Matthew 20:1-16

The Kingdom is like a landowner

Before I was ordained, or had even studied any theology, I was a member a church community in Bristol. It was a creative open inclusive church community. As a church, before my time being there, the church had created a vision statement which in some ways expressed the church’s tendencies towards openness and inclusion, but it was also very challenging. The vision was: Cotham aspires to cherish all, regardless of marital and social status, sexual orientation or level of church commitment. The idea of cherishing is not about accepting, not about tolerating. As Christians we are called to cherish even those who we don’t want to or don’t feel comfortable with. But while we can cherish some easily, there are others who we can find it very difficult to cherish.

In our Gospel reading Jesus tells one of his parables about the Kingdom of Heaven – he compares the kingdom to the landowner of a vineyard. The Land owner goes out and hires labourers 5 times during the day, starting before 9 and not finishing until 5. Each time he takes whatever labourers he finds, even takes the ones rejected by others, and sends them to work in his vineyard. When the landowner comes to pay them they all get the same wage – they all receive he same payment. Regardless of how hard they worked or how much they produced, how well recommended they came or anything. They all got the same reward in the Kingdom of heaven. It wasn’t what they earned – it is what the landowner chose to give them. God cherishes and loves each one of us regardless of what we do to earn it. On many levels the whole story sits uneasy with our ideas of fairness – where is the hourly rate or the commission, where is the variable pay, the bonus, how is this ok?

For the folk at Cotham they were very keen to cherish all regardless of marital and social status or sexual orientation. If they saw somebody who might not be sure if they would be welcomed into church under any of these categories they would make a b-line for them. The thing we struggled with more – and I even remember many a conversation about it – was church commitment. In principle it was clearly one way which somebody had perceived we needed to be inclusive. But a number of the people took their being a part of the congregation really seriously. They would come to things simply to support one another as fellow church members. They took participation and a commitment to it as a really important part of what their faith demanded of them. And it’s true, Church going is not another consumable activity alongside going to the cinema or visiting a cafe. Being a Christian does demand we do more than passively receive – we are all encouraged to pray, here and at home – we are all meant to have a relationship with Jesus which is life changing – from it I hope you should all recognise you have a responsibility to serve God. But we are not all in the same place on our journey. Some of us may have just arrived, some of us may have been here a while. Some may have been burnt by church and some may have simply no capacity to do more. The challenge to cherish all regardless of church commitment meant at Cotham we were challenged not to judge somebody by how much they did or how involved they got – because however much God might want us to do – we are all loved by God whether we do it or not. And for some God is not asking you to bake all the cakes for the fete and take meals for people and so on and so on

In our first reading we jump into the end of the story. To recap – Jonah had been sent to tell the people of Ninevah that God had a horrible punishment lined up for them because they had been such awful sinners. Jonah didn’t want to go – he ran away – but eventually, thanks to the help of a whale who swallowed Jonah whole, Jonah reaches Ninevah and is made to tell the people how badly they had been behaving. The people heard Jonah and decided to stop doing all the things God didn’t want them to do. And God decides to spare the people of Ninevah. This makes Jonah really, really angry. Here he had been terrified of telling the people what was to come and now God was going to make him look like a liar by not doing those things. A bit like the way the successful vaccinations have led some people to say Covid wasn’t as bad as people had originally thought it could be, without acknowledging the impact was massively reduced by the vaccination program. God cherishes the people of Ninevah – they are created and loved by God and so when they turn from their sinful ways God decides not to punish them. But Jonah is annoyed – like many of us might be – that these people didn’t do what they meant to do but God isn’t going to punish them! A bit like the labourers who feel they should get more that the people started working in the vineyard later. But God loves them all and they all get a place in God’s Kingdom – no, it’s not fair in that they didn’t earn it, but then none of us can earn our place in the Kingdom It is God’s to give – thank goodness God gives it so freely. I wonder who we at All Saints struggle to cherish, who we don’t quite let all the way in. Who do you judge as not trying hard enough, not being engaged enough, not believing well enough. Who are we suspect of their motivations and reasons for being here?

The reality is we aren’t called to make judgements about who is worthy – or what motivations are. We aren’t called to judge who tries hard enough, who is friendly enough or who conforms and fits in with our friends. As christians we are called to welcome and include everybody who comes into our midst – and not just include them but cherish them for who they are – a child of God made in the image of the almighty and redeemed through the generous love and sacrifice of Christ. And if that’s good enough for God – then it should darn well be good enough for you and me!

The Reverend Robin Sims-Williams