Year A: September 20, 2020 | Proper 20
Proper 20, Year A: Matthew 20:1-16
Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
September 20, 2020
Jonathan Hanneman
To watch a video of the sermon, please visit this page (about 27:45 in, in case the link doesn’t drop you at the right place).
In today’s Gospel, Jesus spins a tale about a landowner who keeps heading into the town square throughout the day to hire more and more workers. When everyone’s done for the day, he ends up paying each person the same amount, one day’s wage, whether they worked all day or even for just one hour. This, of course, leads to grumbling, and the regular moral to the story is that God is kind and treats everyone the same, so we should, too.
That isn’t a bad lesson. We should treat people equally, even if we don’t like them or don’t necessarily think they deserve it. But I doubt that’s Jesus’ main point.
Those of you listening or reading closely may have noticed that our passage starts with the preposition “for,” a word that can be a bit of a trickster. “For” is a warning that you need to back up at least a few verses—sometimes quite a few—to get some context.
If you do that with this text, you’ll run into a bit of an oddity right away: the verse immediately preceding our reading[1] uses almost the exact same phrasing as the one at the end of it.
“…many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Biblical writers often use repetition to emphasize or clarify a point. Just like the word “for” tells us that we need to take a look at the bigger picture to get a sense of what’s going on, it’s almost always important to pay attention when a phrase repeats at the beginning and end of a scripture passage. This one, though hidden by a chapter break, leads us into something of a riddle.
So we’ll need to deal with at least two questions today. First, what is the greater context of this parable? And second, what was it about the last being first and the first being last that our scripture writers hoped would help people faithfully live out the Gospel?
The larger context of the passage is the story of a man who asked Jesus how to get eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all his possessions, but the man leaves sad because he has a lot of stuff. Jesus comments that it can be hard for a rich person to enter the Reign of the Heavens, so the disciples are like, “Hey, we’re poor! What do we get?” We’ll pick up the reading again there.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. [Insert the rest of the parable here.] So the last will be first and the first will be last.”
The “for” at the beginning of the passage tells us that Jesus is trying to explain something with his parable. And by starting his last sentence with “so,” Jesus is reminding us again what exactly he’s trying to say:
“So the last will be first and the first will be last.”
Structurally, Matthew is telling us exactly what’s going on: the whole point of the parable is to explain the first/last-last/first riddle.
Unfortunately, one problem with parables is that they’re also essentially riddles. Explaining a riddle with another riddle doesn’t easily lead to clarity. Frankly, it seems a bit like cheating, like Jesus is trying to hide what he’s saying. But he did what he did, and our job today is to do our best to figure it out.
We can draw a variety of lessons from the parable: God treats people equally, contentment is key, wait patiently for God’s call…I’m sure you can think of some others. But while all of those are good lessons, none of them really seems like an answer to the larger riddle. Maybe there is no answer. Or maybe we’re trying too hard.
In fact, I would suggest “trying too hard” is exactly it.
I heard the first/last-last/first saying frequently growing up, though as I think back, no one ever really bothered to explain it. My silent interpretation—which I’ve always assumed was the common one—was that if you were humble enough or holy enough, God would end up giving you a nice reward once you were in Heaven. Basically, if you won at being the most humble person, you would earn some sort of cosmic prize that would show everybody else just how much better than them you really were.
But that leads to some problems. Under that assumption, humility becomes a rivalry—something you need to work at so you can be better than the people around you. You do end up trying really hard, but the very act of trying means that you want to be better than someone else, and that disrupts the purpose of humility in the first place. You also have to wonder exactly how much humility is enough, and how much more humble than everyone else do you need to try to be? It becomes a riddle of its own: if you’re trying to be humble, you’ll lose your reward. Yet if you don’t try, you won’t get the reward either.
But therein lies our solution. When I’m trying to be humble, where is my focus? Is it on my work? Is it on God? Is it on helping others? No, it’s on me. Not only is it on me, but it sets me up in a competitive mode: I need to beat everyone else at humility in order to become the most humble person who ever lived!
Again, not the most humble viewpoint or desire.
I think what’s going on here overall is that throughout life we find ourselves sitting at a game trying to match and outdo each other. “He’s rich and will have trouble getting into heaven. But I’m poor, so what do I get?” Or in the parable, “That guy didn’t work nearly as hard or as long as I did—why does he get the same?” Suddenly, Jesus comes along and more or less flips our table. When he does, it turns out we never looked at the game’s instructions. We’re all here fighting for pride and power, treating love and “daily bread” as limited resources we risk losing if we don’t keep them from others and amass them for ourselves. But that isn’t the point of this game. The actual game—the way God set it up—is cooperative. We are all trying to reach the end, but the only way we get there is together.
The Reign of the Heavens isn’t competitive. Sure, Jesus may be telling us to be content, to wait on God, and to trust God’s generosity. But primarily, he’s saying the point of life isn’t to be first. He’s telling us that our position in this race doesn’t count—we’re all in this together. Did you work hard all day? Good for you, you’ve earned your reward. No one hired you until the last minute for some reason? No worries—God is generous enough to provide for the needs of you and your family, too. Don’t worry about your neighbor and whether or not you’re doing better than them. If you’re “winning” and someone else is losing, you’ve missed the point of the game.
God’s economy is about the generous sharing of sufficiency. Love is not a commodity. There is no limit to how much is available to (and through) us. The same goes for hope, joy, peace, and freedom. We aren’t snatching slices from a pizza. We’re drawing cupfuls of water from the ocean on a rainy day. You won’t miss out if another person gets some, too. When we set limits on God’s gifts, deciding who’s worthy to receive what amount, we make it so no one can succeed.
But we can’t just sit around, either. As we come to understand God’s continual provision of the “inner” aspects of our lives, maybe we can start to trust more regarding “outer” provisions as well. Maybe sufficiency—maybe even plenty—is the reality, and scarcity is largely illusion. Maybe if we’re careful to avoid excess—being responsible to share what we have and take only what we’ll use—maybe there would be enough for all of us.
With God, life is not a competition. No one finishes ahead of anyone else. In the end, no one really ends up being first or last, because we’re playing a cooperative game. We’re all in this journey together, and none of us can reach the end until all of us win.
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
[1] Matthew 19:30