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Blessings -
Paul
Monday, 20 August 2012
God's Not Fair - And That's A Good Thing
Towards
the middle of last century, experts from around the world gathered in Britain
And one of the questions they’d met to discuss was “what, if anything, is unique about the Christian faith”.
Pretty soon they started discarding possibilities.
The Incarnation? Well, although that’s a major strand of Christian belief, other religions have stories of gods appearing in human form too.
Resurrection? Well again, other religions have accounts of people returning from death.
The debate went on for hours until CS Lewis wandered into the room and asked what all the fuss was about. When they told him the question under discussion, he said “Oh that’s easy. The answer’s “grace”.
And after some more discussion, the delegates had to agree. The idea of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of our humanity.
The Buddhist 8-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, and the legal codes of Judaism and Islam all offer ways to God which depend upon our earning approval. Only Christianity dares to believe that God’s love is already ours.
The author Philip Yancey puts it this way: Grace means that there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more. And there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less. He just chooses to love us.
And although the idea of grace is central to the Christian faith, it seems to be one of the hardest things for us to grasp.
And there’s no story in the gospel that demonstrates that better than the one we have before us today – the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
There’s our landowner – representing God, of course. He gets up early in the morning while it’s still dark, checks the grapes for ripeness and decides that this is the day. They’re just perfect.
So he heads down to the square to pick up some workers. “A day’s work for a day’s pay, boys”, he says. And that’s fine with them, so off they go. It’s six o’clock in the morning, so we’ll call them the Early Birds.
Three hours later, he reckons they could use a few more hands. So it’s back to the village square to rustle up some more helpers. This time he doesn’t promise a day’s pay – he just promises to pay them fairly. And that’s ok with them, so off they go too.
By late morning, he’s starting to get a little worried. He’s been getting weather updates on his iPhone; Either that or he’s noticed some rainclouds gathering over the hills.
So he goes out twice more and hires some more workers to get the crop in before the good weather breaks.
And with just an hour remaining, he reckons they could clear the whole vineyard with a few more men, so its’ down to the square one last time to pick up the handful of souls who’ve been sitting there all day with no work to do. Needless to say, these are the guys with least to offer when it comes to manual labour – the elderly, the infirm and those with a bad track record. But he takes them too.
And at six o’clock, with the harvest all in, it’s paytime; and the Johnny Come Lately’s are asked to step up first.
And I imagine those guys must have wondered what to do when they were reached a whole days wages for an hours work.
Should they slip away into the shadows quickly before anyone noticed, or should they do the honest thing and tell the foreman he must have made a mistake?
Well, as they’re wrestling with their moral dilemma, the Early Bird Gang are doing their mental arithmetic. “Right – we must have misheard him this morning. They’re getting a days wage for an hour, and we’ve worked for twelve hours. So that’s twelve days wages we should be getting. Not bad at all! Might work for this guy again”.
But of course, it wasn’t to be. They got a days wage like everyone else. And with righteous indignation they turn on the landowner:
“Hey – that’s not fair. We’ve worked all day in this heat. And you give us the same as you give them? You’ll be hearing from our union representative! Well – at least, you would be if unions had been invented”.
And the landowner replies, quite pointedly, “Look, friends. I haven’t cheated you. A day’s work for a day’s pay - that’s what you were promised. And that’s what you’ve got. So stop your moaning and get away home. Who are you to tell me how to spend my money, if I want to be generous with it?”
And off they go, still muttering under their breath.
It’s no way to run a business, is it? I’m pretty sure the Early Bird Gang wouldn’t be back in that particular vineyard. Though there’s a good chance the Johnny Come Lately’s might be.
But isn’t it interesting to note where our sympathies lie when we hear that story. If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d bet good money that all of us here would be on the side of the Early Birds.
It’s just not fair. They’ve worked hard all day and they’re getting treated the same as those guys who’ve just sauntered in for the last hour. Surely that can’t be right?
I’d guess that’s how most of us feel about this story. And that shows how much we still have to learn about grace.
Are you beginning to get a feel for why grace really is amazing?
God’s trademark isn’t fairness. If we got what was fair, we’d all be sunk. God’s trademark is grace.
May we, who claim to have received his amazing grace it, be just as ready to pass it on. Amen
And one of the questions they’d met to discuss was “what, if anything, is unique about the Christian faith”.
