The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Greeneville, TN
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
People have been complaining as long as there have been people, and apparently, we’ve gotten pretty good at it. We complain about the weather. We complain about traffic. We complain about the price of groceries. We complain about our neighbors. And, yes… sometimes we complain about the church. Sometimes we even complain about the complaining. “Why is everybody always complaining?”
We seem to have this remarkable ability to look at what we have and immediately notice what somebody else has. And then we complain about that. “They got more than I did...” “They got something I wanted...” “They got their way... And I didn’t.”
It starts when we’re children. “He got the bigger piece!” “She got to stay up later!” “He got the toy I wanted!” “It’s not fair!” And somehow, when we grow up… we don’t necessarily outgrow it. We just get better vocabulary.
Have you ever had a job where you thought you were being paid pretty well, until you found out what somebody else was making? Suddenly, your paycheck doesn’t look quite as good. Or maybe you discovered somebody was making less than you. And then you thought, “Why am I even working beside that person?”
We have a remarkable ability to turn almost anything into a comparison. I know something about this personally. When I was a technician, I got overtime. I worked extra hours, punched the clock, and got paid extra for those hours. It was a beautiful system. Every minute was accounted for.
Then I moved into management. Suddenly, there was no clock to punch. And I found myself working all the time. There were plenty of weeks when I realized I was working more hours than I felt I was being paid for. And I thought, “Well… this doesn’t seem fair.” Then I started to complain…
That word “FAIR” is important today. Because fairness matters. Justice matters. People should be treated fairly. People should be compensated fairly. But there is a problem when we assume that God’s grace operates according to our definition of fairness. Because grace is not a transaction. Grace isn’t a paycheck. Grace isn’t something we earn. God’s grace is a gift from God.
And that brings us to Jonah. Jonah is sent to Nineveh. And Jonah does not want to go. He doesn’t like the Ninevites. He doesn’t trust them. And he certainly doesn’t think they deserve God’s mercy. But after being carried to Nineveh by a big fish, Jonah reluctantly goes. When he gets there, he preaches. And the people repent.
And because the people repented, God changes God’s mind about the disaster that had been threatened against them. And because of this, Jonah is furious. Why? Because Jonah knows God. Jonah knows that God is gracious and merciful… slow to anger… and abounding in steadfast love.
And Jonah doesn’t like it. Because Jonah thinks Nineveh should get what he thinks Nineveh deserves. Jonah wants God to operate according to a simple equation: You do this… you get that. You work twelve hours… you get twelve hours’ pay. You work one hour… you get one hour’s pay. That makes sense to us. That’s how transactions work.
And then Jesus tells us about a vineyard. He tells us that the Kingdom of heaven is like… Then he goes on to tell us a parable of a landowner who hires workers at six in the morning, then at nine, then at noon, then at three... And finally, at five o’clock, he finds people still standing around. “Why are you standing here idle all day?” “Because nobody has hired us.” So he sends them into the vineyard.
At the end of the day, he pays everyone. And here’s where the story gets interesting. He pays the people who worked one hour the same as those who worked all day. And the people who worked all day start grumbling. “Wait a minute!” they say. “We worked all day in the scorching heat! They were only here for an hour! How come they got the same thing we did?”
And honestly… I get it… I understand them. I might have been standing right there with them. Because something in us immediately says, “That’s not fair!” But notice something important. The workers who came first weren’t cheated. They received exactly what they had agreed to receive. The problem wasn’t that they received too little. The problem was that somebody else received something they considered generous. And that is different.
Sometimes we don’t mind God’s generosity… until it is extended to somebody we don’t think deserves it. That’s Jonah. That’s the workers in the vineyard. And, if we’re honest… sometimes that’s us.
We don’t mind being forgiven. We just wonder whether somebody else has earned forgiveness. We don’t mind receiving grace. We just wonder whether somebody else deserves it. We don’t mind God welcoming us. We just get nervous when God starts making room for people we aren’t sure belong. We want grace for ourselves… but we want fairness for everybody else.
But Jesus keeps reminding us that the Kingdom of God is not a transaction. It’s a relationship. It is not about keeping score. It is about love. And that’s got to be one of the greatest challenges of being in Christian community. Because we can easily turn church into a transaction. “I came to church... I gave my money. I served on the committee... I taught Sunday school. I worked the rummage sale. I’ve been here for thirty years!” Therefore… “I deserve something.”
