How To Be Unfair

Matthew 20:1-16

There’s something I’m forced to notice about myself every so often, and this week I realized it again: I’m not really a very fair person.

I have a habit of thanking people for little things – even when someone I’ve been depending on much longer for bigger things is right there in the room.

I give money to causes that are of moderate importance, even while minor and life-changing causes are also looking interestedly at my checkbook.

I buy dinner for people who don’t need it, urge more brownies on people who have already had their share, and when I’m driving, I never pause to calculate the fairness of waving someone into my lane, or moving ahead and letting them take their chances.

I’m not actually a very fair person. And as any seven year old can tell you, you’re supposed to be fair.

Jesus also knows we’re supposed to be fair. But then he goes and tells stories like the one we heard today.

A story where an employer blithely pays everyone in sight a full day’s wage, whether they worked less than an hour, or the whole hot and tiring day long. If you don’t twitch with at least a slight alarm when you hear Jesus tell this story, then you’re not listening. This is NOT FAIR, and every one of us knows it.

It may trigger memories of those unfair times when everybody in the group got an A, or a bonus, for a project where you did all the work. When you’ve been waiting patiently forever, and someone cuts in at the front of the line. When your brother who was an awful brat all day long gets the same size piece of cake that you do.

Or it may bring memories of those times when I was a brat all day, and got the same size piece of cake as the good kids. Or walked up to a long checkout line just as they opened a new register, and got to be first in line. Or profited from a system’s unconscious bias that makes success just that much easier for me than for others.

Every one of us has probably had something profoundly unfair happen to us, and many of us have had something unfair happen for us.  Because as your mother undoubtedly had to tell you at some point: Life isn’t fair. No matter how much we want it to be.

To want fairness is human, so we usually resonate with that moment when the laborers who had been working all day speak up and complain that it is Just Not Fair for the employer to pay the latecomers the same wage that we’ve earned.

No matter what the employer may say about how fair it is to pay the wage agreed to at the beginning of the day, it feels unfair, and we’ve been taught to pay attention to that feeling so we can learn to be fair to others.

Usually, we’ve been taught to see ourselves as the laborers in this story – sometimes as the laborers who receive unexpected, unearned grace; sometimes as those who feel envious and cheated – but either way, to feel that unfairness so that we appreciate the unreasonable generosity of God.

But perhaps sometimes God doesn’t see us as the laborers in this story. Perhaps God sees us as the employer. Perhaps when he tells this story, Jesus is inviting us, provoking us, not only to appreciate God’s unbalanced grace, but to be that irrationally generous ourselves; to take joy in giving itself, and in seeking and planning to give.

It struck me this week that there is a good chance that this employer was probably able to hire all the laborers he needed to get the day’s work done when he went out right at the beginning of the day. And any fair employer would be satisfied at that point.

But this one just keeps going out, looking for other people to include. And finds them, and goes out again, at noon, at 3 pm, at 5…. Looking for more people to include, never mind that the work is probably already getting done just fine. Keeps going out until there’s no daylight left to go out in, and keeps bringing people in, just so, at the end of the day, he can pay everyone a good day’s wage.

And when he’s challenged, he asks, “Am I not allowed to do what I wish with what is mine?”

Maybe this isn’t a story about fairness after all. It’s a story about wishing to be generous. Wanting to be lavish, working for and seeking that opportunity, all day long, because it gives you joy. Because it makes you whole.

I love saying thank you, and I’m glad nobody tells me how unfair I am about throwing those words around.

I’m often unfair in selfish ways, too, but I love giving unexpected gifts, and when I do, I’d rather get nothing in return.

And I’ll bet there’s something unfair that you love, too.

I’ll bet some of you love to cook for people who didn’t contribute anything to the meal. (maybe particularly for people who don’t insist on “helping”)

I’ll bet others love to help someone out, no matter whether or not they’ve earned a helping hand.