Pretty soon they started discarding possibilities.
The Incarnation? Well, although that’s a major strand of Christian belief, other religions have stories of gods appearing in human form too.
Resurrection? Well again, other religions have accounts of people returning from death.
The debate went on for hours until CS Lewis wandered into the room and asked what all the fuss was about. When they told him the question under discussion, he said “Oh that’s easy. The answer’s “grace”.
And after some more discussion, the delegates had to agree. The idea of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of our humanity.
The Buddhist 8-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, and the legal codes of Judaism and Islam all offer ways to God which depend upon our earning approval. Only Christianity dares to believe that God’s love is already ours.
The author Philip Yancey puts it this way: Grace means that there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more. And there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less. He just chooses to love us.
And although the idea of grace is central to the Christian faith, it seems to be one of the hardest things for us to grasp.
And there’s no story in the gospel that demonstrates that better than the one we have before us today – the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
There’s our landowner – representing God, of course. He gets up early in the morning while it’s still dark, checks the grapes for ripeness and decides that this is the day. They’re just perfect.
So he heads down to the square to pick up some workers. “A day’s work for a day’s pay, boys”, he says. And that’s fine with them, so off they go. It’s six o’clock in the morning, so we’ll call them the Early Birds.
Three hours later, he reckons they could use a few more hands. So it’s back to the village square to rustle up some more helpers. This time he doesn’t promise a day’s pay – he just promises to pay them fairly. And that’s ok with them, so off they go too.
By late morning, he’s starting to get a little worried. He’s been getting weather updates on his iPhone; Either that or he’s noticed some rainclouds gathering over the hills.
So he goes out twice more and hires some more workers to get the crop in before the good weather breaks.
And with just an hour remaining, he reckons they could clear the whole vineyard with a few more men, so its’ down to the square one last time to pick up the handful of souls who’ve been sitting there all day with no work to do. Needless to say, these are the guys with least to offer when it comes to manual labour – the elderly, the infirm and those with a bad track record. But he takes them too.
And at six o’clock, with the harvest all in, it’s paytime; and the Johnny Come Lately’s are asked to step up first.
And I imagine those guys must have wondered what to do when they were reached a whole days wages for an hours work.
Should they slip away into the shadows quickly before anyone noticed, or should they do the honest thing and tell the foreman he must have made a mistake?
Well, as they’re wrestling with their moral dilemma, the Early Bird Gang are doing their mental arithmetic. “Right – we must have misheard him this morning. They’re getting a days wage for an hour, and we’ve worked for twelve hours. So that’s twelve days wages we should be getting. Not bad at all! Might work for this guy again”.
But of course, it wasn’t to be. They got a days wage like everyone else. And with righteous indignation they turn on the landowner:
“Hey – that’s not fair. We’ve worked all day in this heat. And you give us the same as you give them? You’ll be hearing from our union representative! Well – at least, you would be if unions had been invented”.
And the landowner replies, quite pointedly, “Look, friends. I haven’t cheated you. A day’s work for a day’s pay - that’s what you were promised. And that’s what you’ve got. So stop your moaning and get away home. Who are you to tell me how to spend my money, if I want to be generous with it?”
And off they go, still muttering under their breath.
It’s no way to run a business, is it? I’m pretty sure the Early Bird Gang wouldn’t be back in that particular vineyard. Though there’s a good chance the Johnny Come Lately’s might be.
But isn’t it interesting to note where our sympathies lie when we hear that story. If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d bet good money that all of us here would be on the side of the Early Birds.
It’s just not fair. They’ve worked hard all day and they’re getting treated the same as those guys who’ve just sauntered in for the last hour. Surely that can’t be right?
I’d guess that’s how most of us feel about this story. And that shows how much we still have to learn about grace.
Now
in the context of the day, Jesus tells this story anticipating the resistance
his followers would find when the Gentiles started responding to the Gospel.
Remember that the Jews were the chosen people. They’d been serving God in the heat of the day for generations. But now, because of what Jesus was doing, the door was being thrown open wide to bring in the Gentiles too. God was treating Jews who trusted Christ and Gentiles who trusted Christ just the same. And most of the debates and arguments in the early church were around that very issue. Just the other week we were thinking about the dilemma that Peter had when God gave him a vision telling him to accept Gentile converts into the family of the church.
