Proper 20, Year A
Rachel Baird
September 18, 2011

Exodus 16:2-15; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

Three nurses appeared before St. Peter at the pearly gates. St. Peter said to the first, "Tell me what you did on earth." She said, "I was a birthing room nurse. I helped bring hundreds of precious babies into the world."

"Enter!" said St. Peter. Then he turned to the second. "And how about you?" he asked. She replied, "I was a trauma unit nurse. I helped save hundreds of lives of people involved in terrible accidents."

"Enter!" cried St. Peter, and turned to the third.  "I worked for an HMO," she admitted. "Over the years I saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars by refusing extended care to people who were trying to bilk the system."

"You may enter!" said St. Peter. "You really mean it?" asked the nurse incredulously. "Yes," replied St. Peter. "You've been pre-approved for three days."

When I "Googled" Pearly Gates Jokes, I found page upon page, dozens of them, all variations on one theme: what did you do in life to earn your way into heaven?  Jesus, however, makes it clear that it just doesn’t work that way.  Amazingly, I also found one joke that got it right.

A man died and approached the Pearly Gates. St. Peter told him heaven was getting crowded so he had to test people with the point system. If he got to 100 points he could enter. The man told Peter that he gave to the poor. Peter marked him down for 3 points. The man thought again, then said that he tithed. Peter added 2 points. The man, desperately searching his memory, finally said that he never cussed. Peter added ½ a point. By now the man got very frustrated and said that at this rate he could only get in by the grace of God. Peter replied, "Come on in!"

Those first workers in the vineyard carried a sense of entitlement that made them dissatisfied with their pay.  They worked harder and longer than the others and believed they had earned a greater reward.  But they were subscribing to human economics, not God’s economics.  In God’s economics, God is far less concerned with what you have earned, than with what you need.

In God’s economics, the reward is infinite, so you can’t receive more of it.  No matter when in your life you seek a relationship with God, you will not be turned away.  God waits with open arms, and offers heaven to anyone who desires it, whether they’ve served God for a lifetime or a minute.  It’s never too late to receive that reward, and latecomers don’t get put into a second-class heaven.  It is in God’s nature to choose to be generous.

In God’s economics, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s love.  God does not love us because we’ve earned it; God loves us because it is in God’s nature to love.  So there is also nothing we can do that will separate us from God’s love.  It is pure gift, offered to all, from the lowest sinner to the greatest saint.  As with the Israelites in the wilderness (another bunch of folks with entitlement issues), in God’s economics everyone has enough; no more, no less.  If you read a little further in Exodus, you’ll learn that when they gathered the bread in the mornings, no matter how much each one gathered, they each had just what they needed.  If any tried to save some for the next day, it became wormy and inedible.  But the next day there was always new bread to gather.  God was teaching the people to rely on the abundant generosity of God’s economics, where there is always enough, and never too much.

So here we sit, good church people that we are, working away in the vineyard.  We give something to the poor, we tithe or at least work toward tithing, we try not to cuss much.  Why are we doing this, if it’s not going to get us into heaven?  Why work so hard at Crossroads, or in the choir, or teaching Sunday School, when it doesn’t earn us anything?  Why not live a wild, self-serving life and squeeze in at the last minute with a deathbed conversion?

I can’t tell you why you’re here this morning when you could be sleeping late or playing golf or any number of pleasant things.  But I can tell you why I’m here, and I’m guessing your reasons are not so very different.

I am here because I have encountered the living God, and I cannot imagine a life without that relationship.  And here is a community that expresses God’s love in so many ways.  Here. . . here is life, and I want to be part of it.  We don’t have to wait until we die and go to heaven to experience the rewards of God’s love.  How often, when we help someone else, have we felt that we received at least as much as we gave?  We work hard at Crossroads or in the choir or teaching Sunday School because it gives us joy to serve God in humankind in these ways. 

One of the greatest saints of the church, Augustine of Hippo, way back in the 4^th century said, “Love God and do as you please.”  As we grow in our relationship with God and our love deepens, more and more what pleases us will be to follow where God leads us.  Not because we are earning some future reward, but because we are learning that God’s leading will bring us to the place of greatest joy.  Because we are coming to trust that God wills only the best for us.

This doesn’t mean God will lead us to a prosperous, pain-free life.  Many televangelists preach the benefits of faithfulness to God in very material terms, but I think they’re missing the point.  Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, in his book God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel, writes, "Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes are right about one thing: our God of abundance does want to give you your best life now. It's just that God's abundance is more radical than many of us have dared to dream."

God’s abundance is found in sometimes unexpected places.  It’s not about getting the right job or living in the best neighborhood or sending the kids to the finest schools.  It’s about discovering the relationships and activities that deepen our humanity, that make us alive.

Some years ago I heard a radio interview with Jean Vanier, the French Canadian philosopher who founded the L’Arche movement.  L’Arche houses are communities, now in 34 countries, centered around people with mental disabilities.  They transform the caregivers as much as those who are cared for.  Vanier said that the members of his community have taught him what it is to be human, because theirs is not a world of competition or value based on what you can accomplish.  Everybody has their place, everybody belongs.

It’s certainly not an easy or painless life in a L’Arche house.  But many have found it a grace-filled life.  The great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen spent his last eleven years as an assistant at Daybreak, a L’Arche house in Toronto.  He wrote about how his life was transformed by Adam, a severely disabled member of the community who could not speak, walk, or dress himself.  He wrote, “Adam taught me a lot about God's love in a very concrete way. First of all, he taught me that being is more important than doing, that God wants me to be with God and not to do all sorts of things to prove that I'm valuable. . . Then he taught me something else. He taught me that the heart is more important than the mind. Well, if you've come from a university, that's hard to learn. Minds thinking, having arguments, discussing writing, doing, that is what a human being is. Didn't Thomas Aquinas say that human beings are thinking animals? Well, Adam didn't think. Adam had a heart, a real human heart. I suddenly realized that what makes a human being human is the heart with which he can give and receive love. . .

“Finally, Adam was telling me something that is sort of obvious. Doing things together is more important than doing things alone. I came from a world that is very much concerned with doing things on your own, but here was Adam, so weak and vulnerable. I couldn't help Adam alone. We needed all sorts of people. We had a person from Brazil, people from the United States, Canada, Holland—young, old living together in one house around Adam and other handicapped people. Suddenly I realized that Adam, the weakest among us, created community. He brought us together and his needs, his vulnerability, made us into a true community. We could not have survived with all these different characters together if he hadn't been there. His weakness became our strength. His weakness made us into a loving community. His weakness invited us to forgive one another, to calm our arguments and to be with him. I think it is very important that God revealed Himself through Adam, telling me, ‘Henri, being is more important than doing; the heart is more important than the mind and living in community is a lot more important than trying to do it all on your own.’”

God does not reward us according to what we have earned, but gives to us abundantly out of unending love and generosity.  We receive that gift in community, and our richest life comes in seeking and living out life in whatever communities God calls us to.  Because God has far greater plans for us than we can ever imagine for ourselves.  Each one of us, no matter what, is God’s beloved child, and God is always welcoming us with open arms.  No matter what.