The Workers In The Vineyard

So – the referendum’s over. But the conversation’s just begun.

 

And underneath all the posturing and politicking of the past few months, all the debate and discussion, it seems to me there are two basic questions we’ve been asking ourselves. What kind of nation are we, and what kind of nation do we want to be?

 

One question looks backwards to our history – to the tectonic forces of religion, politics, geography and culture that have helped shape the peoples of Scotland as they are today.

 

And the other question looks forward, recognising that perhaps more than ever, though our future's unclear, it's there to be shaped and owned. 

 

And the scale and intensity of the debate has reached far beyond these shores; suddenly the hegemony of Westminster is being challenged, even by those in favour of the Union. And many in England are beginning to argue for a more representative, de-centralised government that recognises regional differences and is less deferential to the money boys who run the city of London.

 

But talk is talk. What matters now is what our politicians can deliver.

 

And as I said last week. whatever our political leanings, the Kingdom that should matter most to a Christian isn’t the kingdom of Scotland or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It’s the Kingdom we pray for each and every week as we say the Lord’s Prayer together – Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

But what does that Kingdom look like, we might ask?

 

Well over several chapters in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus spells that out in a series of Kingdom parables, and today’s gospel reading is one of them – the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

 

And two things come through very clearly from this story: the Kingdom of heaven is about grace, and it’s also about proportion. 

 

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the day to hire some men to work for him. The working day started at 6am with the sunrise, so he goes and picks up the early birds from the town square, strikes a deal with them, and carts them off to start harvesting.

 

They need to be quick about it because once the rains come, the harvest can spoil quickly, so during the day the owner keeps tabs on how things are going, and he ends up making several trips back to the town square to pick up some more recruits.

 

Finally, at five o’clock, he heads back down to the square one last time to round up the last stragglers looking for work, even though there’s only an hour left of the working day.

 

And when the time comes for payment, the motley crew who’d only been there for an hour step up to get their wages and can’t quite believe their luck when they’re given a day’s pay for an hours work.

 

The early birds, of course, are rubbing their hands and doing the sums. They’ve been there 12 hours, so they should be due 12 times as much.

 

But no – they also get a denarius – the standard pay for a day’s work.

 

And as you can imagine – they’re not best pleased. Who would be? It doesn’t seem fair.

 

If I were one of the early birds, I’d be pretty hacked off. And I’m pretty sure you would have been hacked off too.

 

But the landowner, who stands for God, is having none of it. “You got what we agreed”, he said. “What’s the problem? Are you giving me a hard time for being generous with my own money? Isn’t it mine to do what I want with it?”

 

And so – says Jesus – those who are first will be last, and the last will be first. This – he says – is what the Kingdom of heaven is like.

 

So what do we make of this tale.

 

Well, firstly, I think it’s important to say I’m not suggesting that this becomes Scotland’s new economic policy. I’m pretty sure there must be something in EU working directives about it, and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the fruit-pickers union.

 

The parable’s not really about agrarian economics. It’s about the generosity of God. And isn’t it interesting how God’s generosity gets our backs up. Every bone in our body sides with the early birds and screams ‘this isn’t fair’.

 

But let’s think about that word ‘fair’ for a moment.

 

Did anyone in this story get less than they deserved?

 

No – everyone got at least what they were owed. The problems arose because a small number got far more than they were owed.

 

The early birds had been happy to work for a denarius – that’s what they’d agreed to. A denarius only became “unfair” when others – who’d worked less- were paid the same, simply because the owner wanted to be generous towards them.

 

‘That’s not fair’ say the early birds.

 

But that concept of fairness is as slippery as a bar of soap.

 

For one thing, isn’t it strange how we’re quick to complain when we think we’ve been treated unfairly. We’re not nearly as quick to notice when others are being treated unfairly.

 

Take a look at the men gathering in the square that morning, looking for work. Some young and healthy with lots to offer – they were the ones who always got chosen.

 

But what about the others who rarely got picked, because of age, health, disability or reputation. Did they have families to feed too? Did anyone argue that in the interests of fairness, they should be prioritised now and again so their families didn’t starve?

 

It strikes me that’s exactly why the landowner gives them a denarius for their hours work. He was being gracious to them because they needed it. No DSS in those days. No safety net. If you couldn’t find work, your family didn’t eat. End of.

 

And in our societies there will always be those who are needing a little more help and a little more care. I’m not talking about the professional unemployed who say they’ve no money but seem to to spend a good part of the day at the pub or at the bookies. I know these folk exist, though there’s not as many of them as the Daily Mail might like us to believe.

 

No, I’m talking about genuine folk who struggle to break out of poverty, because they can’t get a job that pays enough to significantly improve their lives. Some can’t find work because of their age, or disability or life circumstances; others are trapped in low paid jobs with little or no prospect of betterment.