So that’s the historical context of the parable.
But for us, this story functions in a different way. What it does for us is highlight two ways of approaching life: the way of grace and the way of bookkeeping.
Christians say that they believe in the way of grace, but in reality most of us are closet bookkeepers.
We think that God’s keeping a ledger somewhere and entering everything we do under one of two headings, debit and credit.
And if, when we reach the end of our days, the credit list is longer than the debits, then we reckon he’s duty bound to let us into heaven.
And that’s wrong! It doesn’t work that way and you need to get rid of that notion if that’s what you believe.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:8 “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no-one can boast”
Nobody is made right with God by works – by doing good things. We’re made right with God solely because of what Jesus has done. He has gifted forgiveness to us. That’s grace.
Our job isn’t to cram the credit side of the ledger with good deeds so that God will then love us. It’s to believe the amazing truth that God already loves us, just as we are with all our faults and failings. And once we’ve grasped that, our task is to live the rest of our lives in gratitude and service, in response to that love.
God’s love always comes first; unearned, and undeserved.
Our response – of faith and good works – always comes second. They flow from our being accepted by God. They don’t lead to that acceptance. God loves first, without cause, in the same way a good parent loves a child – simply because it is his or her child.
That’s the very essence of grace. And boy do we find that hard to accept.
We know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. We live in a world of bookkeeping where nothing’s given unless it’s earned. And nothing’s really ours until it’s paid in full.
And some of us, in our temerity, stubbornly hold on to our belief that in the end, the ledger will be enough to get us through.
When God sees the measure of our life, he’ll surely let us into heaven.
After all, we haven’t been bad people. We’ve loved our kids, we’ve worked hard, we’ve been responsible citizens and good neighbours. Surely that’s enough?
Once again – the Apostle Paul has words for us: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
All of us fall short. The very word ‘sin’ in Greek – hamartia - means to fall short in the way an arrow might fail to hit the target.
If hitting the bullseye’s all that matters, missing by an inch is the same as missing by a mile. You’ve missed!
If the examination passmark’s 100%, and you score 95%, you’ve failed, just like the person who’s scored 5%.
So all have sinned, and all of us have blotted our copybooks. None of us can say we’ve lived faultless lives.
But thank God the story doesn’t end there:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – says Paul - and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
There’s that word ‘grace’ again.
Could it be any clearer? God’s not a bookkeeper. And it’s a good thing for us that he’s not! If he were, none of us could stand in his presence.
Instead, He’s chosen the way of grace and generosity. But that goes down very badly with those who want to keep score.
The Early Birds despise the landowner for showing grace to the latecomers, because they think it’s unfair to them.
But they’re so busy thinking of themselves that they don’t see what he sees, In a world with no benefits to fall back on, if these latecomers don’t get paid, their families don’t eat.
But the Early Birds don’t see that. They resent his generosity and they feel hard-done by.
But let’s imagine an alternative scenario for a moment. Let’s imagine one of the Early Birds falls on hard times. Nobody wants to hire him because he’s had a drink problem, say. Let’s imagine that he’s one of the ones who gets chosen very late at next year’s harvestime and gets a days wages for an hours work.
How does he feel about the landowner’s grace now?
Isn’t it funny how grace only seems unfair when it’s someone else who’s benefiting? When we’re on the receiving end, it feels great.
And what we so often forget is what I’ve been trying to spell out this morning – that all of us, no matter who we are – are indebted to God’s grace.
And if we’ve received it, it behoves us to pass it on to others.
If CS Lewis is right – if grace is the Christian distinctive, then what will count most in the world’s eyes is whether or not we show ourselves to be gracious people.
Grace isn’t the norm. And that’s why, when people see grace in action, it makes a genuine impact.
I want to leave you with a couple of stories about grace from preacher Rob Bell, that I think will do just that.
Remember that the Jews were the chosen people. They’d been serving God in the heat of the day for generations. But now, because of what Jesus was doing, the door was being thrown open wide to bring in the Gentiles too. God was treating Jews who trusted Christ and Gentiles who trusted Christ just the same. And most of the debates and arguments in the early church were around that very issue. Just the other week we were thinking about the dilemma that Peter had when God gave him a vision telling him to accept Gentile converts into the family of the church.
