The Radical Grace of a Living Wage
Yeshua: The Jesus We Never Knew - Part 6
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Matthew 20:1-16
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.”
Matthew 20:15-16
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
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Have you ever noticed that whenever Jesus starts talking about money, we are very good and spiritualizing the conversation? Today’s parable is a perfect example.
There was a land owner who paid the same wage to those who came to work late in the day as he did to those who came first. Those who came early feel that they were cheated or paid unfairly, despite the fact that they received the fair daily wage they agreed to when they came to work. Their problem, of course, is not that they were cheated, but that those who came later were given the same amount.
Like the laborers who worked all day, we too often feel such a payment arrangement is unfair because the workers who came later earned less. That’s the nature of capitalism. The more you work, the more you get paid… that is, of course, until you work yourself to the point where most of your income comes from investments and other passive sources which require less work. Then we simply say, “you’ve made it.” And the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
But we don’t want to talk about that. So instead we make this a story about heaven. God’s grace, we say, is the same for the person who prays for forgiveness on their death bed as it is for the one who has served God faithfully all their lives. It’s never too late to make a choice to “accept Jesus as your savior” and “get into heaven.” While this may be a true description of God’s grace, we do Jesus’ teachings a great injustice when we strip them of all practical worldly application.
There is a reason Jesus warned us that we cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). God may indeed be overly generous like the land owner, but we too are called to be equally generous. As Amy Jill Levine puts it, “the point is not that those who have “get more”, as we often function in our society, but “that those who have not “get enough.” One does not work in the Kingdom of God, she says, for “more reward, but for the benefit of all.” (Short Stories by Jesus, 235-6).
What is the goal of our work? Do we seek first our own benefit and comfort and perhaps share from what is leftover, or do we seek first the Kingdom of God, that no one will have any more or less than what is truly enough?