I’ll bet some of you get joy out of giving money, or skill, or time, without stopping to calculate the relative merit of every single cause or purpose you give to.

I’ll bet that some of you – maybe all of you – love being generously unfair in ways I haven’t named or thought of, just because the giving gives you joy. Just because it makes your heart grow warmer, deeper, stronger, or your soul delight.

And when we do that – when we seek out and revel in the opportunity to give without weighing merit or counting costs – we find ourselves closer to God, sharing God’s joy, living with God’s heart in this everyday world.

I think that God wants to tell this story about you, and me; about each of us.

I think God wants to tell the story about how we spent the day – today, yesterday, tomorrow – looking for people to include; about how you were confident in your unfair generosity, and knew the joy you took in giving more than could be earned.

That’s not fair, of course, but it is freeing. It’s holy, and heart-filling, and delightfully divine. And that makes it a story God loves to tell about us.

Living Forgiven

Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35

How many of you have been forgiven? Show of hands…

That should be everybody’s hand – at the very least, if you’ve been to an Episcopal church before. Every time we confess our sins together, we are reminded of how God’s mercy and forgiveness are given to us – each of us, all of us, all our sins.

Many of us have also experienced forgiveness from another person, for small everyday hurts or major sins.

So – remembering what it’s like to be forgiven, how do you live with that forgiveness? What have you done with that relief or freedom or humility that washed over you when an apology was accepted, or a hurt released?

Have you made rules for yourself, or found rules to follow, so that you’ll never hurt someone like that again?

Do you find yourself living large, overflowing with generosity, in gratitude?

Do you suddenly find it easy to let go of old hurts yourself, and forgive others?

Or did the release of a guilt you’d been carrying suddenly remind you of the guilt that others owed you?

Maybe you’ve responded in several of those ways. We respond to forgiveness in all kinds of ways, and Paul and Jesus are both teaching about that today.

Jesus tells a story of a forgiven debtor whose sudden relief takes a selfish turn: freed from the absolutely unpayable debt he owed, he’s ready to get his life back on track by collecting what’s been owed to him. It doesn’t go very well for him, to say the least.

Jesus tells that story to remind Peter (and not so incidentally, us) that God’s nature and God’s judgement are infinitely more generous than our human nature, even at our very best. And it is dangerous for our souls and our everyday lives to put fairness ahead of generosity in the ways we live with one another. Doing that interferes with our own ability to receive forgiveness.

Forgiveness has to work without limits – even the generous limit Peter tries to set.
(Some of you must be wondering or worrying, so take note: Jesus isn’t telling Peter we have to set ourselves up to be hurt again and again, just let go of the hurts of the past, as many times as it takes to be truly free.)

Jesus reminds us that if we pass judgement on one another, as we do if we hold on to a hurt or insist on the payment of guilt, it means we’re forgetting who we belong to, and especially, forgetting who the other person belongs to: not to me as an antagonist or debtor, but to God, as a child of God. And they, too, are learning how to receive and respond to God’s forgiveness. They may just do it differently than I do.

In Paul’s communities, there seem to have been common disagreements about how we live forgiven; how we live in response to God’s mercy.
Having been brought into the risen life of Christ, adopted and loved and forgiven by the one Lord, some would say, there’s no way it’s okay to eat meat from the temples of the Roman gods, those dangerous idols. And if most of the meat in your city comes from those idols’ temples; if that pagan meat probably isn’t kosher, if – these days – you can’t tell if it comes from a farm that violates God’s standards for love of creation, or it comes laden with the baggage of unhealthy fast food and the soul-crushing consumerist culture – well, then, we should be eating only vegetables, in thanksgiving for God’s mercy toward us. Right?

Others say we should actually be eating it all – meat, vegetables, everything – in thanksgiving for that mercy. We should be celebrating our freedom from following all those idols of false religion and secular culture, showing far and wide our knowledge that it can’t hurt us because we are already redeemed through Christ, not through what we ourselves can do. Right?

