Sermon: Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 2011
September 18, 2011
Text: Matthew 20:1-16
The movie Amadeus is the story of the great musical genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The movie portrayed Mozart as a rather eccentric genius who, without question, was a very gifted musician and composer.
Another composer of that time was the devout Salieri. Salieri despised Mozart and considered him immature, arrogant and obnoxious. Why should Mozart be such a gifted musician and composer when he clearly didn't deserve it? After all, Salieri was the Lord's servant, in obedience to his Savior Jesus Christ, why shouldn't God give him this gift instead of Mozart? At one point in the film, in a moment of deep despair, Salieri feels that his Lord has forsaken him, so he removes his crucifix down from the wall and burns it.
I don’t know about you but I find that I am a little bit sympathetic to poor Salieri. How many times have you noticed that people who are trying to devote themselves to God keep getting stepped on, while those who couldn’t care less seem to prosper? (Of course, it’s never that simple, is it?)
As I see it, Sailieri had two basic problems – problems that we need to address as well, I’m sure. In the first place, Salieri figured that since he was straight-laced, since he was “a good person”, then he was more deserving of God’s favor than that moral degenerate Mozart. You see, that was his first big mistake. And we all do it. We all figure that we are OK with God because we’re not as bad as some other people. We play the comparison game. But God’s Word tells us that all of us are guilty of breaking God’s laws. There are no shades of gray to being holy. You either are or you aren’t. And we aren’t. So, as sinful human beings, we are all in the same boat to begin with.
The second mistake that Salieri made was that he presumed to judge God. Someone needed to ask him, “Who do you think you are? Since when can a mere man judge the Almighty God?” If God chooses to bless one and not another, isn’t that His prerogative. He is the maker of all things. The world belongs to Him and everything in it. Can the pot say to the potter, “you should have given me a longer spout like that one over there?”
As God’s creatures, we need to be reminded of our relative place in the universe. We like to think of ourselves as sitting in the driver’s seat, but really we’re not. We’re just the annoying backseat driver trying to tell God what direction He should take. “Lord, I don’t like the way that you are providing for my needs. Lord, I don’t like the way that you are responding to my prayers.” The first lesson of Christianity 101 is to close your mouth and let God do the talking, to take your hands off the wheel and let God do the driving.
Basically, Salieri could not stand that God is a gracious God. He wanted fairness and justice as he defined those concepts; he wanted from God what he thought he had worked for, earned and deserved. But can you see how shaky that is as a foundation for your relationship with God?
Jesus tells about a farmer who had a bumper crop and hired a bunch of people to work for him. Some of them he hires first thing in the morning and promises them, let’s say, $100. Then others he hires at the morning coffee break. He hired a few more at lunchtime and then again at the afternoon coffee break. And finally, he even hired a batch just an hour before quitting time.
Everyone was happy to be working but things changed when it came time to distribute the pay. When the whistle blew and all the workers lined up to get their money, the men who’d been working in the hot sun since 6:00 a.m. expected to be compensated more than those who only put in half a day or a third of a day. So you can imagine how upset they were when the landowner gave each and every man the exact same amount, a clean crisp $100 bill.
“Foul,” they cried. That’s not fair for you to pay those men who only worked for one hour the same wage as you paid us. And the landowner explains that they have no grounds to complain. They got paid exactly what He’d promised. No one got cheated. But he also decided to pay the other workers the same amount. That’s his business. It’s his money to do with as he pleases and, in this case, it pleased him to pay everyone the same amount. Equal pay for un-equal work.
This parable is not intended to tell employers how to treat their employees. Like all of Jesus’ parables, it is talking about the Kingdom of God. In the parable, God is the landowner. The laborers represent the Christians. And the payday is the final judgment. And on the payday, all the workers received the same reward. It didn’t matter who they were, who they were related to, how long they’d been working there. What mattered was that they were in the vineyard when the whistle blew.
The farmer didn’t cheat anyone. They had all agreed to work for a set wage. Everyone got what had been promised. The problem was that some of the workers could not accept that the boss had the right to be generous to whomever he wished. It sounds unfair. But God’s ways are not our ways.
The workers who grumbled in the parable are Christians who feel superior to other Christians. The ones who worked longer and harder are like the pious believers who resent it when newcomers, sinners, join the church, people who don’t sing the hymns correctly, who might not know all the jargon right away, people who might even be still rough around the edges and haven’t quite conquered all their bad habits.
Jesus’ story is about the generosity of God. God is generous, full of grace, and forgiving. He gives gifts, he doesn’t give according to what we deserve. He gives generously because of who he is and not because of who we are.
There is something inside of us that thinks that our sins should be forgiven, our mistakes should be overlooked. But not the sins or mistakes of someone else. C.S. Lewis put it this way, "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." That’s something that Salieri didn’t understand. God sets a new standard for our relationship with others. It calls me to overcome that part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged, and to rise above that part of me that wants to put conditions on my love for others.
Your relationship to God is based not on "what you deserve," (who would want that?). Your relationship to God is not based on your labors, but on the invitation. God invited you into His vineyard. And He is still inviting people. And He will continue inviting people, even lazy undeserving people, right up to the last moment before the end of time. In Jesus’ name. Amen.