Equality and the generosity of God

Here's the sermon that I shared today at St John's Langdon Hills and St Andrew's Wickford: 

Chichele Road in Cricklewood is known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks hang around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car will stop, a negotiation will take place, a deal may be struck. Typically, the men will be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They will be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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R.E.M. - Finest Worksong.

Start:Stop - A life of significance in his kingdom work

Bible Reading

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around. He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. The landowner replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. (Matthew 20. 1 – 16)

Meditation

The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day, similar to illegal migrants seeking casual work today. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers today earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The landowner goes repeatedly to the marketplace himself and clearly cares about the predicament of the workers seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

Michael Green says of this story: 'Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?'

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

Intercessions

O God, the Creator of all things, you have made us in your own image so that we may find joy in creative work: have mercy on all those who are unemployed, and those who find their work dull. Help us to build a society where all may have work and find joy in doing it, for the good of our world and the glory of your name. We thank you that you seek us out and provide us with a life of significance in your kingdom work.

O God, who made us in your image and intended us for creative work; look with love on those who are unemployed. Help them to enjoy life together with those who have work and help us to understand what kind of help we need to give one another, whether in paid employment or not. Guide the leaders of our country, that they may take wise decisions which will benefit us all. We ask you Lord to guide us in the knowledge that we all have worth in ourselves and that we are all of equal value in your eyes. We thank you that you seek us out and provide us with a life of significance in your kingdom work.

Lord God, you lavish gifts on all whom you call. Strengthen and sustain us and all ministers of your church, lay and ordained, that in the range and diversity of our vocation, we may be catalysts of your kingdom in the world. We thank you that you seek us out and provide us with a life of significance in your kingdom work.

The Blessing

O Lord, my God, may the work we do bring growth in this life to us and help extend the Kingdom of Christ. We ask your blessing on all our efforts. With Christ as our example and guide, help us do the work You have asked and come to the reward You have prepared. And the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon us and remain with us always. Amen.

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Gerald Finzi - My Lovely One.

Humanising Work: Co-operatives, credit unions and the challenge of mass unemployment

Humanising Work: Co-operatives, credit unions and the challenge of mass unemployment is a new book by Chris Beales (Rainmaker Books, published October 2014. ISBN 978-1-909863-02-6 E-book £2.49 Paperback £5.99 (+ £2 p & p) 83 pages. Available from Amazon and Kobo).

Does the search for meaning in work matter? – and is it even possible to ask such a question against a backdrop of mass youth unemployment, widespread poverty and growing inequality? Drawing on the experience of the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain and other innovative models of employment and enterprise from around the world - and the visions and values derived from his faith - Chris explores how ‘work’ might be humanised and education and employment made not only responsive to what the Economy needs but also purposeful, satisfying and rewarding for people.

Also by Chris Beales: Practising Jesus. Rainmaker Books, ISBN 978-1-909863-00-2 Now available from info@rainmakerbooks.co.uk for £5.00 (+£2 p&p) pb 170 pages.

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The Clash - Clampdown.

A deep, wounding experience of rejection

"At the heart of unemployment is a deep, wounding experience of rejection. You are not wanted. Your contribution is not valued. You feel as if someone has kicked you in the stomach every day, for months and months. In February 2009 a young woman in London said “It feels like being dumped fifty times a day”. This experience is profoundly de-stabilizing.

If unemployment is prolonged, you also lose an income, you lose a routine, you lose a network of other people, and you lose an identity …"

Revd Raymond Draper who, for many years, was the Chairman of CHUG (The Christians Unemployment Group) has prepared some very helpful resources on the issue and experience of unemployment. They can be found at http://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/unemployment.html and http://www.mile.org.uk/news.htm.

Praying may seem a strange response to unemployment and yet as well as thinking and acting, Raymond Draper is helping Churches to pray and to go on praying about unemployment. He writes that one of the problems we face about prayer is the very narrow view we take of it. It is seen as a last resort. Prayer is what you do when all else fails! At least that is better than not praying at all – but prayer is meant to be far more than this. It is meant to be a natural part of our life. Prayer is becoming aware of God, sharing in his life and sharing our life with him. It is not first of all telling God things, it is about becoming receptive enough to hear what God wants to tell us. So when we pray about unemployment we are first of all asking God what he is saying to us through the sufferings of so many ... we are painfully exposing ourselves to face the reality of this suffering and the reality of God’s will for our society.

Such prayer leads us first, not to righteous indignation, but to penitence; to sorrow that we are part of a society which tolerates, accepts, and uses such suffering for its own ends. So we are led to pray for those who bear the heavy burdens of unemployment and for all who seek to help and support them. Some of us certainly want to go praying for those able to influence the economy; our national leaders; and to pray that we shall see a new sense of compassion and new bold and imaginative policies that will overcome this problem. Campaigns and projects, therefore, are not divorced from prayer – they are its fruit and they must be linked to prayer if they are not to go awry. We need God’s help constantly if we are to create a just society where we love and honour one another.

