Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

According to a Catholic Newspaper, Tiger Woods gets more money for having his picture on a Wheaties cereal box than do all the farmers combined who grow and sell the wheat used to make all those boxes of Wheaties cereal. I find that amazing!

In everyday life, most people don't really assume there is a direct relationship between the work we do and the pay we receive. We don't really assume that people, who do the most work, or the most important work, necessarily receive the highest pay. What do you think are the most important jobs in our society? School teachers? Lawyers? Garbage collectors? Truck drivers? Construction workers? Football players? Nurses? What jobs are most necessary? Who does the most work? Who receives the highest pay? In everyday life, the relationship between the work we do and the pay we receive is by no means obvious. One person may argue that being a teacher is a more valuable job than being a professional athlete—even if the teacher makes a fraction of the salary made by the athlete. At the very same time, I am sure that there are people who feel just the opposite.

However you feel about the value of a particular job, there is one hidden, insidious assumption that snakes its way through the collective sub-conscience of many in our world. That assumption is that individual value and personal worth is somehow measured by the pay we receive for our work. In other words, not the work itself, but how much money we make determines how valuable we are. Jesus’ parable, in tonight Gospel lesson, calls this assumption into serious question.

Jesus begins, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” He rounds up a group, agrees to pay them the usual daily wage and then puts them to work in the fields. At nine o'clock, he rounds up another group. At noon, he recruits a third team, and then at three o'clock, a fourth. Finally, at five o'clock, one hour before quitting time, he finds still more laborers who are willing and able to work, and he sends them into the vineyard to do what they can before sundown.

As the day ends, the landowner instructs his manager to pay the workers, beginning with those who started at five in the afternoon. Their pay: one denarius, the usual daily wage. Then the three o'clock team is paid—one denarius. The nooners, one denarius. The nine o'clock crowd, one denarius. Finally, the all-day workers get their pay, and it is the same: one denarius. The final group of workers is angry. They feel that that they deserve more than the workers who began their work at the end of day. “These last worked only one hour,” the sunrise crowd grumbles, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

Perhaps the anger of the sunrise crowd resonates with you. Where is their justice in Jesus’ teaching? Don’t we all believe in the slogan, “Equal work for equal pay?” For generations now in our nation well-intentioned labor activists have been seeking equal pay for all people doing the same job under the same conditions despite their color or gender. If you work 12 hours doing a particular job, you should make the same as the next person who works 12 hours at that same job—period. According to this premise paying someone who works less the same as a person who works more seems outrageous.

Now, before we dismiss the landowner as an both unreasonable and unjust, let’s at least consider his response. He replies to one of the sunrise laborers, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong: did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage.” The laborer shrugs his shoulders and admits, “Well, yes…yes I did.” The owner responds, “Then take what belongs to you and go; I chose to give to the last the same that I give to you.” You see it’s the owner’s prerogative to be gracious. Wouldn’t we all agree that the owner can do whatever he wants with what belongs to him? The landowner dealt justly with the sunrise crew. He and the sunrise laborers agreed upon a wage, which was presented in full to the laborers at the end of the day. That is just. Therefore, the landowner's dealings with those who worked only a fraction of the day should not be characterized as unjust but, instead, as gracious. The same logic applies in the kingdom of heaven; God can do what he likes with what belongs to him. God, like the landowner, chooses to be gracious to all his children. Whether you work one hour or twelve building God’s kingdom, you will receive the same reward—eternal life in his loving embrace.

Now let’s apply this thought to our own lives. God’s graciousness towards us is not directly proportional to our individual efforts or accomplishments. In other words, receiving God’s grace, forgiveness, and love in our lives is not dependent on how many hours we log at the church, how many nights we serve at the soup kitchen, how often we say our prayers, or how morally upright we are. The sovereign God, over all of creation, lavishes his unmerited grace on each of us because in his eyes we are each of infinite value not because of what we do or what we accomplish or certainly how much money we make.

In our culture, we are use to professional athletes making millions, while school teachers barely get by. We are use to those in the front office making obscene amounts of money, while those who clean their offices make minimum wage. We are use to those who nurture and care for our children, our ailing parents and grandparents, our mentally challenged persons—we are use to those people resting on the bottom wrung of the economic ladder. Economic injustice abounds in our country. However, not in the kingdom of heaven, in God’s kingdom, it is and will be different.

Jesus places before us tonight, in this parable, a radical vision of equality. In the economy of the kingdom of heaven, we all receive the same payment—the same reward. God has chosen to deal justly and graciously with each one of us no matter what our particular situation. You see Jesus understands the value of all people regardless of what the culture thinks of them. He gives all people value. Even the last one to arrive at the table is given a full-course meal.

New Testament professor Darrell Doughty puts it this way: “In the kingdom of God all people are already equal—because all people are loved by God.” In God’s kingdom, every person should receive “what is right”—regardless of the work they do. In the kingdom of heaven, all people are equal—rich and poor, wealthy and destitute, righteous and sinners, powerful and powerless—all people are equal because all people are loved by God. And since this is true in the kingdom, it should also be true in the life of the church, whether we are leaders or helpers, teachers or students—whether this is our first time to step foot in a church or the thousandth. Like God, we should see in each other a person of infinite value.

In his book Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes, Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions when read to Hispanic audiences as compared to typical, middle-class audiences in America. In middle-class America, most people are perplexed when someone who works for only one hour is paid the same as someone who works for 12 hours. But when the story is read or studied by a Hispanic audience, the reaction is different. These are people, Gonzales says, who identify with the problems of the field workers. They understand the laborer who travels in his pickup truck trying to find work with little success, or, the day laborer who stands around with a pool of others waiting until a job materializes.

At the end of the parable when the landowner pays the wages, the Hispanic congregation applauds when the laborers who worked for only one hour are paid a full day's wage. They are not confused by this, but understand that the people looking for work and who have been waiting for work need a day’s pay to survive. They rejoice, then, at the grace that is not contrary to justice, but that flows with divine justice. They are paid what they need and deserve rather than what they might have been paid had this world's concept of economic justice prevailed.

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