Rev. Betsey Moe

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost 2023

St. Alban Sermon 9.24.23

“Fairness, or Generosity?”

 

“Fair and square” was a term that helped keep the peace between my three siblings and me when we were young. I wanted the same number of candies or toys or minutes in front of the TV as my older sister, because that was what was FAIR. Our parents, wanting to keep the peace, sought to be as fair as possible in how much they spent on Christmas presents for each of us, or on how they rewarded our good grades, even though it gets tricky as you realize that all kids are different and different things motivate or encourage.

We were a family similar to other families in that way – seeking fairness and equity to keep the peace. Maybe we ALL carry around the ideal in our minds that things should be fair. Fair wages for workers, so that somehow the amount and intensity of work would be matched in pay, fair or equitable pay for men and women, so that women make the same amount as men doing the same jobs. Of course, we want fairness in education; all children should be given the opportunity to learn and develop, no matter where they were born. We want fairness in healthcare, picturing a society where everyone who is sick or injured is given the best quality medical care.

Fairness. Wouldn’t all be well if all were fair? It’s what God wants for the world right?

Today’s parable invites us to dive a little deeper into our assumptions about fairness. A landowner goes out first thing in the morning and hires a handful of workers. He agrees to pay them the regular daily wage, one denarius, to work in his vineyard. He goes out again at 9:00 and hires more workers, and does the same at noon, at 3:00, and at 5:00. All is well, nothing is amiss, until pay time. Starting with the workers he hired last, he pays them the daily wage – a denarius. And then he pays the people hired at 3 a denarius, at noon a denarius, at 9 a denarius, and those first thing in the morning – one denarius. Everyone got the same daily wage – and he did this publicly!

The workers hired first were rightfully ticked off. It was not fair that they worked all day and got the same amount as those hired at 5 p.m., who maybe worked an hour, hour and a half. I doubt that this landowner would be able to find any workers the next day willing to go into his vineyard at 6 a.m.

It’s just NOT FAIR. And Jesus says this is what the kingdom of heaven is like? Isn’t God all about fairness? Doesn’t God love all people? Isn’t God’s vision for the world fairness? Why would the landowner act this way?

What we have to remember is that there was unfairness in the story before the landowner ever walked on the scene. The setting for this parable is a labor line, a line of farmworkers, who don’t own land, living hand to mouth. It’s an informal labor market, like the lines of undocumented workers outside of Home Depots in some parts of the United States, like the millions of Guatemalans – in fact, seventy percent of all Guatemalans, who clean houses, wash cars, sell produce, or do odd jobs without any protection of the law and hope to make enough each day just to eat. This lesson about the Kingdom of Heaven is set right in the middle of an unjust labor market -- an unfair system, where normally, vulnerable people are pitted against one another while people in power take advantage of them.

This scene, before the landowner strolls in, reminds us that our world context is unfair. From the beginning of time, because of the diversity of people and places and the will of some to have dominion over others, there is unfairness all around us. We live within systems where often, thoughtless and greedy people thrive, and honest, hard-working people suffer, no matter what they do. “All is vanity,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes, throwing up his hands (see Eccl. 7:15). Our systems are anything but fair.

Some people have read this parable, in fact, and identified so much with the supposedly most determined workers hired first thing in the morning, that they look down on the quote-unquote lazy workers who showed up at 5 p.m. to find work. What if the people who showed up at 5 p.m. already worked two other jobs and they still came back at 5 to try to squeeze a little more out of the day? This parable is describing an economic system that people 2,000 years ago could relate with, and still stares us in the face today.

With this already unfair, unjust system in mind, we might look at the landowner’s actions differently. One curious thing he does is come back again and again to the labor line. And each time, it is clear that he hires more workers because of their need for work rather than his need for more workers; he’s concerned that they are standing around idle. And then at the end of the day, he doesn’t swindle anyone out of what they agreed to; he simply pays everyone enough to feed their families that day. This landowner goes beyond mere fairness and is generous. He even spells that out at the end: “I choose to do what I want with what belongs to me. Are you envious because I am generous?” Maybe the best response, the most transformative response, in a chronically unfair system is not to be FAIR, but to dare to be generous.

As we look at scripture, extravagant generosity – generosity that doesn’t add up, is a common thread in God’s behavior. In the act of creation, God lavished abundance, giving humankind every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. When God made a covenant with Abraham, God said to him that he would make his offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth and the stars in the sky. God showed this generous steadfast love to God’s people even as they followed their own way and bowed down to other gods. God gave the Israelites manna –enough food for every day – while they made their way through the wilderness. And finally, in Jesus Christ, God showed the ultimate generosity toward a people who had lost their way. Jesus voluntarily gave his life on the cross (ironically) in the face of a cruel, unfair system that sentenced him to death.

If God responded to this unjust world by being fair – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we all would be facing a death sentence. But God responds not with fairness, but with generosity.

We, as recipients of this generosity, are invited in by this parable to live differently. We are called to not settle just for fairness in how we deal with others, but by going beyond that and living with a spirit of radical generosity. We still live in broken systems that favor some, myself included, and make it almost impossible for others to thrive. And so within these systems, especially this economic system, how can we promote abundant life for all?

It might mean that we don’t buy the cheapest products possible, but if we have the resources, we buy products made by companies that pay their employees a living wage. For services that we pay for here, especially those performed by people in the informal labor market, we pay generously. We might forego making a big purchase for ourselves just because we can, so that we have more resources to share with those in need.

This morning, I am wearing a scarf made by a woman from Chimaltenango who is a part of a women’s weaving co-op called Corazón de Mujer. It’s a group of women who banded together at the height of the armed conflict to form a business together. They started to weave high quality products and sell them. Their business model was fair, of course, with each woman earning money from the particular products she made. But they have also been generous with each other, sharing in the profits for the good of all. Some of them helped others learn to read and write, or to learn to speak Spanish. And together, they put their children through school, and many of the children are now professionals in various fields. We at CEDEPCA take groups to visit Corazón de Mujer, to hear their story of resilience. Their scarves are more expensive than ones you might find in the market, but they are made with craftsmanship and love and hope, so I buy them wanting to be a part of their thriving. Mostly, wearing this scarf reminds me of their life together: their generosity with one another in the face of adversity.

And so, may we who have received God’s grace in abundance join in God’s work of bringing abundant life for all.