Who’s in Charge?

September 20, 2020 | Proper 20 | Matthew 20:1-16 | The Rev. John Reese

There was an old CitiBank credit card commercial featuring a decent-looking guy sincerely “telling it like it is.” His voice narrates the story of the family vacation, while scenes from that outing flick by on the screen. The family goes on a trip, stops at a souvenir tourist trap and the kids want a zillion pieces of plastic junk. The guy narrating sighs and states, “So I pay. I’m the Dad. It’s my job.”

More vacation scenes. The family stops at a touristy restaurant. After everybody chows down, the guy again concludes – “So I pay. I’m the Dad. It’s my job.”

The concluding scenes flick by with the family car breaking down and a mechanic coming out to fix it. Yet another sigh from the long-suffering father/narrator – “So I pay. I’m the Dad. It’s my job.”

It’s true – sometimes. Sometimes we are in charge, it’s our responsibility, and the buck stops squarely in front of us. And although we may grump and grouse about those times, most of us kind of like knowing that we are in control of what’s going on and what’s coming up next. In fact, we like it so much that we tend to try to grab the reins when we are clearly no longer qualified to be running the show. We are constantly tempted to “play God.”

Why do we so quickly forget that the most basic kindergarten lesson in spirituality is this: “God is God … and we are not”?

Remember when the people asked John the Baptist, “Are you the Messiah?”

Notice John’s response: “I am not the Messiah.”

Insert the word “God” for “Messiah,” and one has an exchange that needs to take place every morning in front of the mirror. Over the centuries, forgetting this elemental but elementary lesson in Spirituality 101 has led to countless tragedies, large and small, personal, national and global.

– Adam and Eve thought they had godlike freedom … they did not.

– Saul thought he had godlike impunity … he did not.

– David thought he had godlike authority over who lives and dies … he did not.

– The Israelites thought they had godlike exclusiveness … they did not.

– Peter thought he had godlike loyalty …he did not.

– Saul of Tarsus thought he had a godlike mission to wipe out Christians … he did not.

– The Romans thought they had godlike ruling power … they did not.

– The Europeans thought they alone had a godlike image … they did not.

– Americans thought they had a god-like manifest destiny … they did not.

– Hitler thought he had a godlike right to take over the world … he did not.

– Medical science sometimes thinks it can play god … it cannot.

– Cyberspace computer whiz kids sometimes think they have a godlike grasp of our minds and souls … they do not.

God is God, and we are not.

By playing at being God so often and in so many different guises, we have succeeded in trivializing the whole concept of God. Pastor Donald McCullough, former senior editor of Christianity Today, notes that “The worst sin of the (contemporary) church…has been the trivialization of God.”

He argues that this sin of trivial gods is equally strong among liberals, evangelicals and charismatics (each of which leans respectively toward political correctness, theological correctness and experiential correctness).

Instead of “have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), we have a pantheon of trivial gods.

– the “god-of-my-cause”

– the “god-of-my-understanding”

– the “god-of-my-nation”

– the “god-of-my-experience”

– the “god-of-my-body”

– the “god-of-my-species”

– the “god-of-my-generation”

– the “god-of-my-race”

– the “god-of-my-gender”

– the “god-of-my-class”

But only God is God, and we are not.

God will not be trivialized down to human-sized aspirations. God will not be domesticated to our fads and fancies. God has purposes and ways that are far beyond us and our reckonings.

In the parable told in today’s Gospel, Jesus provides a wry glimpse at the difference between God’s designs and human desires. Jesus’ parable opens a tiny portal of light into the Divine as he incarnates the genuine kingdom of God by engaging us in his story.

The landowner’s generosity is bestowed on these last-hired laborers for a reason known only to him. He does not explain or apologize for the accounting system that lavishes the same wage on everyone hired, regardless of the amount of time logged on the job. The only response the landowner has to the disgruntled first-hired workers is “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?”

Is God not allowed to do what God chooses with what belongs to God?

God is God, and we are not.

When we run into someone who strikes us as odd or off-the-wall or a bit strange, a person who does not behave according to our own norms, we shake our head and say, “Wow, he’s a piece of work.”

So, too, when God exercises God’s own unique way of doing things – ways we do not agree with or even comprehend. We scratch our heads and say in amazement, “What a piece of work!”

The utter and unmitigated sovereignty of God is a reign we humans have never been wholly comfortable with. Most of us would prefer a more democratic system of rule – one in which we could actively vote for the outcome of events or the unfolding of history. The sovereign rule of God leaves too many unwelcome subjects in our midst: famine, disease, hate, war, cruelty, waste, envy, greed, despair, evil.

Regarding today’s Gospel, some would say Jesus is advocating socialism.  I mean, the guy working one hour getting paid the same as the guy who worked twelve hours?  It reminds one of the old communist dictum, “From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.”

But God is no socialist.  You see, socialism means taking some people’s money and giving it other people. In today’s Gospel, the landowner is giving away his own money to others as he sees fit.  In other words, God is a philanthropist.  He doesn’t take one person’s goods to give to another person.  He gives away his own gifts.  And his greatest gift is his son.

Bookkeeping is the only punishable offense in the kingdom of heaven. For in that happy state, the books are ignored forever, and there is only the Book of Life. And in that book, nothing stands against you. There are no debit entries that can keep you out of the clutches of the love that will not let you go. There is no minimum balance below which the grace that finagles all accounts will cancel your credit. And there is, of course, no need for you to show large amounts of black ink, because the only auditor before whom you must finally stand is the Lamb.

The last may be first and the first last, but that’s only for the fun of making the point: everybody is on the payout queue and everybody gets full pay. Nobody is kicked out who wasn’t already in; the only bruised backsides belong to those who insist on butting themselves into outer darkness.

In the face of all the troubles that befall us and our world, there is one mystery in God’s reign that outstrips all the others. It is a mystery that lives on in full sight of all the ugliness and evil that lurk among the beauty of creation. The greatest imponderable of all, the ultimate mystery of God’s sovereign rule, is the amazing grace of God. “For God so loved the world ….”

The most unimaginable action of God is the gift of all that grace and love brought down into this world in the person of Jesus, the Christ. The most unfathomable sacrifice made by God is the redemptive death of that love and grace on a cross for our sake and for our salvation.

Thank God … that God is God, and we are not.