Workers in the Field

I’ve been thinking a lot about the limitations of the world described in this morning’s parable from the Gospel of Matthew.  There is no point fighting it.  This story, told by Jesus, depicts a world in which the workers are small-minded and envious and the only one who can imagine any other way of being is a rich guy whose generous gesture feels a little random and self-satisfied.   To me there is an overwhelming feeling of constraint in this story.

Think about it. In the world of a day laborer there is payment for a day’s work, but no other sense of mutual obligation: no assurance of adequate housing or a living wage or care when you are sick or pay when you are injured.  At best, you do a day’s work and you get paid for a day’s work and you start over the next day, waiting like a commodity in the marketplace and hoping someone will hire you.  

There isn’t a lot room for planning for a future in this system.  It’s hard to know how you would feel confident about providing for a family.  Everything operates on a day-to-day basis. There is no room, if your day’s labor is all you can lay claim to, there is no room for you to think differently or plan for a different future.  In the story we’re told, there is just labor and precarious life.  It’s a narrow world for the workers imagined here.     

No, the only one who really has space for dreams in the world of this story is the landowner.  He’s the one who is free to indulge a whim, take a risk.  It’s the landowner in this story who gets to imagining.  Or maybe he gets to praying.  Something changes for him and he starts thinking and feeling a little differently one day.  One day, maybe, it occurs to him that what’s “fair” by the rules of this game is actually exploitation.  Or let’s not go that far.  This is a pretty conservative story.  Maybe one day he just feels like softening the edges of his world a little bit.  

In St. Matthew’s story the workers have had their focus narrowed.  They are all about the rules of the game that circumstances require them to play.  You work for a day and you get paid for a day’s work.   But the landowner has the space, the precious mental, economic, and social space, to change the rules of the game a little bit.  At nine in the morning he goes back to the market and finds that there are unemployed people there.  “Come and work in my vineyard,” he says.  Maybe he relishes the sense of expansiveness.  Or maybe he just needs the work done quickly.  He goes back at noon, and again at three, each time welcoming some new workers into the ranks of the temporarily employed.  By five pm, he is puzzled to learn that there are still people waiting in the marketplace for a chance to earn whatever he will give them. “Why?” he asks, astonished, “Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?”  I guess he doesn’t know that laborers wait all day to get the chance to earn whatever they can in this system.

And when the end of the workday comes, he finds it in his heart to pay each one of the day’s laborers for a full day’s work.  It’s not a social revolution.  It’s just a softening of the economic edge.  Maybe it’s the start of a new way of thinking, or maybe it’s just a day’s experiment for a rich man who can indulge a whim.  Certainly when questioned he is less than inspiring about his motives: “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” he asks.  It’s not a very reassuring answer.  And he’s quick to point out that the grumblings of those who worked all day are petty and mean.  “Are you envious?” he asks.  And then off they go, those small-minded workers, to the insecurity that envelops them whenever they think about the next day’s work.

And this, says Jesus, is what the kingdom of heaven is like.  

Could anyone, could we, could these workers and their boss, ever respond to the grace of God breaking into a world so shut down and constrained?  Even the generosity here seems tainted by the attitude of the giver.  Many commentators note that this landowner arranges for those who have worked the least to be paid first, right under the noses of the ones who earned their keep. He almost dares the most exhausted workers to feel the most resentment. Would it have killed the boss to hand off a little cash under the table?  

Grace arrives awkwardly in a hard world, and it lands almost like injustice.  “The last will be first and the first will be last.”  I’ve heard that saying so many times that I’ve almost forgotten how wrong it sounds.  Pity me if you like, but I’m still holding out for a kingdom in which we all get there at the same time, and words like “first” and “last” have no meaning.  

What I take from this parable, in this world we’re living in, on a Sunday morning in America in September of 2020, what I take from this parable is that there is no way I can jump from a world of privilege to a world in which “first” and “last” don’t matter.  I can’t will myself into the kingdom of heaven by forgetting what it means to come in first or last.  I’ve been first for too long.  I owe a debt of understanding, and a debt of action, to those who have been coming in last all my life.  The bliss of the kingdom of heaven has been much too easy for me.  My visions of that kingdom, truth be told, are uncomfortably like the random gestures of the landowner in this story.  I know that’s true because of two thoughts that occur to me more often than I want to admit.  The first is “I should be able to do what I want.” And the second is “Those people shouldn’t be so angry.”  

Grace arrives awkwardly in a hard world, so awkwardly that it looks wrong even when you think you are eager to cooperate.  No one who wants to enter the kingdom, or to see the kingdom come, can avoid the awkwardness of grace.  The problem with our parable this morning is not that God is like the landowner.  The problem is that I am like the landowner.  I need to accept a reversal of my own position.

