God’s ‘Unjust’ Generosity

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 24th, 2023

“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?  Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to this last one the same as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?”  Matthew 20: 1-6

Last Sunday we heard the dramatic Exodus story of God delivering the Israelites from captivity in Egypt.  Moses raises his arms, staff in hand, a fierce wind blowing, commanding the Red Sea to open, and it opens.  The Israelites walk through on dry ground and just as they are on the other side, the water comes crashing down on their Egyptian oppressors.  There is rejoicing all around.  Moses’ sister Miriam, tambourine in hand, leads her people as they sing and dance, giving thanks to God for everything God has done for them.  But almost before the last note is sung, all that exultation and joy turns to frustration and anger.  God had wrought an incredible miracle in leading them out of Egypt, but then they enter the wilderness.  They start a long journey to a new land of their own that God had promised them, an abundant land, a land “flowing with milk and honey”.    But the people quickly discover that getting there is  going to be hard work.  They want to trust in God, but their anxiety about survival is choking their faith.  They have forgotten all that God did for them to get them out of captivity.  What they remember is the really good food in Egypt.  They forget the part about being were slaves, they forget that they weren’t free.  They used to have plenty of food, but here in the wilderness, they are free, but they are worried about where their next meal is coming from.  God gives them bread, plenty of bread in fact, it meets their needs, but it is strange and not very tasty.  There is more than enough for everyone each day, but they aren’t allowed to save any for the next day, so that they will learn to trust in God’s provision, day by day by day.    Even the wilderness is a place of abundance because God is there, but they just can’t see it that way.  

The Exodus story is an interesting backdrop for our Gospel today.  Both are stories about God’s generosity and our inability to recognize it.  Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a landowner who goes out into the marketplace early in the morning and agrees with workers on the standard daily wage.  He goes out twice more, later in the day, and invites others to work in his vineyard.  At the end of the day, he has his manager pay all of them the same, the one who worked one hour receiving the same as the ones who worked all day. The laborers who had worked all day start grumbling, just like the Israelites, and understandably so.  Shouldn’t people who work longer be paid more?  Isn’t that justice?  But Jesus seems to be telling us that God’s generosity is much bigger than human notions of justice, as very important as that is.  In fact, God’s justice is just one part of the bigger picture of God’s generosity.  God’s generosity is beyond our capacity to understand.  God’s generosity freed the Israelites.  God’s generosity sent Jesus into the world to help us to show us how to live a life of thanksgiving.  God’s generosity is at the very heart of the universe.  God’s generosity leads us into abundant life and allows us to see plenty where we are tempted to see scarcity.  It is all about the lens through which we view things and the posture that we bring to each day.  If we bring an attitude of entitlement, it closes us off from God and sets us apart from others.  If we bring an attitude of gratitude, it helps to draw us closer to others.  It not about “hey look at me and everything I have achieved, now give me what I deserve”.  It is about “thank-you Lord for all the blessings of this life, all that you have done for me, and help me be a blessing to others.”    

Once when our son was a preschooler, I remember having a conversation with a neighbor who was the mother of two teenagers.  She told me that she had just enrolled the younger of her two daughters in an expensive private school because she really needed the one-on-one attention that they could provide.  I asked her how her older daughter felt about that, given that she was remaining in a public high school.  Wouldn’t that make her jealous of her sister and cause resentment later on?  She told me that she and her husband couldn’t really even afford to send the younger daughter and they were only doing it because they believed that she wouldn’t do well continuing in her current school.  It was a great school, but it just wasn’t working for her, and she was spiraling downward. The older daughter was doing exceptionally well, both academically and socially, and didn’t need a new school.  She said she had explained everything to both of them and they understood.  

We moved not long after this and when we came back for a visit many years later, my friend told me that her older daughter had recently admitted that she had been jealous that more family resources were being spent on her younger sister, but now that she was a mother, she realized why her parents had made that decision all those years ago and she recognized that it really had helped her younger sister to get on a much better path.  She loved her sister and she was grateful, even though she hadn’t been at the time.  And the older daughter recognized that she had gotten an outstanding education staying exactly where she was.  She realized that her parents knew that she already had everything she needed to thrive.  “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?”  

God’s generosity doesn’t always look like justice to us.  God’s generosity is rooted in mercy and mercy always triumphs over justice.  And thanks be to God for that.  If we always got what we deserved, that would be a terrible thing indeed.  Recognizing God’s mercy in our lives, God’s generosity in our lives, is the beginning of gratitude.  And having gratitude is everything.  It helps to turn our mourning into dancing and our grumbling into thanksgiving.  

Next Sunday begins our stewardship emphasis for the month of October.  It’s the time of the year when we focus on God’s generosity and how we respond to it.  We will be hearing stories about how Saint Georgians are living out their call to operate from a place of gratitude and how our various ministries are helping them to express that, through their gifts of time, talent and treasure.  

When we see everything we have as a gift, it makes all the difference.  We worship a God who is infinitely generous, and who invites us to be generous in return.