Grumble, Grumble

Exodus 16:2-15

Matthew 20:1-16

The two scriptures passages we read today are about people who grumble against God because they have lost sight of what God has done for them already and what God will continue to do for them into eternity. These two passages have much to teach us because we often find ourselves grumbling to God about our lives and the unjust ways we are treated.

 The story in Exodus is about a food crisis which leads to a faith crisis for the Israelites.  God responds to this crisis of faith with very little anger. He tells Moses, “I will rain bread on you!”  God gives the Israelites what they need – food for their stomachs and in doing so their faith is restored in God. The story in Matthew is also about God’s generosity told through the story of a generous vineyard owner. In both stories, the people are grumbling about their conditions because they have lost sight of what God is all about. Our God can be found not just in the extraordinary blessings of life, but in the ordinary blessings as well.

 God gives us blessings and life through ordinary means, things that happen to us every day. This is important because if God only blessed us in ways that happen outside the ordinary, we would absent God from our everyday life. No longer would we see God in the laughter of children, or in a moment spent with our families, or in the way a stranger opens a door for us so we may go first. The result of losing God in the ordinary by looking for God in the extraordinary is that we will feel empty and lost in the world. We are searching for God and cannot find God except by miraculous means because we have forgotten that God is everywhere and in everything. Miracles do not occur everyday. If we look for God only in the miraculous, we will spend most of our lives never seeing God. And yet, God is with us everyday of our lives – if we only know where to look.

 God gives the Israelites the food to help their faith crisis as well as their food crisis. He says that in giving them this they shall know that YHWH is their God and that it is God that provides them with all things. God will appear to them to connect the food to God – thereby connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary presence of God. This is one of the reasons why we say a blessing upon our meals before we eat. It reminds us that our food comes not just by our hard work, but by God’s generosity. It reminds us that every meal is a moment to commune with God through accepting that blessing of food and being grateful.

Material and spiritual well-being are closely connected. It is often found that there is strife in households that are hungry or in poor health. The lack of provisions and ability to care for family causes fear which turns to anger, distrust, and often violence. A full belly and a warm bed at night go a long way to alleviate anger and the propensity toward violence. As white middle income Americans, we do not know very much about severe poverty, hunger, and the abuse it often generates. However, that does not mean we cannot appreciate what we have and help others to receive the same blessings of food to eat and a place to sleep. And by helping those people, just as God helped the Israelites, it will bring them back to God.

 As a church, we need to make sure we are not looking for God only in the extraordinary, but also in the everyday dealings of our lives. It makes a difference in how we behave as a church and how we deal with life outside of this church. In finding God in the daily routines we are able to return to the confession that the Israelites were finally able to see once God had provided them with food:  It is you God that gives us what we need. It is you that brings us out of slavery and self-imposed exiles, you are God and you are Lord Almighty.  This confession is one that helps bring us back to God and to find God wherever we look, instead of fruitlessly searching for the miraculous.

 There are times when we resent God’s generosity. We do not resent it when God is being generous with us, but when we think of people we believe are unworthy. There are many times when I have heard someone say, “Why do bad things happen to good people, but the bad people die old, happy, and rich?” We sometimes grumble to God about what other people have received and think that what we have been given is not enough.

 The parable in Matthew is targeting a specific group of people. There were some Jewish Christians that resented being lead by former pagans. They resented that these former pagans had put in less time than them and yet had received leadership positions in the church. Sometimes we feel the same way. We see someone being recognized for their hard work in the church or at work and we think, “What about me?! I’m constantly working long, hard hours and no one pays any attention.” It is easy to grumble to ourselves or to others when some seem to get the recognition and we get nothing. Such resentment can be overcome only by fixing our gaze on the goodness of God who is generous to all.

 The parable in Matthew is often offensive to us, because as Americans many of us believe in a capitalist system which rewards a person based on what they have done. If you do more, you receive more, if you do less you receive less. This is also about a sense of justice; Americans have a highly developed sense of justice, perhaps too highly developed because we have taken over the court systems with petty grievances.

 We empathize then with the grumbling workers in verse 12, we too have known capricious employers who reward lazy workers more generously than faithful, hardworking employees. But this passage begs us to ask, can GOD be so unfair?

 Since the beginning of time, human beings have tried to bargain with their many gods. We make promises, “God if you do this for me, I will do this in return.” In Genesis 28, Jacob tries to bargain with God for protection and sustenance, promising to reward God with a tithing of his income. We will often do the same thing. “I went to church this week, I paid my dues Lord, now you owe ME something!” However, the climax of this parable is what the vineyard owner tells the workers, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” The vineyard owner claims the right to pay his workers not on the basis of their merits but on the basis of his own compassion. This is what God does as well.

 Jesus has brought salvation to all people, no matter when or where they come to God in their life. They may be a murderer, a drunk, a hardworking school teacher, a child, an IRS agent or a person of another faith. But if they come to Jesus and profess belief and humility, if they begin to have love in their hearts for God and humanity – Jesus will give them eternal salvation. The same salvation we have been given and yet we come to church every Sunday, we offer up money and time and prayers. We may feel we have done more to earn our salvation, but the vineyard owner tells us that it is not about us, it never has been about what we do.

 It is all about God’s generosity. God gives salvation to us because Jesus Christ died for us. Otherwise we would ALL be condemned to hell. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation. You have not worked harder for it than the atheist who comes to God in the last three minute’s of her life. You have not earned God’s blessings because you tithe more than everyone else on your block. That is not the way God works.

Why should such generosity be condemned as injustice? God is good to all. Jesus reveled in the incredible magnanimity of God. Of course Jesus believed in the God of Justice, but in his vision of God the divine compassion greatly outshone the divine justice. Those who worship such a God must imitate his generosity, not begrudge it.

What it comes down to there is nothing we can do to earn what is freely given out of love. Not to mention the gift being given so completely outshines anything we have done or could do, that in the end – we are all eleventh hour workers. None of us deserves the glorious future that God has prepared.

 These two passages leave us with this truth, a confession we must make often when we forget ourselves and begin to grumble. It is you God that gives us what we need. It is you that brings us out of our self-absorption and self-imposed exiles, it is you, God, that makes us good and holy, you are God and you are Lord Almighty. I confess Lord; I am an eleventh hour worker. It may not seem fair to us that the neighbor who never goes to church will get to go to heaven too, but Lord, I thank you that even though I am a sinner, you are generous and loving to me.

Amen.