tried.

          If he doesn’t speak out, they’re going to die, ……but their blood will be on Ezekial’s hands because he has failed to give the proper warning!

          So, option number one as your Interim Pastor is to compare myself to Ezekial.   No matter what you do, you’re dead, but if I do my job, I’ll be o.k.    

          That didn’t strike me as a very positive message for you!

          So, I moved on to the lesson from Romans.  The Apostle Paul always plays well in a Lutheran congregation.  And sure enough, “Owe no one anything except to love one another.”  That message has potential!  

Except from there it runs to the commandments and the call to keep them and finally an admonition to lay aside darkness or and not revel drunkenness.  

So, even though this bible reading starts out well, option # 2 ends up bringing up all kinds of stuff that we may or may not want to talk about. 

What kind of darkness and drunkenness does this Interim Pastor think there is around here that he’s preaching on this???   

What does he know?  

What has he heard?   

          So, I thought surely, option #3, the Gospel lesson, would give me some relief, some good news.   

But this is Matthew 18, which is the chapter on, of all things, church discipline. 

So here comes your Interim Pastor, and he’s obviously got some agenda in mind, he’s talking about church discipline stuff! 

          You can begin to see why I don’t much like the lessons the lectionary committee selected for this day. 

They are tough ones if you are looking for a word of grace and hope!

          I toyed with scraping these and picking a lesson of my own, and then I stopped, because it suddenly occurred to me that while I didn’t really like any of the lessons individually, if you put them together they do affirm something worth being reminded of from time to time.

          They remind me that being a person of faith is hard.

          This matter of being a person of faith, this is hard work!   We are dealing with the hard stuff of life here, about what our faith does call us to do, and to be.

 That is worth remembering and talking about a bit.

           Being a person of faith does involve you having to do some difficult things.  You sometimes even find yourself in a place where you have a no-win scenario that must be played out.   

Poor Ezekial!   Even if he does it all right, things are going to go terribly wrong for Israel!  

His only assurance is that it will grieve God as much, ….more even, ….than it grieves him. 

“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked!”  God cries out through Ezekial.  “Why will you die, O house of Israel?   Why won’t you come to me?”

To be a person of faith is to find yourself sometimes caught up in the midst of things you would rather not have to do, rather not have to deal with, rather not have to experience.

Know that God grieves that you find yourself there! 

It’s not where God would want you to be, but that does not change the call to speak, or to live through it.

To be a person of faith is to find your life complicated by that commandment that is never truly fulfilled. 

“Love one another.”  Jesus says to us, (as if that were a simple thing!)   

It is a never-ending thing!

“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”    

Oh Paul, all the other commandments are simple in comparison to that! 

All the other commandments are about figuring out what to avoid. 

Don’t commit adultery, ok, watch that wandering eye. 

Don’t commit murder.  Fine, I’ll keep my hands to myself.  

Sabbath is covered if I show up at church regularly.

But how do I know if I have loved enough?   

How do I know when I’ve satisfied that obligation, that command? 

This commandment is not about avoiding, things, it is about engaging people.  Once you start engaging people, well it never seems to end!  

If I owe someone my love, how do I ever know when I’ve paid it off?   How do you pay off a debt of love?  

You don’t!   

That is the complication for the person of Faith. 

God never stops loving you, and the command is for you to never stop loving one another.

Boy, is that hard!  Does that complicate your life!  Such love attempted makes demands upon your time, your resources, and your whole being that sometimes stretches you pretty thin!   

Sometimes we wish there was a “I’ve cared enough!” meter somewhere that we could consult when it comes to dealing with people.

But, alas, there is not.  (We’ll talk about that more next week!)

It doesn’t appear that God has any interest in giving us “bare minimum requirements, nor “maximum capacity” markings.

Not until the Kingdom arrives in its fullness. 

And that of course, is the grand irony, for when the Kingdom comes in its fullness, then it is that we will finally be able to love without end and without limitation!  

But for now, this command of Jesus to owe only love, complicates our lives greatly.

The Matthew reading reminds us that even within communities of faith, there will be conflict and turmoil.  

Maybe even, especially there, because that which you care about deeply is also that for which you are willing to go to the line and give your all!

It’s no surprise that congregations will have conflicts, difficulties, and disagreements. 

It is a part of the landscape of faith. 

When one cares deeply about something, one wants to have a community of integrity, and so we call one another to account for the sake of our witness.  

To be a person of faith is to sometimes find yourself struggling with what it is that God is calling you to do, and how you respond to that call as a witness to God at work in this world.  

These bible readings today, I don’t like them much, because they remind me of how hard it is follow Jesus.

They remind me of how hard it is to be a person of faith and to live it out.  

It’s so hard in fact, that from time to time we might even be tempted to think that it’s not really worth it.  

I mean, really, what difference does it make in this world if you live up to these kinds of expectations?

But for those who do  attempt to be a person of faith, there is a promise made that has no comparison.

 “I am with you.”   God says, Jesus promises.

This promise made by Jesus informs and empowers how we respond to every event that comes our way.

That is the promise that influences each interaction we have with another human being… with each other, and each event where difficult things must be said and done.  

“I am with you.”  Jesus says. 

That is what it means to be a person of faith in the Christian context. 

It is to lay hold of a promise that God enters human history, and not just long ago in a stable, but each and every day and in each and every moment we live! 

We do nothing alone.

“Where two or three or gathered,” Jesus said.  The promise is that he will be there!   

No matter what the circumstances we may face.

No matter what the issues presented.

No matter what the hardships, or the heartaches, or the partings of ways, required, the promise is the same.

“I am with you.” 

Through it all, and in it all.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t complain. —  Ezekial sure did.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t lament the situation we find ourselves in. —  Paul surely did.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t expect some difficulties and conflicts.  Jesus himself surely had those, and persevered!

What it does mean is that God is bigger than all those things, and it is God’s good, gracious and firm decision that God will stick with you, no matter what!

That’s something worth being reminded about this day.

May the God of grace, be with you this day, and may you feel God’s presence, even and especially, when the matter of being a person of faith seems really hard.