Often this parable is read as an allegory about salvation and the Jews.  The Jews are in this reading the ones who have been working in God’s fields for a long difficult day, and Christians are the johnnies-come-lately who get paid a full day’s wages—salvation—without having that whole long arduous history of Israel’s relation to God.  I don’t disagree that this parable may have served that function in its original cultural moment.  But we aren’t in that moment.  We aren’t that audience.  

And the word of God doesn’t get frozen in time.  It lives and breathes and it grows and stretches with us if we are willing to grapple with it.  Our problem today is not so much that we are overly convinced that God has chosen us.  Our problem is that we have appropriated God for ourselves economically, positioned ourselves to become like little gods on earth.  Grace—wages, sustenance, thriving, fullness of life, full personhood, supportive community—gets doled out according to our whims.  We recognize no obligation but the obligation to follow our own desires, and our creation of the kingdom on earth is subject to our preferences.  It suffers according to our blind spots.  And we leave a trail of resentments wherever we go.

That’s not a lot of good news.  But no one who wants to enter the kingdom of God can avoid, apparently, a reckoning with those words, “first” and “last.”  Despite the constraint and awkwardness of this parable, its fundamental truth remains: the kingdom is open if we want to come in.  The fields are there for tilling, and God will take us even if we are only just now, so late in salvation history, coming to some new awareness that we have work to do.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
September 20, 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Three Questions for September

Three questions come to us from the scriptures today, but we should cover a fair amount of background before we engage those questions.  And the background begins with cruelty.  There is a cruelty at the outset of the story of Joseph and his brothers, who are the sons of Jacob.  

Remember, there was also a certain cruelty in the story of Jacob and his elder brother, who are the sons of Isaac.  Jacob manipulated his elder brother Esau, and deceives his father in order to gain the blessing that rightly belongs to his brother.

Remember, there is cruelty in the story of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham, who was tested by God and commanded to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved, by killing him and making of him a burnt offering; a test which Abraham passed because he was shown to be willing to take his son’s life, but was not required to do.

Cruelty abounds in these stories, and yet God establishes a covenant of faithfulness and love.  And God’s people tell the stories without any need to evade the cruelty behind them.  Indeed, the effectiveness of the covenant, despite the cruelty, seems to be an important element of the way these stories are told.

By the time we get to the end of Joseph’s story, which is the end of the Book of Genesis, the end of the beginning, and which sets the stage for new episodes of cruelty for God’s people, who will become slaves in the land of Egypt… by the time we get to the end of Joseph’s story, when he has been reunited with his brothers, including his youngest brother Benjamin, and reunited with his father, who had believed his son to be dead for at least the past twenty years… remember that Joseph incited jealousy in his brothers, who plotted to kill him, but decided to sell him into slavery instead.

And remember that Joseph was thrown into prison because of a cruelty at the hands of the wife of his master.  And after two years in prison, Joseph came to prominence in Pharaoh’s household because of his ability to interpret dreams.  Remember that Joseph also showed wisdom and good judgment when his dream interpretations predicted seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.  And remember that when the famine came (as predicted) Egypt was prepared, because of Joseph’s careful planning.

And his brothers came to Egypt in need of grain during the famine, completely unaware that the one on whom they must now rely is the very brother who had suffered at the cruelty of their hands… so much cruelty has been endured.  Remember that the brothers did not recognize Joseph (all grown up), but he recognized them.

Here was his opportunity for revenge.  Here was the moment to settle the score.  But Joseph doesn’t settle the score.  He sends for his father and his youngest brother, and he reveals himself for who he is.  And his father and brothers are fed, with all their flocks and herds.  And they settle in this new land, under the patronage of Joseph.  Remember that Joseph’s father Jacob died, wishing to be buried back in the land of Canaan, which Joseph arranged and oversaw.

And when Joseph returned from burying his father, a great question brings the story to a conclusion.  The question is shared among Joseph’s brothers, who are worried about the family dynamics, now that their father is dead, and they are at the mercy of their brother, whom they had despised.  They ask themselves, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us?”

This question is no trifling thought.  If ever a family of origin provided reasons for the carrying of a grudge, this is the family, is it not?  What if Joseph still bears a grudge?

Living, as we do, in an age of grudges, from Jerusalem to Washington, it seems like a poignant question.

Of course, Joseph would be justified in nursing a grudge against his brothers.  How much therapy would it take to unpack and disarm the power of resentment to which Joseph could reasonably lay claim?  Yes, Joseph had achieved a great deal in his life.  But, was he driven, at least in part, by a resentment that seethed secretly inside him?  What if he still held a grudge?