 

It was Ghandi who once said that “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. And he’s talking about grace. The grace to help those who need help and struggle to help themselves.

 

So how are we doing, on that front in Scotland?

 

Well, there’s been a lot of talk in the referendum about Scotland’s egalitarianism and how different we are from the rest of the UK in that respect. But the plain truth is that Scotland, at the present moment, is one of the most unequal societies in the developed world.

 

According to a recent Oxfam report, the wealthiest 10% of Scottish households are 273 times richer than the poorest 10% of Scottish households. We’re in the top 20 world economies, and yet somehow 20% of Scotland’s children are still living in poverty in 2014.

 

The average annual salary in the UK is £26,000 and the UK prime minister, with all the pressures that he or she deals with, earns £142,00. The average salary of the chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies is in the region of £4.4million. 200 times the average salary and 30 times what the Prime Minister of the country earns. Do these guys work 30 times harder than the PM, or carry 30 times the responsibility that he carries?

How can we begin to talk about fairness when things are out of proportion to that degree?

 

We laugh when we read about professional footballers taking the huff because they’re only being paid £100,000 a week when the guy at the next club is earning £200,000. What planet are they on, we think!

 

But it’s a lot closer to home than that!

 

I heard a colleague talk about this a few months back. He’d moved from one of the big independent city centre churches in Aberdeen to plant a new church in Seaton based round a food bank. He was saying that the first real pastoral issue he had to deal with in his original church was a couple that weren’t getting on. The husband had been offered a new job that paid better money, but it was going to mean even more time away from the wife and kids. He was keen to take it, the wife wasn’t happy about it.

 

In the job he was leaving, he was earning £1500 a day.

 

What’s happened to that guy? What’s happened to him that £1500 a day isn’t enough?

 

It seems to me, he’s completely lost his sense of proportion. Just like the vineyard workers lost theirs when they expected 12 days pay for 12 hours work.

 

I saw a poster the other day on Facebook which came as a wee reality check. It showed three African women struggling along a roadside with massive bundles of sticks on their backs and it said: 

“If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise every woman in Africa would be a millionaire”.

 

We assume that our hard work entitles us to a certain standard of living, whether that’s £26,000  or £260,000 or £2.6 million a year. We forget that there are folk all over the world working far longer and harder than we ever will, and still struggling to feed their families and keep them alive.

 

We need to recover a sense of proportion about our place in the world. And about what makes for a good and fulfilling life – because it’s not all about money, despite all the economic arguments that have been raging back and forwards over the referendum.

 

Professor Mark Anielski, author of The Economics of Happiness, writes -

 

“Most of us would define genuine wealth in terms of the conditions of our relationships…the social cohesion of our neighbourhoods and the quality of our children’s play. We wouldn’t tend to measure wealth in terms of our military spending, war, the development of prisons, the cutting down of ancient forests, or increases in the [stock market]”

 

I think he’s absolutely right – and I think Scotland now has an opportunity to lead the way in rethinking what kind of nation we want to be, and where our wealth really lies.

 

In this crazy, imbalanced, radically unfair world that we live in – can we rediscover a sense of proportion about things and live accordingly? Can we find it within ourselves – as a nation and as individuals - not simply to be fair to the other, but to be gracious – when circumstances demand it?

 

Grace, wherever you find it, always seems to provoke one of two reactions – anger, or stunned incredulity. People just don’t expect it. That’s all part of the fun.

 

Towards the end of a presentation called The Gods Aren’t Angry, the writer and pastor Rob Bell tells story after story of people he knows demonstrating grace.

 

One woman called Mary was sitting on her front porch when she saw a lady pushing a shopping trolley down the road filled with all kinds of household goods. The same lady passed again half an hour later, with another trolleyload of stuff.

 

Mary stopped her and asked her what she was doing and she said she was moving house this way because she didn’t have a car to shift all her stuff.

 

Straightaway, Mary said – can’t have that – borrow my car. (can do that in the states – insurance different!).

 

Woman came back a few hours later, reached her the keys and said – nobody has ever trusted me like that before.

 

And you don’t have to look too far in our own community to find that kind of thing happening. People giving up time and effort to help others, within and without the church.

 

Many ways we do that already, but I found myself thinking of food angels – a group of women cooking meals and taking them to help out folk who need a bit of extra support – new mums, folk just home from hospital and so on.

 

Recently we’ve helped out some folk who’ve got no connection with the church. And they can’t believe that we’re doing this. That folk they don’t know could – out of the kindness of their hearts – turn up on their doorsteps with a shepherds pie or a lasagne and not be looking for anything in return!

 

They can’t get their heads around grace. It’s the church’s trump card. We need to play it more often.

 

A landowner reaches a worker a denarius he didn’t expect.

 

A woman reaches another woman the keys to her car.

 

A food angel takes a meal to the door of a stranger in need.

 

The world is tired of words. But it never tires of grace.