| Psalm 145; Jonah 3:10-4:11 Philippians 1:21-27 Matthew 20:1-16 |
The story of Jonah has always fascinated me. It’s probably because it involves a great fish story. That is what Jonah is remember for, being swallowed by a big fish and surviving in its belly for three days before being spit out on dry land. Yet there is more to the story of Jonah than what we all learned in Sunday school.
To make a short story even shorter, Jonah refuses a call by God to go to Nineveh and deliver God’s message to repent or die. He tries to escape God on a ship but a tremendous storm comes up and Jonah is thrown overboard in an attempt to appease God. God provides a great fish, which saves Jonah from drowning, and while Jonah is in the belly of the fish he recants his disobedience and is delivered on dry land. Jonah then goes into the evil city of Nineveh and delivers God’s message, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The King responds to Jonah’s call for repentance, orders a proclamation that all shall repent of their evil ways, and begs God for mercy.
This is where our reading begins this morning from the Book of Jonah. God has mercy on Nineveh and spares them. Jonah is mad at God for not raining down fire and brimstone on Nineveh like he did Sodom and Gomorrah.
So what’s the problem? To begin with the people of Nineveh were Assyrians, bitter enemies of Israel. It was known as a very wicked and evil place, and they worshipped other gods1. Jonah was beside himself. He saw no reason why God should have mercy on those people.
You may be wondering why I have given you all of this information. Well Nineveh was in the country that we now call Iraq. History is perhaps repeating itself, but instead of God’s prophet, we have the President of the United States. We are in difficult and challenging times. The danger, I believe, is for Christian preachers and evangelist to identify this as some kind of Holy War.
Let me finish the story of Nineveh and I believe you will see why. Approximately eighty years after Jonah entered the city to deliver God’s message it was wiped off the face of the earth. The Books of Nahum and Zephaniah attribute its destruction to the wrath of God because it had returned to wickedness and evil.
If there is a remote chance for a peaceful resolution, we as Christians must embrace that chance, and pray that our leaders will give them the opportunity to repent of their evil ways.
That is the message that I get when I read the Book of Jonah. No matter how distasteful it may be to us, the ultimatum must first be delivered, and if there is even a questionable response, we must pursue it first before going to war. The Book of Jonah reveals a God of mercy.
The mercy of God is further emphasized in the Parable of the laborers in the vineyard that we just heard a few moments ago.
On the past two Sundays we have heard Jesus give us some rather challenging directives. First, if a Christian brother or sister commits a sin against us, we are suppose to confront them about it. If that does not work, then we are to take some friends with us and confront them. If that does not work, then we are to present the incident to the leaders of the church. If all of these fail, then, and only then, the person should be excommunicated. And last Sunday we heard that we must forgive someone who sins against, not just once, but seventy-seven times, or indefinitely, for the same sin. And if we don't, we are answerable to God for our unwillingness to forgive the person.
One of the things Jesus is implying this morning is that that a person who has committed a sin, if he repents, say on his death bed, will go to heaven. Wait a minute, is this justice?
This isn't the way I was raised. If someone does something wrong they should be punished. And, what about Jesus telling the disciples in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, "For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done."2 Or the Apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians where he says, "...you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does,..."3
I believe that most of us can sympathize with those in the parable who worked all day picking grapes, not only because they got a raw deal, but because we think we will get one too. Like the day-long workers in the parable, even though we get exactly what was promised to us, we begin to feel gypped when we hear of someone getting the same thing for less effort.
The scandal of the Gospel is revealed this morning in Jesus' parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. If we expect a better place in heaven because we have been Bible-believing, church attending, moralistic Christians - for all or for the better part of our lives, then we are likely to grumble, like those who worked all day picking grapes, when we get to heaven and find those, who on their death bed accepted Jesus Christ.
It raises the question, why should I work so hard to be a Christian, following the way of Christ all of my life, when I could have waited until closer to the end? I am not sure that I have a very satisfying answer to this question. As in the parable, people were hired at different times during the day, so it is with us. Each of us became members of the kingdom of God when we were baptized. Part of the intent of baptism is that at some point in our lives we also become working members of God's kingdom, that is working to live a Christian life and helping to spread the Good News of God in Jesus Christ to others through words and actions. For some this may have happened in their youth, for others they may have been in their 20's, 30's, 40's or even later. Whenever it happened, that is when we started working for God. Do we expect more from God because we have been working for him longer?
If we expect a better place than others, a better room in his mansion, then the parable this morning will be insulting. Insulting because our reward of eternal life with God, our entrance into heaven, is not based upon what we have done. Our reward is based upon what God has done in Jesus Christ. It is God's mercy, his generosity, his grace, which has given us, and all who accept it, equal payment for responding to his offer of eternal life.
St. John Chrysostom, in the fourth century, may have explained this parable best when it was asked of him, "Why is it that the householder seemed to give the workers, regardless of their labors, all exactly the same reward?" He responded, "It is because God has only one reward to give, a reward that has no measure in money or hours or days or years, and that reward is God himself."4
1Nahum