Here, at the end of the story, in the fiftieth and last chapter of Genesis, which might bring nothing but denouement, we have a powerful and anxious question.  “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us, and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” his brothers ask.

And this great story, with all its cruelties, that have stretched over generations; a story that accounts for the beginnings of our faith, and the faith of so many millions, over so many millennia...  this story concludes in the most remarkable way… not with vengeance or conquest, or an assertion of raw power…  not with public shaming, and settling of scores… but with fraternal tears, as Joseph’s brothers seek forgiveness.

And Joseph had this incredible moment of insight and gentle wisdom, when he said to them, “Do not be afraid...  Even though you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good.”   Or, as another translation puts it, “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.”  You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.

Now, it’s tempting to misunderstand Joseph here.  It’s tempting to hear in his response that old cliché, that everything happens for a reason, and that God has a plan.  And indeed, the scriptures themselves allow such an interpretation, if one is prone to see things that way.  But the key to understanding the outcome of this story is in remembering what Joseph’s brothers asked him for.  They asked for forgiveness.

Frustratingly, the text reports that “he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.”  It does not say, “and Joseph forgave them.”  But I think the words of reassurance, and the kindliness amount to forgiveness.

Now, Joseph was not sure that forgiveness was his to offer.  In response to his brothers’ approach, he posed a second important question, “Am I in the place of God?”  He knew that forgiveness was a divine prerogative, and he, who had even wielded all the power of Pharaoh’s trust, was not clear that he had access to this power of God’s to forgive.

Joseph was inclined to forgiveness, that’s why he reassured his brothers.  But since he was not sure the power lay in his hands, he interpreted the entire situation by placing it all in the context of God’s purposes, and he simply got in line with God and God’s purposes.  And so he forgave his brothers by reassuring them and speaking kindly to them.

Matthew’s Gospel offers us a third question today, on the lips of Peter: “How often should I forgive?”  Remember that one of the challenges that Jesus faces repeatedly in his ministry is the question of whether he has power to forgive sins.  As far as the scribes and the Pharisees are concerned, the question is not open to debate.  They shared Joseph’s long held assumption that forgiveness is God’s to give, and God’s alone.  And are we in the place of God?  So the mere question on Peter’s lips is bold, under the circumstances.

But Jesus wants to entertain the question - in fact, he’s eager to do so!  Let’s talk about that, he seems to say!  And he tells the parable of the unforgiving slave.  It’s a parable that is easy to understand: forgive one another, since God forgives you.

Strangely, the parable concludes with a note of retribution: “you will be punished (tortured!) if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”  I tend to think that these kinds of endings to parables are meant as points of emphasis, and not as actual descriptions of how God will deal with us in the day of judgement.  But who knows?  In this case, the emphasis would seem to be required, since, when talking about forgiveness, we are treading on territory that had long been thought of as divine prerogative.  Jesus is responding (in a way) to Joseph’s question, “Am I in the place of God?”

Yes!  Jesus wants to say.  How can you sit there and mutter words of reassurance, and speak kindly to your brothers, who have thrown themselves at your feet, after all these years… and not forgive them?!?!?

How can you listen to their pleas, which they have framed in terms of the last wishes of your dead father, and equivocate?!?!?

How can you have wielded such awesome power at Pharaoh’s side, and be unwilling to grasp this most sacred and marvelous power to forgive?!?!?

And what else can it mean, when everything they did they intended for evil, but God intended it for good, than that God intends forgiveness… and so should you?!?!?

Of course, Jesus knew that we would forget this lesson.  He knew that we would fall back on our own cliché: to err is human, but to forgive is divine.  Oh, really?  Is that supposed to absolve us from the implications of the answer to Peter’s question, “How often should I forgive?”

For nineteen years in this country, as summer winds down and sends us hints of autumn, just weeks before the ancient Jewish high holy days, and the day of atonement for sins, all three of these questions have converged in America, as we contend with the cruelty of the memory of September 11, along with plenty of other cruelties that we have been introduced to since.

What if we still bear a grudge?

Are we in the place of God?

How often should we forgive?

Cruelty abounds.  And yet God establishes a covenant of faithfulness and love with us.  And as God’s people we tell the stories of ancient cruelties and ancient forgiveness, without any need to evade the cruelty behind them.  Indeed, the effectiveness of the covenant, despite the cruelty, seems to be an important element of the way these stories are told.

And since cruelties have not come to an end, it’s important that we remember the reason for telling these stories.  It is not so that we can nurse ancient grudges.