Both could be pretty persuasive arguments – maybe one more than another, depending on how much you personally like a juicy steak. But if you’re convinced of one of them – if your response to God’s forgiveness is to avoid anything, anything at all, that could accidentally drag you away from your thanksgiving to God – having your friends keep arguing that being too straight-laced is a lack of gratitude toward God gets old pretty quickly.  And when they keep inviting you to meat-eating parties, full of everything that distracts you from God, and complaining if you stay away… you’re not going to be friends for long.

And vice versa. Vegetarians who insist you’re going to hell for eating meat are just as likely to break up relationships.

“So just cut it out, all of you!” says Paul.

“Those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. … Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.”

Sometimes, Paul is so very Episcopalian. Live and let live, he seems to say – or better, live and let God. That’s familiar and welcome to the ears of those of us who love the diversity and tolerance of our particular way of common prayer.

But Paul himself isn’t interested in tolerance. What he wants is unity. Do not separate yourselves by passing judgement, he says, and I don’t mean just ignore each other’s quirks – support them! – because GOD has welcomed every one of these with whom you disagree. And our life together must reflect the unity of God.

I know that you know some people who don’t practice their faith the way you do. You know some people who don’t take church – or prayer, or the Bible – seriously enough, who feel free to take God’s forgiveness as a given, whether they worship or behave or not.

And you know some people who take church – the Bible, their prayers, whatever – far too seriously, people who can (and do!) tell you how not following the rules will take you straight to hell; people who know that being welcomed by God demands responsibility in response.

Do you tolerate those folks, or do you embrace them?  Do you work to build them up, to support them in their own response to God’s mercy, however different from yours, because without them, we will not be complete; without them, God’s mercy will not be fully known, to us, and to the world around us?

We all live forgiven, and we all respond to that forgiveness differently. The only thing we can’t do is limit it. We can’t limit forgiveness to seven times, limit it to the way that works for me, limit it by simply tolerating one another. The only thing we can do, forgiven as we are, is to build one another up, without tiring, without ceasing, without doubt, so that we are stronger, healthier, holier together in Christ.

How many of you, was it, who have been forgiven?

Keep those hands up, if you rejoice in Jesus’ call to live that forgiveness without limits. Keep those hands up, if you rejoice in Paul’s reminder to live that forgiveness for the sake of others. Those hands say that your life, and mine, are a testimony of unity and Christ, and of thanks to God, now and ever. Alleluia.

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Ready to Respond

Exodus 12:1-14, Romans 13:8-14

About a week ago, I stumbled into a Facebook group for people who own those countertop pressure cookers known as “Instant Pots.” And amid the posts about perfect eggs, amid the eagerness to share the good news of fast and delicious meals with anyone who will listen, there were a few particular pleas for help:

“Quick, I need a recipe for something I can make to feed 30 people doing hurricane recovery work in my neighborhood.”

“We’re collecting Instant Pots for residents of Houston who’ve lost their kitchens; can you help?”

And then – one, then another:

“We’re emptying out the freezer before Irma comes. What can I make with four pounds of frozen chicken, or with a lot of ground beef, that will last through the power outages or evacuation?”

And Facebook was ready to respond.

“You shall eat lamb roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs,” God tells the people of Israel, as they are in the midst of a series of natural disasters, knowing they may need to flee. “You shall eat it [with] your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.”

The presence of God is coming into the lives of these people with extraordinary and dangerous power, and they must be ready to move, ready to respond – even in the middle of a ritual meal.

It’s a dramatic, this moment when the presence of God and our response to God is literally life and death; the whole future in the balance.

Paul has that same sense of momentousness, writing to the Roman believers in the first years of the Christian movement.

You know what time it is,” he says, “now is the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”
The alarm is about to go off, the race is about to start, the fullness of salvation is pouring over the horizon any moment now. So get dressed for action!

