Why Jesus the Socialist Ticks Us Off

Perhaps this is just killing all that I said in yesterday's post, but here's the deal: comparison is always a mistake. When we compare ourselves with other people, we will always lose--either someone else is worse than us and we end up prideful or someone's better than us and we despair.

This is at least part of what's up with the Jesus story that Joe Moore, our Regional spiritual formation guru, had us read in Matthew 20 this past Monday at a day of retreat (where I labyrinthed and then wrote my bad poetry).

The summary: Jesus tells a story about a land owner who goes out first thing in the morning and hires some workers. He goes out again at 9, 12, 3, and at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, he settles up with his day laborers. The people he hired at the end of the day got a full-day's wage. The people who worked from early in the morning got...a full day's wage. They, naturally, grump.

And the land owner says to them, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am jealous?"

The passage violates our Western capitalist sentiments. Where's the justice in paying the guys who bore the heat of the day and the heaviest part of the work the same amount as the slackers who rolled up the last hour of the day?

If we let the story do its work in our souls, it will eventually un-earth our feelings of entitlement. Most of us instinctively put ourselves in the position of the laborers who work the longest day. If I work the longest, I deserve a greater reward.

But the pre-supposition on our part is all wrong. In our rush to defend our rights to get our bigger piece of the proverbial pie, we miss that it's grace to have been invited to work the field at all.

The generous land-owner goes out and calls people all day to come and work in his field. None of them deserve anything. They are un-employed and there's dozens of them to choose from. There's no shortage of labor around--it's an employer's market. Perhaps that situation reminds some of you of your current economic situation.

The generous land-owner calls people to work his field through out the course of the day. There's nothing that indicates that the laborers selected are stronger or more good looking or nicer than any other laborers sitting there for hire.

To work for the generous land-owner is a gift of grace. And he is always at the minimum faithful to his promises. The people who get the raw end of the deal from our perspective get what was promised to them--this is the character of the good land-owner.

The people who get paid for a full day's work after only working half a day get a gift in keeping with the character of the good and generous land-owner as well.

Bottom line: if we're going to grouse at the generosity of God, we are cutting off the very limb we ourselves are standing on. Grace rushes to meet us whenever we are called to follow Christ. We serve a generous Land-Owner for as many hours as he would grant us. And his reward is extravagant and generous. To everyone.

What difference does it make to you and me today that God is a generous land-owner? More than we can know.