Pentecost XIV - Robert T. Brooks

“Are you envious because I am generous?” Matthew 20:15

“Envy,” a friend of mine says, “is the sin of the church.” The sin of the church, not one of the sins,
but the most prevalent and insidious one. Envy is one of the 7 deadly sins, and is defined as “sadness, sorrow, or grief about another’s possessions insofar as they surpass, or are thought to surpass, your own.”
Envy happens when I think the other guy got a better deal than I did, and it makes me crazy to think about it. When I was a kid, it was about my friend’s new bike (the one I wanted but didn’t have). When I was a little older, it was his new car (much better, I thought, than the old 1936 Ford I was driving). Later still, it might have been his fancy new house. In all these instances, I’m upset because he has more than I do, or at least it looks that way to me.

“Are you envious because I am generous?” Consider the story Jesus told his friends about the laborers in the vineyard. The workers who were hired early in the morning, those who had shown up at dawn,
those who lived by the old maxim that “the early bird gets the worm,” those who had spent a full twelve hours in the scorching sun- these hard-working laborers picked grapes all day long, only to return to the paymaster to find out that others, ones who had worked just nine hours, or six hours, or three hours,
even those who worked just one hour, were to be paid exactly the same wage as were those who put in a full day’s backbreaking work. It was these workers, the diligent, long suffering ones, whom the master names as envious.

But don’t these long suffering, hard working farm hands have a valid point? After all, why should someone
who worked a fraction of the time they did be paid the same wage? Its’ just not fair, they said. It’s not equitable. After all, it was HOT out there, and we worked hard all day. Why should they be rewarded just the same way we were?

Why? Because the owner of the vineyard is generous. Because those who worked the twelve hour day
had been treated fairly from the beginning, and were paid exactly what was promised to them.

The hard working farm workers were bothered, not because they had been disadvantaged, but because others had been given a gift which they did not appear to earn.

These workers made a misguided comparison between earning a living and being given a gift. They made the mistake of confusing that which was earned and that which was given. And, being the ones who worked the hardest, they complain about those who have received a “freebie.” As is the case with all the parables Jesus used, this story illuminates, or draws a picture of, the way it is in God’s kingdom. But it also illustrates what the kingdom ISN’T. And what the kingdom isn’t is a place where we earn our way in.

The dangerous thing about the workers who toiled in the fields all day long is their attitude. They think they deserve better treatment from the boss because they’ve worked so hard and long. Their theological problem is what we call “works righteousness,” an attitude that says “The more I do, the harder I work, the more God will love and reward me.”

But that’s not the way God works, and that’s not the way the kingdom works. Salvation is the gift we’ve received from God, salvation is not something we earn. Yet we are so often tempted to try to earn our way into God’s favor, to work our way into the Kingdom. This is what “works righteousness” is all about. So when someone else receives the gift of God’s favor and goodness, when someone who doesn’t appear to deserve it receives this gift from God, then envy is the inevitable and all too common response. Envy, the sadness, sorrow, or grief about God’s demonstrated love for another, about God’s gift of grace to someone else, insofar as it surpasses, or appears to surpass, our own.

Let me give you an example of envy, the sin of the church. A comment I’ve heard frequently over the years is this: “You see Mr. and Mrs. Jones over there? Why, they haven’t been here for months! I’m surprised they even dared show up at all!” What’s usually not said, but what’s often meant by such a comment is this: “Those people aren’t REAL Christians. They’re certainly not as worthy as those of us who come here every week.”

These statements, and the attitude and opinions that underlie them, are paraphrases of the comments
of those who worked a full day in the vineyard; “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” Envy in the church could be about attendance, or about involvement (like I work on three committees, and you don’t so I’m more deserving of God’s favor than you are), or about the size of my pledge compared to yours. Envy shows up when the old timers thumb their noses at newcomers, or when the able-bodied disregard the needs of the disabled, or when adults resent the presence of children in church. The ease with which we can think of examples of envy in the church is why my friend was so accurate when he said “envy is the sin of the church.” It was envy, you see, that motivated the faithful ones in Jerusalem to hand Jesus over to trial.
(Matt.27:18 “Pilate realized that it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to be crucified.”) Envy was the sin of the faithful 2,000 years ago, and it continues to be the sin of the church today.

