Take What is Yours

Meditating on Matthew 20:1-16...

"Take what is yours and go away!" (Matthew 20:14a).  How many ways can we read a sentence?  Let me begin to count them.

Yes, the early-chosen agreed to the normal daily wage.  And they received what they were promised. They got that to which they were entitled.  There is no room to complain.  Get out of my face; I have other things to do.

Yet, it is clear in the parable that the landowner is treating these wages as a generous gift--at least when it comes to the late-chosen. So what really "belongs" to the laborers?  Nothing.  The parable is clear that it ALL belongs to the landowner.  So the landowner is entirely in the right when he is generous.  "Is it not proper for me to do what I want with what is mine?" (Verse 15a).  Indeed, it is.

No one buys a place at God's table.  No one works their way into God's family.  No one, by genealogy or longevity, is entitled to a position in God's new order.  Life in the vineyard is a gift freely given, both at dawn and at sunset.

This is true if we read the parable as a commentary on first century Jewish politics.  The early-chosen may be read as the Jewish religious establishment.  They are the ones who, in John 8, protest, "we are children of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone!"  Jesus' view on this is stunning.  God can raise up children of Abraham from the stones in the street.  So such claims to fame are worth precisely nothing.  God's gracious gift is worth precisely everything.

Many of us, however, are the humble and self-effacing children of Luther, Calvin and the rest.  We know that we do not deserve a place at the table on our own.  We struggle with having a place at the table at all.  We have an allergic reaction to the pride and presumption of the early-chosen.  Don't they know that no one deserves to be there?

We are more likely to protest that God's standards are far too low.  Yes, it's all well and good that God is gracious to all those other people.  But my failings are so much worse!  I cannot believe that God has lowered the bar so far as to allow me admittance.  Clearly, Jesus, you have made a serious error in allowing me into the family business.

The landowner's response is no different.  Am I not allowed to do what I want with my grace?  Or will you also instruct me in the proper use of theology?  This theological self-loathing is the same desire for control, simply written in a different spiritual key.  Who am I to tell Jesus that I am not good enough?  And why do I believe that even matters?  Jesus knows that far better than I and welcomes me into God's reign anyway.

We long to have a guaranteed contract with the universe.  If we cannot get a guarantee based on our goodness, then we will get one based on our depravity.  In either case, we can hold Jesus at arms' length.  We can avoid the costs of a real relationship with the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of all things.  We can take what belongs to us and go away.

That is the most fearful line in the story...