It is so that we can remember that to forgive is divine, and that yes, in Christ, God has taught us to be like him: to forgive without limit or boundary, and to forgive from the heart.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
13 September 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

“Joseph Making Himself Known to His Brethren” by William Blake, 1784-85

Love Does No Wrong

In November of 1939, the poet W.H. Auden, by then settled in New York, went to see a German-language film, which was preceded by an official German newsreel that celebrated the Nazi invasion of Poland.  He was shocked to hear from the German immigrants in the audience affirming cheers to “Kill the Poles!”  Auden later said that reflecting on that experience contributed to his return to religion and his decision to go back to church.

Auden’s famous poem, “September 1, 1939” is a reflection on that invasion, which was announced with a three-line headline in the New York Times that morning.  I’m told that the poem finds renewed popularity at times of national crisis.

Here we are in early September, 81 years later, and the poem still speaks with an honest voice, if you ask me.  Listen to these lines from the penultimate stanza:

And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Now, that’s the kind of poetry a preacher can work with.  Especially when presented with a text like the one from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that we heard earlier:  “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

The Epistle to the Romans is an extended assertion of the power of love to rule our lives, and an insistence that God desires that so it should be.  Auden’s poem seems to be in line with this theology.  But over time, the poet became dissatisfied with his poem.  He tried editing it, and eventually omitted it from a collection of his poems.  He explained his dissatisfaction:

“Rereading a poem of mine,” Auden wrote, looking back, “1st September, 1939, after it had been published I came to the line ‘We must love one another or die’ and said to myself: ‘That’s a damned lie! We must die anyway.’ So, in the next edition, I altered it to ‘We must love one another and die.’ This didn’t seem to do either, so I cut the stanza. Still no good. The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty – and must be scrapped.”

The scholar, Ian Sansom, says that despite Auden’s withering assessment of his own work, the poem continues to find popularity.  It “is the world’s greatest zombie poem. It won’t die – and never will – because people want it to be true.”*

... no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

St. Paul, I think, could work with the poem either way - with either the “and’ or the “or”.  But I think he would prefer it the way Auden originally intended it; “We must love one another or die.”   It’s not that St. Paul had a greater confidence in the human spirit than Auden did.  Rather, St. Paul had greater confidence in what God could do and is doing in the lives of human beings.  And it’s no insult to say of someone that St. Paul had greater faith in God.

“We must die anyway,” Auden wrote.  Truer words, and all....  And yet, there is love.

If Auden was horrified by the jeers he heard in that movie theatre in New York in 1939, imagine how he would react if he had a Facebook account these days.  Who of us is surprised by polarizing nationalist animosity loudly and unapologetically exclaimed?  And can either poem or epistle really compete in this age of disinformation?

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another,” St. Paul wrote, “for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”   He was deeply concerned with how the revelation of God’s work in the person of Jesus affected the faith transmitted to him by the Jewish law.  And he wanted to proclaim Jesus without annulling the law or his ancient faith.

Most people these days are less concerned with the theological implications, and more in need of a poem that will not die, a faith that will not die, since we must all die anyway.  I don’t know what it was that caused Auden to judge his own work so harshly, to say that it was “infected with and incurable dishonesty.”  He seems to have forgotten that it was a poem and not a legal brief, and that a poem can say things that are truer than the sum of their component parts.

I think St. Paul would want to recruit Auden to announce over and over again, “we must love one another or die.”  Of course, we must all die anyway.  But there is more than one kind of death.  And there is more than one kind of life.  In Christ, we are being called to a life of love that does no wrong to its neighbor.  Why has this idea become so hard to put into action?  Has it always been thus?

The online version of this morning’s New York Times includes a photo taken on Wednesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  The image is of a workman in a yellow safety vest pressure washing  graffiti from the pavement.  Specifically, the graffiti painted on the concrete that is being washed away is the word “Love.”  The word is written in green letters, outlined in purple, outlined again in yellow, with a black and white border around it, further ornamented by emanating rays, curlicues, and a heart in the upper right hand corner.  It’s vaguely reminiscent of the way Keith Haring might have written the word if he’d had some spray paint with him and had been in Kenosha.**  And the caption reads, “A worker blasts graffiti from the pavement at Civic Center Park in Kenosha, Wis.”  To me, it’s a heart-breaking caption in a world that needs to know that we need more graffiti like that not less; more love, not less.  

It’s easier than you think to blast love from the pavement.

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”  

Indeed, at this moment, when love is so easily blasted away, it seems more important than ever to remind ourselves that “no one exists alone.”  And to repeat over and over again “to the citizen or the police; we must love one another or die.”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
6 September 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

• Ian Sansom, writing in The Guardian, 31 August, 2019, “The Right Poem for the Wrong Time: W.H. Auden’s September 1, 1939”

• The photo is by Chang W Lee for The New York Times

Photo by Chang W. Lee for the New York Times, 6 Sept 2020