Embedded Files
Generous
It's a word that conveys much. It sounds nice. We kind of like it, at times. However, the truth is, we often struggle with it more often than we would like to admit. Generous means getting something we don't deserve, didn't earn, can't claim credit for . . . and yet we don't always like it? What is that all about? And not only do we struggle with it when it comes to receiving generosity, but also when we extend it, or see it extended to others who we think doesn't deserve it. Worse yet, we sometimes project the reasons we struggle onto God, assuming His attitudes and struggles are the same as ours. However, creating God in our own image creates its own kinds of distortions. As a result, we often don't really understand either generosity or God.
Our ideas of fairness and justice often lack the qualities of grace and generosity. We're not sure we like it much when others are "equal" to us on the basis of grace and generosity. As a result we have a skewed picture of what reality really is when seen from God's perspective by imposing upon God what "reality" looks like from ours - even if "ours" is ultimately destructive even to those who hold it. But as much as we, out of the self interest that is so much a part of our culture, find ourselves "making a list and checking it twice," we miss one of the central movements of life within the Kingdom of God as Jesus described it. The Kingdom of God is all about generosity, grace, extending ourselves to those who have not earned it, or cannot purchase it, or who may not even have always made wise choices. Ironically, that group of people actually includes all of us - and yet, oddly, even though we are within that group, we sometimes still feel the need to try to rank ourselves in some way.
In the parable that Pastor Jon invites us to consider this week, we are confronted with the challenge and the importance of allowing the generosity of the Kingdom to take its rightful place as the center of Kingdom life. If you would like to listen to the sermon again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library here, or if you prefer, listen to the livestream version here.
Matthew 20
NIV
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
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