And once we start thinking that way, we start keeping score. Who did more? Who gave more? Who sacrificed more? Who deserves more? And eventually, we become Jonah… sitting outside the city… angry that God has been too generous.
But God asks Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry?” And Jonah doesn’t answer very well. He sits under a bush. God gives him shade. Jonah likes the bush. Then the bush dies. And Jonah starts complaining again. God sends a worm. God sends a scorching wind. And Jonah says, “I’d rather die than live.” And God says, in effect, “Jonah, you care more about that bush than you care about all those people in Nineveh.”
There it is. Jonah is keeping score. God is keeping relationship. Jonah is worried about what he thinks he deserves. God is worried about the people. That is the difference between a transactional life and a life shaped by grace.
A transactional life asks: What do I get? What do I owe? What do they owe me? Did I get my fair share? Did they earn it? Or, do they deserve it? Grace asks a different question: What has God already given me?” and how can I share it?
That is the economy of the Kingdom of God. And it is radically different from the world’s economy. There is a common idiom that refers to comparing oneself to one’s neighbor, with the neighbor serving as a benchmark for social or economic class…
It’s called keeping up with the Joneses… Have you ever heard that? Well… The world tells us to keep up with the Joneses. It started with a comic strip in the early 20th century… But I’ve never actually figured out who the Joneses are… or why I would want to keep up with them. But apparently, they have a really nice house. A nice car. Nice clothes. And they take really nice vacations.
And somehow we convince ourselves that if we can just catch up with them or keep up with them… then we’ll finally be happy. But somewhere in the mix, we lose the realization that the Joneses are probably trying to keep up with somebody else. And somewhere along the way, everyone gets exhausted.
We complain about what we don’t have. Then we finally get it… and discover that it has to be maintained. Then we complain about that… What part of “you shall not covet” do we not understand? And as somebody once said, “He who dies with the most toys is still dead.”
Jesus invites us to live by a different economy. An economy of grace and generosity. God’s love is not a pie. God doesn’t give someone else a bigger slice and leave less for us. God’s love grows as it is shared. It creates room. It opens doors. It changes communities. And it changes us.
Over these past several Sundays, we’ve heard Jesus talk about how we live together. How we resolve Conflict, reconciliation, and forgiveness in relationships. And today, Jesus takes us one step further.
He asks us to stop keeping score. Because we cannot build Christian community while we are constantly calculating who has earned what.
The Christian life is not a transaction. We don’t come to church so God will owe us something. We don’t pray so God will give us what we want. We don’t serve so God will put another gold star next to our name. We don’t give because we are trying to buy God’s favor. We give because God has already given us everything. We don’t forgive because someone has earned forgiveness from us. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We don’t welcome people because they have proven they deserve a place. We welcome them because God has already made room for us.
And that brings us to this table. We come to this table carrying everything in our lives... We carry our successes and our failures. Our faith and our doubts. Our gratitude, yes, and even our complaining. And God says, “Come.” Not because we earned it. Not because we deserve it. But because God is God and God is good.
There is room. There is grace. There is enough. There is always enough. When we come forward to receive the bread and wine, we are reminded that grace is not something we earn. It is something we receive. And then we are sent back into the world empowered to give it away.
So perhaps instead of complaining today, and asking, “Did I get what I deserve?” We could ask, “What am I going to do with the grace I’ve already received?” What will we do with our time? Our talents? Our resources? Our relationships? Our lives? Because we are blessed. We are all deeply blessed.
Blessed through the sacraments. Blessed through worship. Blessed through this loving and welcoming community. Blessed through our friends and family. And, yes, sometimes we are even blessed through the difficult people in our lives… Blessed because they give us plenty of opportunities to learn something and practice grace.
So when you find yourself complaining this week, and you probably will, stop. Take a breath. And remember Jonah. Remember the workers in the vineyard. Remember that God’s grace has never been a transaction. It has always been a gift. And remember that we don’t earn God’s grace. We receive it. And because we receive it freely, we are called to give it away freely.
So let’s stop keeping score, start giving thanks, and make a little more room in the world for God’s abundant grace.
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