Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

Well, Jesus is at it again. One of those commentators I listen to talked about this as being the most offensive parable. I wonder about that. After all, there are all those other parables which are also so offensive which Jesus tells. Do you have a least favorite parable, one that just bugs you because it is so good at unsettling you? You remember the one about the landowner and the tenants and how the tenants eventually kill the son thinking that will get them the vineyard. Those tenants would not acknowledge their relationship to the landowner or the truth of what they owed the landowner. The religious leaders of his day got that Jesus was telling this parable against them. It offended them a whole bunch. Then there was the one about the man traveling to Jericho, the man who fell among thieves, yeah, the Good Samaritan. As you well know we don’t hear the scandal of that one anymore because who were the Samaritans after all. We try to tell it with some currently despised group as the main character, but I don’t think it ever comes off with the same shock value.

Then there is the offensive which is also confusing where the dishonest steward is commended for his shrewdness for reducing the debt of those who owe his master. Four types of soil, how do you be good soil? That would be beyond my control and I do like to have things in my control. The one with the two sons, the dutiful child who stays home is not the hero of the story. Can you blame him for being mad at his brother who squandered all and at his father who welcomed that son home? The law said how you should treat such a one as this and it wasn't even close to what he received. Leave the weeds amongst the wheat until harvest time, do not pull them up here and now. We shouldn’t root out those that we know are evil doers just yet, really? Then we have this one for today. They all get the same wages. Some work all day, some maybe not even an hour and they all get the same pay. It doesn’t make sense, does it.

Why do you think Jesus keeps telling these stories which are so good at getting under the skin of his listeners? These stories, they are not the way the world works. They are not how we understand things should be, although I suppose if you look at the life and the ministry of Jesus he spent a whole lot of time doing something other than what was supposed to be. He eats with sinners and tax collectors. He heals on the sabbath. He’s not supposed to do that. So shout the religious leaders, the serious ones. It’s not how things are supposed to work.

Speaking of how things are not supposed to work, I love the story of Jonah. It makes me crazy, but I love it. Jonah, called by God, told to go to the city of Nineveh, capital of the enemy empire. So he headed out for Tarshish instead. Not sure exactly where that would have been since there are no triple A maps that remain. Some think Spain somewhere, others maybe not as far as that but still in the wrong direction. In any case away from where God was sending Jonah. Nineveh is a few hundred miles inland so Jonah probably didn’t need a ship to go there. A storm, sent by God strikes the ship. The sailors row madly to save the ship and the passengers. Eventually they toss the dice and Jonah is the lucky number. He confesses to what he is doing, and directs them to throw him over the side. The sailors row even more to save Johan, but finally they have to throw him overboard. A whale swallows Jonah and the seas go calm.

Three days in the whale and Jonah is spit up on the beach. I think that convinced Jonah there was no avoiding this particular call. Nineveh is inland. 350 miles or so from Joppa. I don’t think Jonah was eagerly running, making his best possible time, to get to Nineveh, but he was going. He gets there and gives the world’s worst sermon. “Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Nineveh repented, from the greatest to least, from the king on his throne to the animals in the fields. All wore sackcloth and Jonah was furious. 

He knew the character of God, the one who is really good at forgiving. Jonah knew that there was a very good chance God would forgive them. How unfair is that. This enemy of Israel, responsible for so much destruction and sorrow and death in the land, was spared. That’s why Jonah didn’t want to go. That’s why Jonah did not want to preach to them. They are the enemy, those awful rotten nasty people should never be forgiven.

In the past as I have pondered this story I realized that yeah, it is so easy and so tempting to be Jonah. I am sure there have been many times when I have done a pretty good imitation of Jonah, wanting justice, or what I thought was justice. There were times when I knew exactly who should be punished and how much punishment there should be. Those people God, really, you are going to forgive them as well. No. That should not be done. We want them, whoever them may be, a group or just some particular individuals, to suffer. 

I also realized that probably in somebody’s world I’m Nineveh. I am the one who has wounded, who has injured. I am the guilty one and this amazing unfairness and grace and forgiving nature of our God is a very good thing indeed. Do you do well to be angry Jonah? A small thing, a bush, it is so important to you. What of that great city with so many people and also many animals? God is concerned about them. God's concern most certainly extends to you as well. God is concerned about you as well, beloved child of God, loving and forgiving you child of God. Jesus coming into our world, his life, death, and resurrection for you shows the love of God for you. 

And they all get paid the same. Those who work all day and those who are only there at the end of the day are paid the same. That offends our good protestant work ethic. You get what you work for. A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s labor is how it is supposed to be. That is the way the world works or at least the way we expect the world to work. The early hires become angry. Why should they get the same. You are getting that to which you agreed. 

I wonder, about those last ones hired for just a moment. Here in Rapid there is Day Labor. I know that those who are needing work go there and those who are needing workers also go there. How exactly it works I do not know. How are the arrangements made? Is the wage set, negotiated? Do you get there early in the day to find the best most able workers? Do you get there early in the day to get the best job? How many are just not hired? Here's what I wonder especially, how many of looking for work would have not gotten a job by the end of the day and why? 

The landowner hires those who have not yet been hired, who have spent the whole day waiting for someone to hire them. I wonder if there was a reason like maybe they were too old or maybe they were too young. Maybe they were injured in some way. Maybe they were just from the wrong group and well you know what they are like and why it is that you shouldn't hire them. All of that is speculation of course. We know none of those details. The truth is though that the last are made to be the first or equal to the first. Such is the generosity of the landowner, such is the abundance of the kingdom. The landowner, the Lord lifts the last, those who might be less effective, less fruitful, spiritual latecomers even and gives them places of honor. The lasts become firsts not because they have done enough good works but because they have a good Lord, a Lord who invites them int his field at all, even at the last possible hour, and who then rewards them as though they had done a full day's work, a Lord who is generous with abundance. 

It is marvelously unfair and so is our God. The kingdom comes to us as a gift, from the one who loves us. Our place in the kingdom is given to us because of that great love. There is no earning. There is no deserving. There is only working because we have been given. There is serving whether we hear the call early in the morning or late in the day. We hear the call. We answer that call of Jesus to come and follow, to come and serve and life becomes full of wonder and joy and blessing and meaning. It is what our Jesus gives to us, what he came to give to us. He calls and we respond. Our response is the bearing of much fruit. Our response is the labor of our hearts and hands because we are so loved. 

As Luther said, “God does not deal with us according to our working, but according to grace.” It is such a good that this is the way God treat us. I know that in some ways, maybe in many ways I am one of those who was hired at the end of the day. What calls have I ignored? What work should I have accomplished? How else was there to serve? Then I stand before the Lord and I am reward so greatly. So good and gracious and generous is our God, for you. So vast is the abundance of God's kingdom, for you.