Long ago, a German Pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who opposed Adolf Hitler and was executed) wrote of the need to link prayer and action. He said: “The task of discovering a new Gospel (and building a new society) is rooted in prayer and righteous action ... It is only in the spirit of prayer that any such work can be begun and carried through ...”

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The Style Council - With Everything To Lose.

Interrogation

The letter was waiting on the mat for Sally when she got up that morning. She knew instinctively that it was the second summons that she had been dreading. What was it that they knew about her? What was it that they thought she was doing wrong? She left the letter where it lay and went to make a cup of tea.

Why did they want to see her and why the threats to cut off her money if she did not attend? She had already been too scared to go for the first appointment. Now she sat and thought how stupid that had been. They would probably be a lot harder on her because of that. She knew what they were like. Sod's! Trying to force her into work she didn't want or need. Trying to take away her money. All she wanted was to be left to bring up her daughter how she saw fit.
Kelly! She'd have to find a babysitter for Kelly. That would be extra expense, that and the bus fare. All for some poxy interview. Now, when was she commanded to attend? She ran for the letter in the hall. They'd spelt her name wrong again. It was Sally Thornton with an 'o' not an 'e'.

*****

It was up three flights of stairs to a pokey, dark hole of an office that five interviewers had been squeezed into. As well as the desks for the interviewers they had miraculously found space for two more desks for the office workers and five chairs for the waiting area. There were ten people waiting when Sally arrived, and three being interviewed.

As she watched another interviewer emerged from a door behind some screens and moved to her desk. A moment or so later one of the three interviews finished and a relieved interviewer vanished behind the screens and out of the door. The female interviewer who had just arrived came to the reception desk, called out a name and scurried back to her desk as though the waiting area was contagious. Sally looked around her. The walls were plastered with gaudy posters proclaiming the glad tidings of how you would be helped to start a business if you already possessed £1,000. Was that what they wanted her for? Would they only give her money if she started a business for them? Why couldn't they start their own damn businesses, if that's what they wanted? What did they want her for?

Someone was asking for her name, someone was asking for her name. Startled, she came out of her reverie. No! she felt like saying. What do you want my name for? What will you do with it if I let you? But then she thought, they get you anyway, and gave in. They took her name and placed it where she thought it had always belonged.

She had felt just so right from her school days, when she had always had less than the other kids and had consistently been in the lower grades. "You thick or something?" was a question she had been asked on more occasions than she cared to remember. Until she had met her boyfriend she had felt it was her role to be thick. He had valued her as a person like no one before or since.
She sat in silent intensity among the other useless nobodies sitting or standing in a tight semi-circle. She longed for them to return her name to her. As others around her ended their wait, she watched her name inch its way towards the top of the pile and back to her.

She was glad she had left her baby with a babysitter. There was another woman who had brought her two kids. They were running around the office, in and out of desks screwing up leaflets as they went. The interviewers were glaring. You could hear them tutting to their neighbours about that woman's lack of control. The woman had ceased to be a mother, the environment had disabled her. Her initial attempts to control the children had not been a success and she was now embarrassed to try further. It was clear to her, as it was not to the others, that with nothing to do and such a long time to wait there was nothing left for children but misbehaviour.

You could clearly hear the conversations from the interviewer's desks. She was sitting not six feet from one of them so it was hardly surprising. These interviewers removed people's defences as easily as a prostitute removes her clothing. Snatches of intimate moments from increasingly desperate lives were wafting from each desk to be retained or lost as each listening person cared. She felt like taking her clothing off and dancing on their desks to show them what they were doing. She knew though that they would strip her more completely than if she were to bare herself. At least if she were to do it she would be in control, but she was not in control was she?

They could strip her because they knew that she and her fragile family relied on the money that they handed out and that she would humiliate herself, prostitute herself to keep that money. In that moment she felt that she could have been led by the hand and made to commit terrible acts that would revolt her but still she would do them. It was her fate.

It was then that her name struggled its way to the front and was called from the desk. "Miss Thornton". As she received her name, a thought formed in her mind. A memory from school. She often remembered bits of information that she had been taught. It was not that she couldn't retain information more that she'd never been encouraged. It was a history thought that she had remembered. She could picture her teacher talking about concentration camps in the war, and disgusting photos of the people that died. Someone who had been in a camp had said that the people who survived were the people with a purpose in life. That had impressed her, a purpose.
She hadn't known what a purpose was, she certainly didn't have one then. She had imagined herself in the shoes of the prisoner awaiting interrogation. It was odd that she could feel the same nausea in her throat that she had imagined that prisoner feeling.

For a fatalistic moment she felt that she was a purposeless person who caved in under pressure and could not defend what was valuable in their lives, maybe didn't have anything valuable. She thought of Kelly and Stan, her boyfriend who loved her for herself, and she knew what she had to defend. She purposefully pulled up the chair at the desk and looked her interrogator full in his stare.

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The Jam - To Be Someone.