Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
June 22, 2022
The Invitatory
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The earth is the Lord’s for he made it: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Matthew 20:1-16
‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers 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 market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 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; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When 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. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “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.” But he 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. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
“Unfair!” you want to shout. Take a breath, for today’s message is one of essential and foundational reordering. “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” We give so much credence and significance to being first - in our social, economic, and political lives. We say: First come, first served, first class, first string; first world. What is surprising here is that the landowner would treat all the workers he hired to work in his vineyard equally, paying them the same daily wage, irrespective of when each worker was hired.
Jesus presents to his disciples and to the church a new order. Rather than support differentiation or reinforce the superiority of some at the expense of the rest, the landowner levels the social and economic structure and treats the workers in solidarity. The wages he pays speak of equality and solidarity.
We, like the workers, want to give our energy to the inequity, rather than the availability of work. Envy assumes more importance than what the workers have received. Envy endangers all. Christianity warned its believers to protect themselves from being affected by envy in case they themselves might be the source. Likewise we need to guard ourselves from the anger. Jonah experienced when the bush that gave him shade died at God’s hand. God warns him saying, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” Envy and anger severely undermine and can destroy our bodies, our minds and our souls and will separate us from God, our fellow humans and ourselves. Especially in the face of God’s grace and generosity. The implication for our spiritual health is that we are unable to embrace the belief that God’s grace is for all people. Despite Jonah’s disobedience and despite the workers’ envy or evil eye, God’s love and generosity persist.
Such separation causes us to lose sight of what is of primary importance here - the point of the parable itself: The kingdom of God is like…. If the Kingdom of God means anything at all, if the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of God, it at least means a relationship in which we know the generosity of God. And the Kingdom of God is not something that you and I have to build. God is God, all by God’s self. God is first and foremost. We are all alike as we stand before him. In the Kingdom of God, rank of any kind, built upon wealth, status or power, will have absolutely no meaning or force. The words preceding this parable and the words concluding it are the same. The first shall come last and the last shall come first.
It is the Kingdom of God and this means the kingdom is of his creation and of which He is the sole sovereign. He is the answer to our need for generosity. From Him comes the generosity that makes it possible to become a fellowship - indeed, the Body of Christ - through which he meets our needs.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