This is faith as edge of the seat anticipation – at that first, perilous, Passover meal, eaten ready to flee; in Paul’s momentary expectation that not only he, but all believers are about to be swept up in the fulfillment of God’s ultimate plans for heaven and earth.

Is that what you feel, about your relationship with God?

Do you feel that taut awareness, the humming expectation, about what we do together at the altar this morning?
Do you feel that way about your private prayer, your service to God’s people, or the nature walks or music or whatever else connects you to God?

Do you feel that eager anticipation, salvation on the threshold?

No?
Neither do I, mostly.

Oh, it’s urgent when I pray for someone I love in the crisis of an illness, or the path of a hurricane, but mostly prayer is much calmer, routine even.

And yet the inrushing power of God, the transformation of our world and private lives is what we’re here for. Not just here in these pews – here on this earth. We’re here to experience at any moment – at every moment – the redemptive power of God, active now. But it’s so, so easy for that to be lost to us, living day after day when the world doesn’t end.

You and I live in a world where, for the most part, everything else feels urgent.  Work deadlines, school and sports schedules, family matters, getting dinner on the table, getting answers from the doctor, getting stuff done around the house, getting a little time to myself, even.

We know that God is always with us. That God is here, whether or not we’re paying attention, and it can be reassuring to know that God doesn’t depend on my meeting deadlines. But for some of us (for me), it’s hard to keep up that sense of momentousness without an appointment, a time limit, that urgency.

These days there are cell phone apps that will sound an alarm for you when it’s time to pray. But the world won’t put peace on the priority list for us. Salvation doesn’t come with a deadline from the boss or the teacher; the presence of God can’t be red-flagged in your email inbox.

Yet that’s what we’re here for, whether we know it or not. We are – like the Israelites in Egypt, like Paul in those early decades after resurrection – created and called to be a people of eager anticipation, dressed for action, ready to respond to the kingdom of God coming now.

It’s counter-intuitive, but perhaps the way to reclaim that vibrant expectation in our daily prayer, that eager responsiveness of a soul ready for God, is not to get everything else done so we have time, but to reject urgency altogether, and just stop.

The Bible calls it Sabbath. You can call it whatever you want, but I know that for me, and probably for many of us, the only way to reclaim that keen alertness to the presence and action of God, is to act sometimes as if nothing is urgent at all.

I still remember one Lenten Saturday, years before seminary, when I had two or three deadlines looming at work, prep to do for coffee hour the next day, a car inspection due, and an overflowing list of correspondence and chores, and I ran by the retreat day at my church for just a few minutes – there certainly wasn’t time to stay! – and found myself stopped.

There was a prayer in the first few minutes, or some word of scripture, that just stopped me,

made me stand still, and say, “No!” to the long and urgent list of things to do.

Some long, uncounted hours later, I was surprised by a humming, joyful anticipation singing in my soul. Salvation, healing, the kingdom of God were all on my heart’s threshold, and I felt dressed for action, ready to go, not exhausted by that long and urgent list, the way I had been in the morning.

I’ve had to learn that over and over and over again, year after year. Had to learn that that expectant, eager readiness, that vibrant sense of the dawn about to break, the presence of God on the threshold now, doesn’t come from obeying the urgency of my tasks, but from stopping.

From stepping out of the race, for a time, and discovering that God has been seeking me, full of that eager anticipation, all along. God has been ready to act, as soon as I stopped long enough to be made welcome in the presence of God.

Will you stop, this week, in the midst of all that is urgent?

Will you stop, amid the work that’s due, and the breaking news of another natural disaster, the traffic, the chores, the homework?
Will you stop the slow regularity of your routine, and the tiresome waiting for news, if you’re retired and past deadlines, or spending time waiting in medical offices?

Will you stop the urgency of the ordinary, for long enough – however long – to discover salvation on your own heart’s threshold, and let your soul fill with the readiness to respond to the action of God, who has been seeking you with that same ready eagerness, all along?