September 18, 2005

Doing What You Love

by Julianne Stokstad

You heard the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard once; now let me briefly retell it, just to make sure you've got the story clearly in your mind. A boss went out early to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on the wage of a dollar a day and went to work. Later, about nine o'clock, the boss saw some other men hanging out in front of Home Depot, and he offered them work at his vineyard. They agreed on a fair wage and went to work. He did the same thing at noon and then at three o'clock. At about five o'clock, he drove by Home Depot and found others standing around doing nothing. "Why are you standing here all day doing nothing?" he asked them. "Because no one hired us," they answered. He told them to go to work in his vineyard.

When the day was over the owner of the vineyard told the boss to pay the workers their wages. Start with the last hired he said. And so the last, those hired at five came up and were each given fifty dollars. And as they were all paid, they saw that everyone got the same wage, fifty dollars. Those hired first complained angrily that the last workers only did one easy hour while they had worked in the hot sun all day long.

The boss said I paid you the wage we agreed on this morning. What's the matter? Can't I do what I want with my money? Are you envious because I am generous? The last will be first and the first will be last. This is the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

What is a parable? Parables are the most common form of story Jesus told. They are ambiguous and have many different levels of understanding. To me they are like road signs to God, in that they take an everyday experience and compare it to another. I love parables because there is no one explanation.

Given that, let me first look this parable from the perspective of the grumblers. I think they are the ones most of us identify with. The problem is that the situation just isn't fair. We are concerned with fairness and justice from our earliest days. Who can't remember complaining about something saying "but it isn't fair!" In this story, the first hired must feel outsmarted, cheated. They worked so hard and the others didn't. If we look at this parable only in terms of fair payment for work, it just isn't fair. Is it about equity and fair wages for unskilled, undocumented workers?

But if we look at this from the perspective of those last hired, it looks very different. It seems like a veritable boondoggle.

I'd like change the venue a bit from the vineyard, to say something closer to home. Doing something you do for love, say, singing in the choir instead of something you have to do to earn money. On this day, when we are celebrating Tom's twenty years as music director here, let's look at the choir. Some members have been singing for a very long time. Jean Starkweather has been in the choir for forty years, the first hired so to speak. She clearly remembers when her youngest son John was five and she joined. They had to get a babysitter on choir night. Luise Jones, Val Sherer, Bob DeHaan have been singing for a long long time - much longer than twenty years. And others have joined, over the years all the way down to the most recent member, our new intern Susie Bjork who joined last week, the last hired. Now if we look at this, how does the payment look? Does Susie get the same as Jean? What is the payment for doing something you love to do?

So, what if it isn't about what we do or whether we love what we do or not, what is it about? Jesus is trying to get us to understand something about God and God's ways. If he is trying to get us to figure out about the Kingdom of God, what do we see here? What if the kingdom of God is not like money, something limited in quantity? What if it isn't about being fortunate enough to do what we love? What if it is more like air, more like love, something that is available in unlimited quantities, something freely given all the time. We see that God is generous to all, without any sense of judgment or figuring out who deserves what God has to give. We see that our work has little to do with the kingdom of God.

What does this story tell us about ourselves? If we compare ourselves to others, we'll always find a way to see that we didn't get enough. I bet there is no one here who feels they have been actually paid enough for what they are worth. Comparison, judgments of others leads us to envy and jealousy, all of which make us unhappy.

The kingdom of God isn't an amount of money or time spent working or even time spent doing what we love. What if the kingdom of God is a key, an attitude that unlocks the treasure of God's love and presence in our lives, no matter where we are? What if we look at the parable from the perspective of the last, so undeservedly given a job, an opportunity to finally understand how God is here for US? How very wonderful that is! Praise God for our God is a generous God, a loving God, and a God for all people!

Amen