“Are you envious because I am generous?” Consider Jonah, the reluctant prophet, called by God to preach repentance to the Assyrians at Ninevah. Jonah thought them so despicable that he ran away and booked passage on a ship bound for Tarshish, only to be thrown overboard, swallowed by a fish, and then miraculously regurgitated onto the beach. Only then did Jonah agree, reluctantly, to do as God had commanded.

And a miraculous thing happened there at Ninevah. Jonah entered the city, a city so large that it took three days to walk through it, and he warned the people of God’s anger with them. The miraculous thing is that Jonah only had to say this once, just inside the city walls, before the people of Ninevah listened, paid attention, and repented. They proclaimed a fast, and everyone in the city dressed in sackcloth.

Given his spectacular success, you might expect Jonah to have been jubilant, or at least satisfied. But what was his reaction to this turn of events? He was angry, like a petulant child who sulks in a corner. Jonah went off and sat outside the city, feeling sorry for himself.

Why? Because he was envious of the Ninevites. Jonah was unable to accept the fact that God could be gracious and merciful to the Assyrians, the ones who had treated God’s people, Jonah’s people, so brutally. What Jonah really wanted was for God to punish the Ninevites. His fear was that he would succeed in his vocation as a prophet, that the people of Ninevah would repent, and that God would forgive them. And when they did repent, and God did forgive them, Jonah was envious.

Perhaps the saddest part of Jonah’s story is its ending. The story ends with Jonah, sulking in his booth outside Ninevah, still angry, despite the fact that Jonah himself understood that it was God’s steadfast love
that motivated God to send Jonah there in the first place. Jonah understood how infinitely forgiving God can be, yet he resisted to the end. Listen to what Jonah had to say: “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. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

How tragic. Jonah would rather die than live, he would rather die than forgive. This, my friends, is the fruit of envy. Envy begets despair and hopelessness. Envy begets spiritual death.

“Are you envious because I am generous?” Envy is an example of trying to prevent God from being God. Envy is my attempt to prevent God from being generous, to be gracious, to be merciful with others, while at the same time demanding that God be fair with me. But God is generous, no matter how hard we try to get in the way. God is gracious and merciful, no matter how much we try to deny it.

The Right Reverend Lyman Ogilby, a towering man who was Bishop of Pennsylvania, was talking about stewardship with our vestry some years ago. “Never restrain a generous impulse,” he said. “Never restrain a generous impulse.”

Bishop Ogilby’s statement was in the form of a challenge, a challenge to let God be God, and to allow God’s grace and generosity to become part of our lives in that parish as we expressed our own generosity.

And his was a statement about our humanity. The reality that we see in Jonah’s sullen response to God’s grace, the envy and jealousy of the vineyard workers in Jesus’ parable, these are reflections of our inability
to live peaceably in God’s creation, these are indications of our own brokenness.

At the same time, Bishop Ogilby’s challenge, to “never restrain a generous impulse,” was an acknowledgment that we human beings, made in God’s image, do have the capacity to be generous, as God is. We do have the ability to be gracious and merciful, as God is. We who have been offered salvation in Christ Jesus can show our thanks, in and through our own generosity.

So as you consider your ongoing outreach efforts at Christ Church, as you approach the beginning of your stewardship campaign this fall, I ask you to remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard. As you consider your support of God’s work, here and elsewhere, I ask you to remember the story of God’s graciousness in Ninevah. As you make your commitment to this work, I ask you to remember the bishop’s challenge to “never restrain a generous impulse.” In the days ahead, I ask you to consider this: are you envious because God is generous, or are you generous because God has been generous with you?

Amen.