The Vineyard That Broke the Rules

Rev. Bobby Musengwa

Transitional General Presbyter

I like walking in the vineyards. When visiting my in-laws in Alsace, in the northeast of France, my wife and I love to venture out to nearby vineyards for an evening stroll. It’s beautiful and peaceful.

Rows after neat rows, I would imagine workers harvesting the grapes in the harvest season.

It’s very intensive work, done by hand, by many workers. It is also a time-sensitive work.

There’s a window of opportunity to harvest or miss the season’s harvest.

Many workers are essential to accomplish the mission.

Imagine you worked all day in the heat and got paid a full day’s wage.

Now, imagine on that same day some stranger worked in the same vineyard for one hour and

got paid for a full day’s wage, similar to your wage.

Would that make you angry? Be honest. It probably would.

That question sits at the heart of this week's Gospel, Matthew 20:1-16.

And underneath that question is a bigger one.

Do we actually believe grace is a gift, or do we secretly think we earned it?

None of Us Earned an Ounce of This

Jesus set this story in the agora, the town marketplace.

Some people had a trade, like carpentry or pottery, that guaranteed them steady work.

But the men standing in the agora had none of that. They had no land and no skill that

guaranteed a job.

All they had were their two hands and the hope that someone would choose them that day.

If nobody chose them, they went home with nothing. There was no wage waiting for them and no food for their family that night.

I do not have to imagine this scene. I lived it as a boy.

When I was twelve years old, I would join my little brother and his friend Maurice and board a bus at 5:30 in the morning, while our parents were still asleep. They would not have given us permission to do this.

We were headed to the golf course in town, hoping to be hired as caddies for the day.

When we got there, we were corralled into a holding pen with many other little Black boys, all of us hoping the same thing. Somebody would pick us, and we would get to work carrying the big golf bags.

I was scrawny, and did not have much experience. So I was one of the boys who waited. I

waited almost the whole day, hungry and thirsty, while the strongest and most experienced boys were chosen first, early in the morning.

The waiting was excruciating. I hated it. I was afraid of going home having earned nothing.

Most days, I was finally hired in the afternoon. The wage was a pittance, an equivalent of about a dollar twenty five for eighteen holes.

And there was something worse hanging over all of us. The boys hired late in the day were in

danger of something far more serious than a bad tip.

The Apartheid law in the land required Black people to leave the city before dark. So if you were

hired late, you were racing against the sun to catch the last bus out of town just to get home

safely.

None of us in that holding pen earned our worth by how fast we ran to be picked, or how many holes we had caddied before. We had no choice who picked us. We were just children hoping somebody would see us and choose us.

Ask yourself this week whose next meal, or whose safety, depends entirely on somebody else choosing to say yes.

God Is Not Running a Merit System

The workers hired at five o'clock only worked one hour, yet they get paid first and they get a full day's wage.

The workers hired at six in the morning worked all day in the scorching heat, yet they get paid last and they receive the exact same amount.

They are furious, and honestly, who could blame them? They did the math. They believe they

earned more.

But the landowner asks them a question that’s worth pondering.

"Are you envious because I am generous?"

Jesus is describing an economy where the landowner's own generosity, not anyone's output,

decides what people receive.

When I think back to that golf course, I know exactly what it felt like to be picked last, and I know exactly what it felt like to be blamed for things I could not control.

What I needed then was not a system that ranked me. What I needed was someone willing to

say yes to me anyway.

That is what grace is. Not one ounce of it was ever merited, by me or by anyone.

God is not paying us by the hour, or by how fast we run to the marketplace. God simply chooses to give life.

Ask yourself this week where you have quietly started keeping score with God, as if your years of service meant you deserved more than the person who just walked in the door.

The Quarrel Jesus Names in Matthew 25

This is God's world. God made it with enough for everyone to eat, enough for everyone to work, and enough for everyone to live with dignity.

When we let people and families go to bed hungry in the middle of this kind of abundance, we are not just failing at love. We are picking a quarrel with God's own generosity.

Jesus names this quarrel plainly in Matthew 25. He does not ask whether we believed the right things about him.

He asks whether we fed him when he was hungry, welcomed him as a stranger, and clothed him when he was naked.

He says that whatever we did or did not do for the least of these, we did or did not do for him.

I have also seen it play out as a grown man, watching day laborers wait outside a Home Depot near the Presbytery office in San Antonio.

They were not asking for charity. They were asking to be chosen, so they could work and earn a wage that would sustain their families. That is a livable wage, not a handout.

And when their numbers began to shrink because immigration police started coming around, it was not because the need went away. It was because fear moved in and took its place.

This week, name one place where fear or scarcity has convinced your congregation there is not enough to go around, and ask what it would look like to trust God's abundance instead.

Matthew 25 and the Holding Pen

The PC(USA)'s Matthew 25 invitation calls us to dismantle structural poverty and to stand with the vulnerable.

That invitation is a confession that we have been quarreling with God's generosity for a long

time, and it is time to stop.

Somewhere in your own life, you’ve once hoped someone would choose you. You just had to

wait uncomfortably as you watched others getting picked before you.

Most of us have experienced this ordeal before.

Your congregation does not need permission from Mission Presbytery to begin this work.

It needs one relationship with one vulnerable neighbor this month, and a willingness to admit that none of us earned our seat at this table either.

Pick one person or community your congregation can pay attention to this week, the way that

landowner finally paid attention to the ones still waiting, and go find them.

You, too, can choose someone today. Call them and check on them. Write a card to let someone know you are thinking of them. Send a text right away. It’s quicker and easier than a phone call.

The Holy Spirit gives us a heartburst. It’s when you’re thinking of someone, quickly, and think you should reach out to them.

More often we ignore our heartbursts. We think we’ll do it later, reach out later, call later, send a text or a card later, but we never do.

Honor your heartbursts. Reach out and let someone know you love them, no matter what!

That’s an assignment you can do today. Tarry no more, for time and tide wait for no one.

For everything there is a season. This is a season to reach out to offer support, prayers, and

love.

You never know who is hungry to eat from your table of grace or drink from your fount of many blessings.

You can do it, O, you blessed one!