Making Peace With a God Who Breaks the Rules
As a child, my siblings and I were obsessed with “fairness.” Clear indications of favored status included arguments about who got to sit in the front seat and who was relegated to the back seat. Sometimes the distribution of the Hawaiian Punch at the dinner table was the measure. If there was the slightest difference, one of us would complain: “That’s not fair!” As children we had many rules about what constituted “fair treatment,” and my parents unwittingly obeyed them. They made considerable effort to make sure we all got equal treatment.
The same struggles are often acted out when someone dies. The Will might be quite clear but, all too often, families fragment over how an inheritance is distributed. Money becomes the sign of favored status and the indicator of regard.
A third example makes the same point, though nothing was being divided up. I saw a young college student who was disturbed by the story of Moses’ death. After years of service to his God and his people, Moses was not allowed to take the final steps into the promised land. All of his work and effort ended in an unmarked grave. This ‘injustice’ was explained because Moses did not trust the Lord enough. Entering the promised land of milk and honey was denied because of disobedience. That seemed disproportionate and unfair to my client.
I suggested an alternative understanding of the same events. We don’t like it but all of us will have unfinished lives. Many, if not most, of the Israelites died before they entered the promised land. In that regard Moses was no different. Turning that disappointment into a punishment is a human way to explain our vulnerability. Turning life’s hardships and disappointments into punishments is simply our attempt to manage a world that is hard.
A baked-in toxic blend of human insecurity and entitlement leads to polarization, fragmentation, and the impossible task of legislating love. We do it as children and we do it as adults. At its most primitive, we refuse to believe God loves us when our conditions are not met. It is quite disconcerting to learn that the kingdom of God does not operate by our rules.
Today’s scripture is a case in point. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” Laborers are hired at different points in the day. Some worked all day; others worked only an hour. But each received the same wage. I have yet to discuss this passage without the group focusing on this disparity. Clearly, that is not fair! The landowner was playing favorites and punishing the people who worked the hardest. Surely a just God would not do such a thing. How could this be an indication of the kingdom of heaven?
This is the hard part. The landowner did not operate by our rules of fairness. The landowner wanted each of his laborers to have enough. That mindfulness was, and is, more important than the stratification of who “deserved” the most. In the heavenly kingdom, the least of these need to be lifted up for there to be justice. God’s love is not dependent upon our rules of fairness or deserving. Love is always a gift in the heavenly kingdom. It does not demand reciprocity. It is not dependent upon how hard we work, or how often we go to church. (This in no way means working hard or going to church are unimportant. It just means we cannot negotiate our way into the heavenly kingdom.) It means we must accept the gift without having a claim to it.
God’s love is offered independently of our work or our piety. The reverse is also true: sweating all day in the sun while someone else earns the same pay for an hour’s work in the cool of the evening is not a sign of disfavor. God routinely breaks human rules. Receiving God’s love frees us to work and to worship out of gratitude rather than the hopeless task of trying to measure and earn it. We work, not to be loved, but because we already are.
As the scripture says: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Our attempts to measure such generosity lead to great pain. Where we sit in the car and who gets the most Hawaiian Punch have nothing to do with how much we are loved. They are simply ways to attempt to manage God’s love rather than accepting the gift.
Most of us want God to be a superman who responds to our sense of grievances and our sense of self-righteousness, but God’s way is dramatically counterintuitive. God’s love is a gift that cannot be measured or earned. God’s love does not require reciprocation and can always be rejected — and our hard work does not give us a greater claim to that love.
God’s love does not make sense to children jousting for better seating, measuring the Hawaiian Punch, or the distribution of an inheritance. Nor does it make sense when we view the disparities and hardships of life as punishments. My five-year-old grandson complains I am mean and he will not be my friend. My sin, in his eyes, is that I refuse to negotiate with him. We, like children, make rules for God and then get angry and indignant when God does not obey us.
We cannot explain the accidents of birth that give us advantages or disadvantages in our human kingdom. We can only be grateful we have what we have. We are called to be mindful that we do not deserve what we have — good, bad, or indifferent. Our job is to live and love in the present — and somehow trust in the Lord. Let it be so.
Matt 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
