It’s not fair is what
I said when I lost my sight for the first time: It’s not fair that I can’t ride
my bicycle or freely do what I used to do anymore. It’s not fair that anyone
should have to go through what I was going through at the time.
And then, on that fateful day, it snowed, and I was bored,
and I told my mother that I wished I could do something, and she told me to go
out and shovel the sidewalk. I again complained that it was not fair.
It’s not fair! As a camp counsellor, my charges seemed to
have that comment ready every time they had to do something they didn’t want to
do.
There are so many times when something happens in our lives
that we had never envisioned. I remember sitting with a friend in the hospital
after he and his wife had been in a terrible car accident. They had been
married for less than a year when his life was radically altered. His wife had died,
and he had bruised almost every organ in his body from the seat belt that had
saved his life. “It really doesn’t seem fair,” he said. “We were just really
starting to get to know one another, and it was good.”
When we hear these words about fairness, it does not usually
have anything to do with being fair. When we hear and say these words, it is
usually about not getting our own way, about not getting the things that we
want. Somehow, we have not received the recognition or respect that we think
that we have a right to or deserve. Somehow, we think that we are carrying a
heavier burden than the people around us. We think that our lives are more
troublesome than our neighbors. We bought our lottery ticket with everybody
else, but did we win? No!... It’s not fair.
But fair isn’t what we are really talking about in these
situations. It may not be right, or it may not feel right, but fair really
isn’t what we are complaining about. Fair is what we get when everyone puts in
the same amount of work with a predicted outcome.
Fair is really not what we are concerned about. It is usually
the complaint that arises when we feel personally violated or devalued.
Certainly, the issue in this story of what the kingdom of heaven is like pushes
the work ethic sensibilities for the people then and for us because really, we don’t want what is fair. We want more than what
we have received.
In a world where there are haves and have nots, this story
of the five o’clock workers will continue to raise eyebrows. And as long as we
keep our focus on the workers, we emphasize the issues of the workers. But this
parable is not a workers’ rights story.
This parable is about the kingdom of heaven where we don’t
want things to be fair. Because if it is about being fair, then we will have no
place in it. We want, and indeed depend on, the kingdom of heaven not being based
on fairness but on grace. We don’t want this story to be about fairness; we
depend on this story being about generosity. We don’t want this story to be
about the work of the people. We need this story to be about God’s work in the
world.
If we get caught up in all of the details of the day, then
we lose sight of the image that Jesus is presenting here, “The kingdom of heaven
is like…”. And, in learning about the kingdom of heaven, we learn about the
world that God has created for us. We are reminded that God’s abundant creation
gives us enough for all. In this parable we are reminded of God’s people in the
wilderness and of those times when they didn’t have enough and God provided the
manna, the “what is it?” stuff, that gave them what they needed for each day
but no more, and all ate and were filled.
This parable is about having enough. It is about being given
what we need; and that gift includes community relationships, our salvation
relationship with God, and forgiveness that continues to sustain us throughout
this phase of God’s kingdom of heaven and then carries us into the next.
In the coming weeks, we will hear these words, “The kingdom
of heaven is like…”, again and again, because the next four weeks include
parables about the kingdom of heaven. In these parables, we will witness the chief
priests, the elders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and ourselves
today being challenged by these images of what the kingdom of heaven is like.
We will be challenged to keep from tripping over the stumbling block of self-concern
to think about God’s ways, divine ways—not our own human ways that rebuke God’s
work and God’s plan—and open ourselves to the possibilities of God’s creating
work in the world in the midst of suffering, pain, and loss.
It will be a time
to put aside our personal concerns and consider what God is doing in our world
and in this place, being reminded that there is always a five o’clock place
with five o’clock people who are waiting to join us in God’s work for the sake
of the world. Indeed, it may very well be that the work cannot be finished
without including the five o’clock people.
This five o’clock somewhere place is not the product of a
Jimmy Buffett song that says life is not fair because it isn’t going the way we
think it should and so we will drink our sorrows away. This five o’clock world
with it’s five o’clock people is about the struggle of God’s people to get what
they need to live each day on a daily basis.
It is difficult to hear and read the news these days without
witnessing the great need of the five o’clock people. They live in the Virgin
Islands, in Puerto Rico, in southern Florida, in Houston and the whole coastal
area of Texas and Louisiana. They are the people who are reeling from the devastating
earthquakes in Mexico, and our sisters and brothers in the Koreas and all those
who live in fear of possible nuclear devastation or even simple warfare
resulting from bloviating bully tactics from world leaders who should know
better.
These people are not somehow less deserving than those of us
who are living more safely today. They are our five o’clock people because life
circumstances have left them in the market place without enough for the day. It
is not fair. Indeed, in a world that was fair, all of us who are safe with more
than we need, we would give up the excess of our lives for the sake of those
who are struggling. We would make sure that they received the largess of our
abundance so that their life circumstances would be eased. But that is not the
way that things go. The simple logistics of that plan prohibit that
instantaneous transfer we would want.
So, it is that we continue to witness the inequities of this
world, while recognizing there is only one who can give us everything we need
to carry on, that is, Jesus Christ, God’s love. God’s work continues to be that
hope-filled activity we see that challenges us to continue working in the
vineyard of the kingdom of heaven knowing about the five o’clock people,
knowing that there will be those who grumble at the full inclusion of five
o’clock people in God’s loving embrace. Today, we especially need to remember
that it is not about us and our work, but the kingdom of heaven is all about
God’s love and God’s caring and that great abundance of creation that continues
to sustain us with the great assembly of all of God’s people.
Then, when we embrace our five o’clock people, we will be
able to celebrate the last being first and the first being last, that we might
be assured that we are going to be there celebrating in the presence of God, with
the whole communion of saints, finding peace and joy in the abundance we have
been given as we celebrate the presence of those who have lived in the five
o’clock world.
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