So that’s the historical context of the parable.
But for us, this story functions in a different way. What it does for us is highlight two ways of approaching life: the way of grace and the way of bookkeeping.
Christians say that they believe in the way of grace, but in reality most of us are closet bookkeepers.
We think that God’s keeping a ledger somewhere and entering everything we do under one of two headings, debit and credit.
And if, when we reach the end of our days, the credit list is longer than the debits, then we reckon he’s duty bound to let us into heaven.
And that’s wrong! It doesn’t work that way and you need to get rid of that notion if that’s what you believe.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:8 “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no-one can boast”
Nobody is made right with God by works – by doing good things. We’re made right with God solely because of what Jesus has done. He has gifted forgiveness to us. That’s grace.
Our job isn’t to cram the credit side of the ledger with good deeds so that God will then love us. It’s to believe the amazing truth that God already loves us, just as we are with all our faults and failings. And once we’ve grasped that, our task is to live the rest of our lives in gratitude and service, in response to that love.
God’s love always comes first; unearned, and undeserved.
Our response – of faith and good works – always comes second. They flow from our being accepted by God. They don’t lead to that acceptance. God loves first, without cause, in the same way a good parent loves a child – simply because it is his or her child.
That’s the very essence of grace. And boy do we find that hard to accept.
We know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. We live in a world of bookkeeping where nothing’s given unless it’s earned. And nothing’s really ours until it’s paid in full.
And some of us, in our temerity, stubbornly hold on to our belief that in the end, the ledger will be enough to get us through.
When God sees the measure of our life, he’ll surely let us into heaven.
After all, we haven’t been bad people. We’ve loved our kids, we’ve worked hard, we’ve been responsible citizens and good neighbours. Surely that’s enough?
Once again – the Apostle Paul has words for us: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
All of us fall short. The very word ‘sin’ in Greek – hamartia - means to fall short in the way an arrow might fail to hit the target.
If hitting the bullseye’s all that matters, missing by an inch is the same as missing by a mile. You’ve missed!
If the examination passmark’s 100%, and you score 95%, you’ve failed, just like the person who’s scored 5%.
So all have sinned, and all of us have blotted our copybooks. None of us can say we’ve lived faultless lives.
But thank God the story doesn’t end there:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – says Paul - and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
There’s that word ‘grace’ again.
Could it be any clearer? God’s not a bookkeeper. And it’s a good thing for us that he’s not! If he were, none of us could stand in his presence.
Instead, He’s chosen the way of grace and generosity. But that goes down very badly with those who want to keep score.
The Early Birds despise the landowner for showing grace to the latecomers, because they think it’s unfair to them.
But they’re so busy thinking of themselves that they don’t see what he sees, In a world with no benefits to fall back on, if these latecomers don’t get paid, their families don’t eat.
But the Early Birds don’t see that. They resent his generosity and they feel hard-done by.
But let’s imagine an alternative scenario for a moment. Let’s imagine one of the Early Birds falls on hard times. Nobody wants to hire him because he’s had a drink problem, say. Let’s imagine that he’s one of the ones who gets chosen very late at next year’s harvestime and gets a days wages for an hours work.
How does he feel about the landowner’s grace now?
Isn’t it funny how grace only seems unfair when it’s someone else who’s benefiting? When we’re on the receiving end, it feels great.
And what we so often forget is what I’ve been trying to spell out this morning – that all of us, no matter who we are – are indebted to God’s grace.
And if we’ve received it, it behoves us to pass it on to others.
If CS Lewis is right – if grace is the Christian distinctive, then what will count most in the world’s eyes is whether or not we show ourselves to be gracious people.
Grace isn’t the norm. And that’s why, when people see grace in action, it makes a genuine impact.
I want to leave you with a couple of stories about grace from preacher Rob Bell, that I think will do just that.
(excerpt
from “The Gods Aren’t Angry” with two stories of Christians putting grace into
practice)
Are you beginning to get a feel for why grace really is amazing?
God’s trademark isn’t fairness. If we got what was fair, we’d all be sunk. God’s trademark is grace.
May we, who claim to have received his amazing grace it, be just as ready to pass it on. Amen
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