“Pay Stub Panic”

Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost       24 September 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

"Are you envious because I am generous?”  Matthew 20:15b

Instant poll. The subject is “Real Estate.” Choose one of the following options:

Behind Door #1: You could live in a 4,000 square-foot house nestled among 6,000 square-foot homes.

Behind Door #2: You could live in a 3,000 square-foot house among 2,000 square-foot houses.

Reminder: You only have two choices: a 4,000 square-foot house or a 3,000 square foot house. You might prefer by far a 6,000 square-foot monster or a 2,000 square-footer, but the poll gives you only two choices. And the criterion for your selection is the home you prefer in relation to your neighbors’ houses.

So, given its size in relation to the neighbors’ homes, which house would you prefer? Door #1: The lone 4,000 square-footer among the 6,000 square-foot McMansions?

Or Door # 2: The 3,000 square-foot house in the neighborhood with 2,000 square-foot homes?

These were the parameters of a recent Cornell study designed to understand decision-making. The winner? Door #2: The 3,000 square-foot house among the more modest 2,000 square-footers. That’s because, for those polled, the 3,000 square-foot house had more relative value compared to its neighbors.

And why not the sizable 4,000 square-foot house nestled among McMansions? “Relative deprivation.” As a phenomenon, it reflects an observation made by Karl Marx. Now, I don’t often refer to Karl Marx in public, although a parishioner once called me a Marxist. On his way out the front door.

But I digress. Marx said that a house may be large or small, but as long as the neighboring houses are small, that’s probably satisfactory.

Complication: A neighbor builds a palace next door, and the house — whatever its size — shrinks in perception to a shed. And what do the house-owners, now shed-dwellers feel? Relative deprivation.

Relative deprivation. That’s the set-up for Jesus’ parable about sliding wages. Not!

To recap: A vineyard owner needs cheap labor. Sun-up, he trolls the outer fringes of what passes for the local first-century Home Depot parking lot to hire strapping go-getters eager for work. Then he returns periodically to tap more labor: 9, noon, 3PM and 5, with just about an hour to go before the day is shot and the pickings in the able-bodied department get pretty slim.

At pay-out time, it’s not “first in, first out.” Meaning: The boss makes the most-worked wait the longest and consequently forces them to see what everyone else — originally in line behind them — gets paid.

And what do these early-hires witness? The boss gives every single worker the same wage. Whether they’ve put in 12 hours or 1 hour, doesn’t matter. Whether you’re the pumping-iron first-hires or the scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel last-hires, doesn’t matter. Same compensation across the board: a full day’s wage.

The first-hires squawk “relative deprivation”! Or more like, “Boss, if you’re going to give those other guys ─ who are underemployed for a reason! ─ the same pay we got, we deserve a bonus. Fair is fair.”

“No deal,” the boss counters. “Check our agreement. Fair is fair.” Meaning: No union. No arbitration. No appeal.

But that’s the boss. Can Jesus ─ soft-hearted Jesus ─ help out the first-hires here?

Or, writing ourselves into the parable: When people don’t work as hard as we do … or don’t play fair … or are cut deals … or get more than we think they deserve … or get what we think we deserve ─ in other words, if we feel short-changed ─ relatively-deprived — can we count on Jesus to right the balance?

Don’t hold your breath … because, how does Jesus weigh in? Sounds like, “You whine ‘deprivation’? I’ll show you deprivation!”

That is, if he had his way, the least-working, last-hired, least-qualified would get even more than the first, highly-prized workers. In God’s dream economy, he intones, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” Not helpful to the early-hires if Jesus’ topic of the day is fairness.

But what if the topic of the day is something else? What if the topic of the day is generosity?

Well, it clearly is, because Jesus punctuates the parable — not with a statement about compensation-gone-haywire — or even fairness (which is another way of dressing-up relative deprivation) — Jesus punctuates the parable with the landowner’s — read: God’s — generosity as counterweight to the workers’ envy.

“Are you envious,” Jesus charges the early-hires, “because I am generous to folks who don’t make the A Team?”

But who are the targets of the A-Team types' envy? They’re the people, for example, Hubert Humphrey targeted for generosity: “Those who are in the dawn of life, the children. Those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly. And those who are in the shadows of life: the sick, the needy, and the physically-challenged.”

“Are you envious of them,” Jesus needles, “because I choose to be generous with them?”

That’s envious as in "crank-crank-crank": the lingering, simmering, gnawing suspicion that less-deserving people out there ─ somewhere ─ are getting what is rightfully ours.

The whip-up-the-base solution to envy of this magnitude? “Ship them out. Deny them healthcare. Let them stew in their own juices. Build a wall!”

Odd: That’s clearly not Jesus’ solution. Read Jesus’ lips. The solution is generosity, like God’s generosity. Generosity that’s based on need … not notions of fairness.

Now, key distinction: Jesus here isn’t equating generosity with generic giving. In fact, he’s pretty clear: As good as giving is, generosity — exponential giving — wins hands down every time. In other words, it’s not enough to give. To be like God — and that’s what Jesus insists we be — generosity is the high bar to clear.

In other words, Jesus makes the case elsewhere that we are designed to be good, as God is good. But, as he proves here, God is good not because God gives — a sliding scale for the workers would have proven that — but God is good because God is generous.

And the God-like generosity Jesus baits us with looks like the characters in an old rabbinic tale:

A farmer had two sons. When the father dies, the two sons work the farm jointly. Come harvest season, they divide the harvest equally.

Now, the elder brother remains a confirmed bachelor … with a fondness for show tunes. (No, that’s not in the story. I made that up! But he does remain a bachelor.) The younger brother marries and has a whopping eight children.

At harvest time, the bachelor thinks to himself, “My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of the harvest than I do. This is what I’ll do. In the dead of the night, I’ll take a hefty chunk of my share of the harvest and put it into his barn.”

At that very moment, the younger brother is thinking to himself, “God has given me a loving wife and eight wonderful children. My bachelor brother hasn’t been so fortunate. He really needs more of the harvest for his old age than I do. This is what I’ll do. In the dead of the night, I’ll take a hefty chunk of my share of the harvest and put it into his barn.”

And so, that night, half-way between their two barns and under a full moon and cloudless sky, the two brothers bump into each other!

Suddenly, it begins to rain.

What can that be? The rabbis concluded: It was God weeping for joy because the two brothers understood that a spirit of generosity is the clearest way we can show we are made in God’s image.

From the late-comers in the parable, then, to folks we just might think aren’t A-Team timber … from immigrants to Dreamers … minorities to single mothers … welfare recipients to LGBQT neighbors who just want a wedding cake (a wedding cake, for God’s sake!): Are we envious because God is generous?

Our only option: Make God weep. Make God weep tears of joy.

Amen.