Are you envious because I am generous with my grace?

This morning we hear Jesus giving us a parable about vineyard workers. Each worker, Jesus says, receives exactly the same pay even though they all start their work at different times throughout the day. How entirely unfair! I can hear every one of us shout. How can those who started at the beginning of the day, receive the same as those who started at the end of the day? This is unjust and unfair. Now if in fact we were talking about our economic system where money is what we use to purchase the goods we need to survive; money can be hard to come by, and money only comes if we work for it (or make it work for us), the workers who started early would be entirely justified in their anger and resentment.

But of course Jesus uses this particular parable to show the stark contrast between every type of human economic system and his grace which is the very bread of life, the only thing necessary for salvation: unlike money, grace cannot be earned. Unlike money, or any other assets, grace cannot be stored up but is given and received through daily attentiveness to God. Unlike money and material possessions, grace is not scarce and it is not doled out on the basis of what you have, where you’re from or who you are. It is abundant and available to anyone who asks and has the humility to endure the daily search for and response to God in the people and events around them.

Of course Jesus knows human habits. We spend our whole lives living in a world where our survival is dependent primarily on one scarce resource: money. Almost every single aspect of our lives is dictated to us by its pursuit and accumulation: food, shelter, clothing, ability to retire in older age, ability to go out socially, ability to get medication and medical supplies, our healthcare systems, our security as a nation, our natural resources, the news we watch or read, our social networks, your phones, your computers, your cars, your roads, your doctors, lawyers, hell your priest.

Every single thing humans have is oriented to and by money at the core: without it, you will die (unless you can find a way to bargain or beg for food and water, shelter, medication); some will perish faster than others. So Jesus knows that our greatest temptation is the fear that we are not enough, not just that we don’t have enough, but that we ourselves are not enough. It’s a fear that sits - usually unconsciously - under one of the most destructive sins that plague human beings: envy and its corollary: comparison to others. 

“Now when the [workers who started at the beginning of the day] came, they thought they would receive more [than those who started later]; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when [those who worked the longest] received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 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.' But he replied to one of them, '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 give to this last 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?' So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

The early workers don't initially complain about their own wage. They complain about someone else's wage. They have received exactly what they were promised. But another person's generosity makes their own blessing appear insufficient. Jesus’s point in drawing attention to this is that because God’s grace is not a scarce resource, because it is not earned by us requiring us to have some special talent or gift that we see in someone else but not ourselves, or because we came later or have less understanding, or more trouble following, because grace is utterly sufficient in that one does not need more or less of it, we need not be envious of another for receiving it or excelling in learning or in gifts or talents, or even in being seen by others as more holy or exceptional. So the opposite of envy - living out the fruits of the Spirit, living in accordance with the sufficient grace we have received - allows us to rejoice in another person's good; to encourage them and seek to support and build them up. 

One of the worst aspects of Christianity is the way in which Christians so frequently tear others down, including other Christians. This isn’t new of course. We have our first example with the story of Cain and Abel where Cain felt deep envy when God accepted his brother Abel's offering instead of his own. Rather than examine why his brother’s offering was accepted (was it because Abel offered his whole self?) but his was not, Cain lets anger fester in his heart. God told Cain he must master his anger before it mastered him. Cain ignored this warning and committed the first murder. We see this pattern repeated a billion times sometimes on a mass scale, in human history.

Then we have the story of Jonah we read today where Jonah believes that God ought to have punished the Ninevites for their horrible deeds rather than forgive them. Jonah gets angry with God’s mercy and refuses the mission God gives him initially, to preach repentance and God’s forgiveness. God answers Jonah: “how dare you presume who should and should not receive my grace, or that you know how and when they will receive it. You have one task: go and proclaim my mercy and forgiveness, show with your words and your actions that God is merciful, not vengeful, not demanding of people what they cannot give. 

My friends, the vineyard of which Jesus speaks in our parable today is the church in which he is calling all of us to work. Today he calls us back into a life committed to learning, to praying, to maturing in the faith; he exhorts us to put away our selfishness and envy that grows out of fear, to put on the armour of faith that grows through our persistence in following Jesus in all the trials within and outside of the church so that we can build one another up for one purpose: to go out into the world bearing the one denarius, the one image of God, the sole currency that gives life to anyone who desires it. AMEN