“What’s in it for me?”
That is a question that comes oh-so-naturally to us sons of Adam and
daughters of Eve. “What’s in it for
me?” Sinful human beings are somewhat
willing to sacrifice, work, and suffer, but only if there is a handsome payoff
for all of that at the end. If there
isn’t a payoff, or the payoff isn’t as big as we want it to be, then good luck
getting someone to sacrifice, work, or suffer.
The only other way that the sinner is going to be impelled
to work in that case is by fear. Every
kid knows what it’s like to be put to work on the basis of fear. Mom or Dad or both are going to make my life
miserable if I don’t do what they told me to do, and so I will do it. How does it feel to work under those
conditions? Don’t they just hate doing
it, and can’t wait to be done with it?
That’s because the only thing that we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve
care about is what’s in it for us. If we
can avoid pain or be handsomely rewarded with money or glory or praise or self-esteem
or some other payoff, then we might do something unpleasant. Otherwise, it’s “no thank you.”
Suppose God thought the way that we do. What’s in it for him with all the things that
he does every moment in sustaining the universe? The answer is nothing. He isn’t benefited in any way. But he is not slavish like us. He is free.
He has his head up looking around.
He gives and gives and gives and gives.
He does this in spite of the way that he is paid back. If he only did good to those who do him good,
then even the very best and pious Christians would find that they have no help
or comfort from God because they wouldn’t deserve it. And what of those who are less than the
best—are disobedient, unbelieving, unthankful?
If they were paid tit for tat they would have no happiness and only
misery. Life would be hell for
them. But God is patient and long
suffering, desiring that his goodness might bring us to repentance. He loads up even those who hate him with all
kinds of good things. God is love. He is not motivated by what is in it for
him. He suffers so that we are
benefitted.
There are a couple of Jesus’s parables that throw a
spotlight on this difference between God who loves and we who don’t. These parables are the one we find
perplexing, because our Old Adam can’t understand them at all. Our Gospel reading this morning is one of
them. There’s something that doesn’t sit
quite right with us in the way that these workers are treated. Some are hired at 6 o’clock in the
morning. Some are hired at 9:00. Some are hired at noon and at 3:00. Finally, some are hired at 5:00, one hour
before quitting time. You know how work
is. It takes you a little bit to get in
the swing of things, and then at the end of the day you need to pick things
up. This doesn’t allow these last
workers to get hardly any work done. And
yet they receive the same amount of money as the people who have been working
all day long.
What gives? Guess
what happened the next day when the master of the house went strolling through
the marketplace looking for workers? If
word got out what was going on he probably wouldn’t find anybody until 5:00. Then he would have a busload of workers. Why?
Because we are driven by the thought: “What’s in it for me?” If I can get paid the same for working one
hour or twelve hours, I think I’ll choose the one hour option.
But this is only because we don’t care about anybody else
except ourselves. This is proof that
those workers don’t give a rip about the master of the house who hired them or
the work that he might need to have done.
They wouldn’t care that they aren’t contributing anything, but only
taking, so long as they get what they want.
This is why it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Employers don’t give a rip about their
employees and so they squeeze them for everything they possibly can. Employees don’t give a rip about their
bosses, and so they will do as little as they can—just enough to keep the boss
off their back. Or maybe if they have
some self-respect, they’ll do more than the rest, but only so that they can
have the payoff of praise or self-righteousness. If the work should become harder or if they
don’t feel sufficiently appreciated, then they will say, “See you later!” and
move on to someplace else that holds better prospects of giving them what they
want. Because all any sinner cares about
is, “What’s in it for me?”
Most people, and perhaps a goodly number of you included, do
not think that this is sin. But this is
the root sin that corresponds to the root of God’s Law. As St. Paul says, all the commandments are
summed up with the one word of “love.”
God is love, and that is why he gives and gives and gives and gives some
more. And so there is nothing more wrong
about us than that we don’t care about other people except ourselves and
perhaps those select few whom we choose to also care about. But Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Enemies are people who are out to get you and
to hurt you. “Love those,” Jesus says.
Again, most people are going to reject this because they
hate God’s Law. They think that it is
unrealistic. They might even think that
it is dumb or evil because it tells us to always give. If you are always giving, then that might hamper
your quality of life. It might even
shorten the length of your life. People
who are always giving get worn out and used up.
This is good and holy in God’s sight because it is the way that we are
conformed to the image of God’s Son.
Jesus loved and so he gave, until there was nothing left. Blessed are those people who are his
disciples, who learn from him, and follow him.
But the world doesn’t think of that as being blessed. It sounds like a lot of work without any
payoff.
At the heart of why Jesus’s parable is perplexing is that
the supreme wisdom of the natural Man is taken down. There is no more highly prized bit of wisdom
to us as sinners than that we should try to get as much as we can for ourselves
with as little effort as possible. It is
offensive to the natural Man, therefore, that there are workers who suffered
more and did not get paid more.
