Is God fair?

A Sermon preached on 24^th September 2017, Pentecost XVI at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Jonah 3:10 - 4:11, Philippians 1:21 – 30, Matthew 20:1-16

The book of Jonah is a story we tend to see as a Biblical fairy tale for children, something for Sunday School. It has comic elements, first God sends Jonah one way, but Jonah runs in the other direction. It contains scenes of great drama and excitement like the storm, magical creatures like the giant fish, and even a happy ending, well except for Jonah, he is never happy it seems. But we would be making a mistake if we restricted Jonah’s tale to children. 

Jesus certainly didn’t. Both in Matthew’s (12:38–41 and 16:4) and in Luke’s Gospel (11:29–32) Jesus makes a reference to Jonah when he is asked for a sign by some of the scribes and the Pharisees. “No sign will be given (…) except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40). Jesus uses Jonah's restoration after three days inside the great fish to anticipate his own resurrection. But that is not the only reference that Jesus makes to Jonah, he also recalls how the people of Nineveh repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and compares them unfavorably to his own people who neither acknowledge their need for repentance nor recognize that in Jesus “something greater than Jonah is here.”  

Whether Jonah is a true story or not, does not matter. It contains some important truths about God and can be seen as a parable, at least as a living parable about God’s grace and forgiveness. Grace and forgiveness are not at the front of Jonah’s mind. On the contrary, when God changes God’s mind about destroying the city of Nineveh, because they had repented, “this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” (Jonah 4:1) It would seem that the main reason Jonah ran away from his commission from God, was not because the thought he would fail, but because he was worried he would succeed: “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (4:2) 

Nineveh was not just any old city. It was once the capital of the Assyrian empire, that is the empire that invaded Israel and completely wiped out the Northern Kingdom. The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. So, it is no surprise that Jonah cannot stand the idea of this city being forgiven, he cannot imagine that his God’s grace includes them too. The whole book of Jonah is written to teach the opposite, to show the people of Israel that God’s grace is infinite, that God is also the God of “Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals.” (4:11) The reference to many animals is a reminder that God’s saving purposes apply to all of creation. The book of Jonah ends with God’s question, “should I not be concerned about Nineveh?” There is no reply recorded from Jonah, and I think that is deliberate. It is an open question to everyone who reads the book.

Martin Luther, who we have been mentioning a lot this year, definitely read the book of Jonah. He saw parallels between its message and the message of the parable we heard this morning, of the laborers in the vineyard.  On the surface, they are very different. We have no whale, no enemy city, just a bunch of people, day laborers we would call them now, who wait at a corner to be picked up for work. The parallel is in the behavior of the landowner and the reaction of some of the laborers. Against all expectations, the owner of the vineyard gives everyone the same wage, regardless of whether they worked all day, or just an hour. He is extraordinarily generous and ignores all conventions about fairness.

Those who have “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” (Matthew 20:12) are not happy. They are envious and angry. Surely reward and effort must be equal? 

Well no, not in the kingdom of heaven. There is no privileged position there for the Jews. Gentiles who follow God and God’s Son will receive the same access as the people God chose through Abraham.  There is no privileged position there for the disciples who were the first to follow Jesus. Anyone who turns to and follows Jesus, whenever that may be in their lives, will be treated exactly the same. And that means there is also no privileged position for us either, except that is for the privilege that Paul mentions in his letter to the Philippians, the “privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering (or striving) for him as well.” (Philippians 1:29) 

Both passages tell us something about God in the questions that are posed at the end of each of them. “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh,” (Jonah 4:11) God asks …. And also about Pyongyang, Tehran, and Caracas. God is the God of everyone and everything – whether they know or believe that or not. “Are you envious because I am generous,” the landowner asks. (Mathew 20:16) Our God is a generous God. God’s grace and love are not something we earn, not something that one of us can have a lot of, and another only a little or none. God’s grace is not a reward or, despite the parable, a wage: it is a gift. God’s grace is based on our needs and God’s love. 

Both passages challenge our understanding of fairness. Why should Israel's sworn enemies be saved from destruction? Why should the laborers who only worked an hour, be paid as much as those who worked the whole day? Surely that isn't fair ... is it? It is in God’s terms - justice is served, but mercy is added. Both passages are illustrations of God’s commands to love not only our neighbor, but even our enemy, and look after those who cannot look after themselves, the widow, orphan, stranger, the unemployed, and the homeless. These are patterns of behavior not reserved for some distant, future, other worldly, kingdom of heaven, but for the one that we as its citizens are called to live out in the here and now when we follow Paul’s call to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (Philippians 1:27) 

Both passages are about attitude. In the end, the question we should be asking is not why have they been forgiven, but why have I? Not why did they receive so much, but why have I? How do I react to this gift? Today in the Episcopal Church, we remember and giving thanks for the Julia Chester Emery, founder of the United Thank Offering. In the early 1900s, Julia helped organize the women of the church to participate in a daily spiritual discipline of gratitude. She asked that everyone remember that when something good happens in his or her day, that this is a gift from God, and to make a thank offering in remembrance that all good things come from God. The simple thank offering she started in her local church grew into the United Thank Offering we also support. 

Unlike Jonah, and the early laborers who sulk, mutter, murmur and mumble, our reaction to God’s gift of love, whether we see it given to others or to ourselves is joy and gratitude. We are not envious because God is generous, we are thankful and jubilant, and we should make his generosity and our gratefulness the pattern of our lives.

Amen.