Not the sustenance we asked for
Thumbnail: “Pancake cut thrice” by Arnold Reinhold; used under attribution license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Link to video: https://www.facebook.com/stlukesferndale.org/videos/3677169882305029
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
September 20, 2020—Proper 20A
Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16
When the Israelites saw the bread that rained from heaven, they said to one another, "What is it?" That’s what the Hebrew means: “Ma Nah?” In other words: What the heck IS that stuff? Professor Rolf Jacobson says they remind him of his children, faced with unfamiliar food, who respond “That’s yuck!” It IS yuck. But it’s also food, and it is enough, and it will strengthen and sustain you, even if you don’t like the idea AT ALL.[i]
We roll our eyes at our children, but in fact, WE are the Hebrews in the wilderness, more often than we’d like to admit. We look at what God offers us, at the bread of life, and we don’t like it one little bit! What IS that stuff?
We wanted something different. We wanted something more luxurious. Wanted more ease, wanted a kingdom that came more as we would have designed it, with a whole lot less sacrifice and effort on our part.
What we get, instead, is manna. What we get is something that is life-giving, but not necessarily the food we would have asked for.
We look around at the world today, and we ask, “What is this?” Okay, to be honest, many of us say “This is yuck!”
It IS yuck. But it is also manna. Or, at least, there is manna in the midst; there is bread that can sustain us, as we see the Kingdom of God thrown into such stark relief. In the midst of yuckiness, we can see the word of God that is actual bread to give us health, to give us strength, to lead us to life.
Consider today’s Gospel parable, often considered one of the most offensive parables in the Bible. But what makes this story so offensive? Why is it that this story makes more Christians disagree with Jesus than any other in my experience? What makes it feel wrong to so many of us?
We might start by asking ourselves: why are those who’ve worked the whole day complaining? After all, they agreed to a wage for their day’s work. Why DO they start to expect more, when they see people who worked fewer hours paid the amount they had been promised for a full day? Perhaps the answer seems obvious, but the bible asks us to sink more deeply into the question. Karoline Lewis of Working Preacher suggests that it points us back to the Sermon on the Mount, asking us whether we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness. And does our righteousness align with God’s righteousness, or worldly righteousness? Can we possibly feed on the manna of the upside-down values of God’s kingdom, or do we long for the fleshpots of the world’s conventional, hierarchical structures?[ii]
So, what makes them expect more? If you look at it, the full-day workers aren’t saying that it isn’t fair for everyone to have received the same pay for different amounts of work. Their complaint is actually “you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” You have made them equal. And they should not be equal.
I cannot stand for them to be equal.
It might be purely a question of fairness. If so, it’s a question of fairness that Jesus answers unequivocally by reminding them that God’s desire is for generosity above fairness, every time. Fairness is our standard. Generosity is God’s.
But it’s worth taking a moment to ask whether their complaint about being treated equally might also be rooted somewhere deeper in our psyche: in the desire to believe themselves better than certain other people. After all, that idea has some traction in human history. We can find it difficult to feel worthy, without having someone we consider less than us (whether that be as close as a sibling or neighbor, or further out to people of a different nationality, religion, race, social class, you name it).
So let’s take moment, and ask ourselves: who are these workers who were in the market all day, looking for work, but were unable to do so until the kingdom of God came along to seek them? Who would wait all day, and not get hired?
The weak, the elderly, the disabled. Those who aren’t trusted, perhaps because of their history. Those who are undesirable, perhaps because of gender, language, or nationality. Those who are there all day, but are the last to be hired.[iii]
These are the ones Jesus proclaims as equally valued. Equally taken care of, given dignity, and made use of in the economy of God. Which causes grumbling in the earthly economy, in a worldly system of values: It’s not fair. It’s not right to give them equal value to me. We must distinguish between those who are strong and those who are weak, and never lose sight of the fact that there is an ideal and then there is less than. And less than is … less than. It is less valuable, and it’s not fair to treat it as anything other than that. That’s the way the world is.
But it’s not the way God’s kingdom is. And no matter what our worldly values tell us, our Christian faith asks us to consider the conflict between these two value systems. This gospel, this scandalous parable, is the pebble in our shoe whenever we think about things like income inequality, or a perceived meritocracy, or social programs to care of those who have been left in the marketplace.
And this parable warns us that God is entirely horrified (or at best, God shakes his head in amused disbelief), any and every time you are sure that you are worth more than some other person. Whether because you make more money, or eat more organic food, or happen to be a certain race or gender or religion or political party.
Be careful of thinking that you are better than those around you. Remember that God is more interested in being generous than assessing your merit. And remember that in God’s economy, we are sustained not by prosperity but by manna, which most often makes us ask, “What is this? Did I ask for this?” No, indeed. It’s not at all what we asked for. But this bread, this word of God, this righteousness will be what sustains us through all the difficult wildernesses that make up life on earth. May we learn to recognize it, and be thankful. May it be so. Amen.
[i] Sermon Brainwave podcast, “Brainwave 743: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ordinary 25A)”
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Ibid