The children's book, It's Not Fair, is a delightful story of how life doesn't always go the way we want it to. The book covers such burning questions as, “Why don't you yell at her? Why does my team always lose? Why can't we have a pet giraffe?” For me, the best part of the book is the inside part of the cover, what's called the endsheet. It's set up to look like a legal document. The headline reads, “In the Circuit Court of Fairness” and lists as the Plaintiff, Sibling #1. Sibling #2 is the Defendant. The next section, “Complaint at Law,” reads “Now comes Sibling #1 and through its attorneys, Fullglass and Milk, P.C., and for its totally unfair action against Defendant, Sibling #2, states as follows: That on or about, to wit, the day before yesterday, the Plaintiff, Sibling #1, clearly got the smaller half of the cookie. That on or about, to wit, the day before yesterday, and at all relevant times, the Defendant, Sibling #2, said that he would break the cookie right down the middle.” The suit goes on to state that the Defendant relied on the Plaintiff to break the cookie perfectly in half, that the cookie would be split in equal shares with the chocolate chips being distributed equally between the two halves, that the Plaintiff received the smaller half, that the Defendant did negligently and carelessly and unskillfully fail to possess and to exercise the proper, adequate, and customary knowledge and skill required of fair cookie splitting nor of the simple concept of sharing, that the Defendant did deliberately amplify the injurious effect of his actions by seeking to dismiss said negligence with the defense: 'That's the way the cookie crumbles', which by the way, was very annoying and not one bit funny. The Plaintiff asks for judgment against the defendant because of grievous emotional trauma and malnourishment. A footnote on the legal document reads: “You are so busted when Mom finds out.”

The concept of sharing is one that children pick up on very early. They learn to count the presents under the Christmas tree to make sure everyone has the same amount. They want Mom or Dad to send as much time with them as with their siblings. They want their brothers and sisters to be punished when they are bad and for the punishment to fit the crime. They want the same kinds of clothes and electronics and toys their friends have. “It's not fair” echoes through many a childhood and it's one childhood way that most of us never outgrow.

So it's not hard for us to identify with the laborers in Jesus' story. We hear the story of a landowner who hired workers for his vineyard. He went to where day laborers hung out with the hopes that someone would come and hire them for the day. This boss must have greatly underestimated the amount of work to be done because he had to come back several times to hire more help. At the end of the day, the boss told his manager to pay the workers. We, along with those workers, know how this should go. The men would be paid an hourly wage, so the manager would simply multiply the number of hours each man worked and pay each one that amount of money. The landowner had other ideas and, to make his point, he told his manager to pay the ones hired last first and to go down the line until he got to the ones who were hired first. “It's not fair.” The grumbling began as soon as the first group of men were paid as if they had worked a full day. Then the men who were hired first started thinking things might work to their advantage. If those who worked only an hour got a full-day's pay, they were going to get a whole lot more than they expected. But when these men, who had worked all day in the scorching sun, ended up making the exact same amount as those who worked an hour, the fussing became louder. “It's not fair!” Even when the landowner told the men to take their money and go, that he was spending his money the way he wanted to, the workers didn't understand. They put into their pockets a fair wage for all the hours they had worked but still they resented the fact that they had worked much harder for their money than the others who showed up just in time to put all the tools away.

It's not fair.” The reason we understand the children's lawsuit and the laborers' complaints is because we live in a world that puts a premium on fairness. From the time of Jonah to the people of Matthew's day, our expectations have changed very little. You go to work and do your job and you get paid. No work, no pay. You put in all the time and money to go to school as you look forward to getting a job to match your hard work and sacrifice. You love someone with all your heart and you expect that person to love you back. You take care of yourself, eat well and exercise and you look ahead to a long and healthy life. As much as we value fairness in this world, we often are stricken by its opposite. Other people at work get promotions they don't deserve. College graduates can't find good jobs in their field. The one we love doesn't have the same feelings for us. Disease strikes us out of nowhere and knocks us off our feet. “It's not fair.” When it comes right down to it, in this world fairness is something that is highly prized but capriciously handed out.

And then there is God, whose ideas about fairness take us far beyond our human definitions. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh, to warn the people there of the consequences of their evil ways. Jonah disobeyed God by fleeing to Tarshish, a much more desirable place to visit. God threw Jonah into the belly of a whale then saved him from death, changed his mind about destroying Nineveh, sent Jonah to Nineveh after all, punished Jonah again for not obeying him and, in the end, saved Jonah as well. In our system of fairness, Jonah would be dead, the people of Nineveh would be dead and God would be free to focus on more deserving and obedient servants. Jesus says, “The last will be first and the first will be last,” and we pretend not to understand what he means, as we cling to our ideas of reward and punishment.

God's plan for the world is far different from our limited set of rules and regulations. God's love transcends human definitions of worth. God's love flows just as intentionally into poor neighborhoods as it does into wealthy. God's love extends to the poorest countries in the world, countries whose names we cannot even remember, as much as it does to our privileged nation. God's love floods the spiritually bankrupt heart as completely as it does the pure and pious. God's love reaches women, children, men, young and old with equal measure. God's love embraces the unemployed, the underemployed, the unemployable just as it does the one who works hard for his or her wages.

It's crazy, really, this love that shatters our definition of fairness, of reward for hard work and punishment for everything else. You and I live in the grace of a crazy God, a Lord who is crazy in love with us, crazy in love with those who are washed in the waters of baptism, crazy in love with those who do not yet know him, crazy enough to hold us close when we are insisting on our own ideas of right and wrong. It's a crazy God who can forgive the wicked people of Nineveh, who can love a newcomer to the church as much as someone who has labored there for decades, who can offer his grace to someone who doesn't even know what it is, who can transform the heart of one who lives in the bitterness of resentment. Our God may be crazy but God isn't stupid. For God's plan is brilliant – shining the light of Christ into all creation, welcoming the last ahead of the first.

You and I have a choice. We can resent the extravagance of God's love or we can delight in it. We can give thanks that the fairness of God includes all who have not earned his love, which is, after all, all of us. We can come with thanksgiving to the table of grace to receive God's forgiveness and hear God's promise of new life. We can leave here full of God's crazy love and look for ways to share it with people who may not know anything about it or doubt it even exists.

One of my seminary professors adopted a young girl from Central America. When she first got to America, Amelia didn't know many English words and sometimes got her words mixed up. One day, her mother heard Amelia skipping through the house, singing at the top of her lungs, “Crazy the Lord, Alleluia!” It seems Amelia had learned a new song in Sunday School the previous Sunday. She heard, “Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia, praise ye the Lord,” as “Crazy the Lord.” May we leave here this morning so full of God's grace and mercy and overflowing love that we sing Amelia's song with glad hearts, “Crazy the Lord. Alleluia!”

Amen.

Pentecost 16A

September 21, 2014

Floyd-Willis Lutheran Parish

Matthew 20:1-16