According to the Old Adam that is either stupid or evil.
What the Gospel teaches us, however, is that neither the
work nor the reward is the main thing.
Our flesh is always drawn to pay close attention to both these
things. But what is important and
life-changing for these workers in the vineyard is not that they are going to
get filthy stinking rich. Rather the
main thing is that they were chosen by the master of the house. They had been standing in the marketplace as
worthless pieces of trash—standing idle, caring only about themselves, knowing
nothing of love, deserving of nothing but punishment—but the master of the
house has called them unto himself: “Come, and be mine,” he says.
Likewise, the main thing for us as Christians is the call
that we have received from God to be his own and live under him in his kingdom
and serve him with everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Each and everyone one of you has been called
to be God’s own. Each of you have been spoken
to by God. You have all been
baptized. You have all been united with
Christ. That is God saying to you,
“Come, and be mine. Come, and work in my
vineyard.” I said the word “work” and
your Old Adam might immediately protest, “I don’t want to work!” but don’t be
fooled—that is not where the emphasis lies.
The emphasis is on the word, “Come.
Come, and be mine.”
It’s like when Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who
labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Come. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus speaks of “work” here too with the word “yoke.” A yoke is that piece of equipment that
animals use to pull stuff—to do heavy work—but the emphasis obviously is on the
invitation to fellowship with him. The
yoke will follow as a matter of course, but it will be found to be easy and
light. That is not because what
Christians do is not difficult or dangerous.
To the contrary! But the joy that
we have in God our Savior renews the spirit and makes difficult thing easy and
bitter things sweet so long as we don’t give in to our Old Adam. This is part of the transformation of our
hearts and minds that the Holy Spirit works in us so that we are made different
from this old, evil, selfish world and begin to covet those true treasures
which rust and moth cannot destroy, and thieves cannot break in and steal.
Those who by the Holy Spirit know the goodness of being
called into the vineyard of the Lord are not going to begrudge that joyous
thing to anyone. If someone is a
Christian his or her whole life, then this is a cause for rejoicing. If someone is brought to repentance for sin
and is saved from hell only moments before their death, then Christians will
rejoice then too. What matters is not
the work or the suffering of the enduring of persecution, but that the love of
God has been poured into our heart and Christians are glad to see that happen
also for another. In the parable all the
workers receive a denarius. They all get
the same thing. The reward for
Christians is the crown of everlasting life of fellowship with God who is
Love. There is nothing more or higher or
better that can be given than that.
At the end of Jesus’s parable today he says, “The last
will be first, and the first last.”
This contradicts the way that we normally think. According to our thinking the last will be
last and the first will be first. In a
similar way we might think that those Christians who work more or suffer more
should receive higher wages. But
Christians themselves will tell you that it is not the work or the suffering or
the hope of reward that they are care so much about. They treasure the call to be God’s own. God has loved them and therefore called
them. They now love because he first
loved us and want to be with him. Something
inevitable that goes along with this is enduring the attacks of the devil and
the world who hate them, but that is not the main thing. The main thing is being together with Jesus.
And so as Christians we need to learn new ways of thinking
that are different from the ways that we might think by nature. The mentality that asks, “What’s in it for
me?” is the reason why this world is torn apart by greed, lust, divorce,
frustration, bitterness, sadness, and a whole host of other evils. The world knows nothing of genuine love, even
though it chatters about love unceasingly.
Those who think that the highest wisdom of life is the accumulation of
pleasure and riches will be offended by Jesus’s parable. It won’t seem fair that although the
experiences of Christians differ, and some have it harder than others, that
they are all made equal receiving the same reward.
But only caring about yourself and your own interests is not
the supreme wisdom. The devil and
sinners are dead wrong. Love is better
wisdom and it will finally prevail. In
this world it might seem as though the opposite of love is what is going to get
you ahead, but that is false already in this life. The apostles and martyrs who died because
they loved Jesus did not live bad lives.
The lived the best of lives. It
is foolish to want to live differently than them. We should covet their zeal and love, for
these are treasures that will not be destroyed at the end of the world. Everything else will.
The supreme wisdom of love also continues into the life of
the world to come, in heaven, love will fill everything as St. Paul describes
in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Meanwhile in
hell those who are only looking out for themselves and their own interests will
be tearing each other apart. All the
restraints God places on our lives in this world to keep people’s lusts in
check (and there are many of them), will be taken away. We live in a dog-eat-dog world, but hell is a
dog-eat-dog world where nothing is held back.
Jesus tells his parables so that we can learn from them and
become wise according to the true wisdom.
The world’s wisdom of self-interest is false. The better wisdom of love will prevail over
everything.
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