Sermon preached on 9/18/11, the Sunday after the Bishop came to speak with the congregation about our options and stated that redevelopment is off the table. The days following I had a conversation with a couple that wanted to have their baby baptized and join the congregation and I had to tell them the situation and suggest they visit other congregations - but I I would still be honored to baptize their son. I had a few long time members tell me that they were going to start "church shopping", I had others tell me that they knew they had to look for a new congregation but they didn't want to "abandon ship" too soon. I knew this was on the hearts of many people in the pews this week and this is what I preached:
Field Grace
Tuesday night Bishop spoke to 23 of us about the future of Our congregation. The Bishop spoke well about many things, like what is life giving ministry? What is mission? What does a grace filled community look like?
A lot of what he said was up lifting and spoke so well to our situation here at Our congregation. Then, at the end of the 2 hour conversation, Bishop Miller got a little more serious and talked about what it would be like if Our congregation closed. And, even though this was hard for some of us to hear and extremely sad – the Bishop offered this conversation with such grace and peace that it felt like there is hope in the possibility of this congregation closing.
He recognized some of the fears and anger that some of us might have as we walk toward voting. He said that some of us might be afraid to worship in a new place because this is the only place we have ever known. He spoke with an amazing understand when he said this. Some of you we here when Our congregation was worshiping out of the Dance Studio or The Little Red School House. Many of you remember the building of the worship space and standing around, hand in hand, in an empty lot outlining the shape of the building with great excitement at the possibilities of expanding the building and what a growing ministry is capable of doing. Most of you have friendships that expand decades and people here that you trust to pray for you in your darkest times. And, all of you have found Jesus someplace in this building. Maybe at a bible study in one of the meeting rooms, maybe at the communion rail, maybe in the very pew you sit in now, maybe in Luther Hall at a Pancake Breakfast or fundraiser dinner. Of course some of us are going to be nervous to worship elsewhere – this is home, this is where we have worked so hard in the field.
In today’s parable Jesus shares a story about workers in a field, day workers, people that are finding it hard to make ends meet, men wanting to work hard and earn their pay. Then, we hard something that really makes no sense at all to us – some of the men put in a 10 hour day, some a 5 and some a 2 hour day – yet they all got paid the same amount of money at the end of the day. In our Western, capitalistic focused minds, this parable seems crazy and backwards. I’ve even heard politicians use this parable to say that God is against a minimum wage – that God is saying here that a boss should be able to pay a person what he wants to. But, that is not what this parable is saying at all – which is hard for us to understand because we look at the Bible through our world view, and in our world view of capitalism this just makes no sense. The story right before this parable is the story of the rich young man asking Jesus how to get into heaven and Jesus telling him that he has to sell all his positions and then he will be saved – then the rich young man looks at Jesus like he is crazy.
In both these stories, Jesus is not talking about finances in literal terms – Jesus is doing what he does best and he is pushing people to an uncomfortable place, he is looking at what people hold near and dear, what are people trusting more than God’s grace – then Jesus is telling us that these comforts are not what matter. These societal understanding are not what we should hang our faith on because God’s grace is bigger than any of that.
I am going to ask us to look at this parable in two slightly different ways, to come at it in two slightly different points of view. First, lets take all the money talk out of the story and instead change it to the “boss” being God, the wages being grace or salvation, and the workers being people that work at sharing God’s grace with others by working the mission field. How does that change the story? There are people that have been Christians that study the word, share the good news with others, fight for social justice for 75 years. They were brought to the baptism waters when they were 6 weeks old and they never looked back. They raised their children to be Christians, they have lived a life full of trust and love of Jesus – 75 years of faithful ministry. Then, there is a young man whose parents never brought him to church and going to church was never part of his childhood experience. There was no bible in the home, no examples of living a Christian life for him to follow. Then, one day, when he is about 40, he feels that there is a hole in his life and he doesn’t know how to fill it. He tries to fill it with money, with a family, with degrees… but the hole is still there. Then, one day he wanders into a small worshiping community and finds the hole beginning to be filled and asks to be baptized – he enters the mission filed later in life, but he is now determined to work hard. Then, there is a third person, this person is about 60 and has an on again, off again relationship with his small community church. Sure, he was baptized as an infant and he was brought to church until he was confirmed but he never felt a strong connection – he really stayed on the outskirts of the field – peaking his head through the bushes once in a while but never really going into the field to work. Then at 60 his is diagnosed with cancer and is forced to face his death. He then realizes that maybe there really is something to all this God stuff. He’s worried about what will happen to him after he dies and he starts to talk to pastors and friends that he knows to have a deep faith life and he eventually starts working in the field. He finds that even though his body is shutting down there is a life giving relationship that comes in Christ and he starts to share this with others – but only for a few months before he dies.
In this parable we have 3 different Christians, one that is a hard workers, faithful for years and years – all her life, she is the one that started work in the morning. The next is a person that found a mission filled life in middle age but came into the field working hard and long hours, he started working in the field in the afternoon. The last person essentially started working in the field on his deathbed. He found faith in his last hours, he is the worker that started in the field at 5pm. But, what Jesus parable tells us, is that all three of these people will receive the same grace, the same salvation. When we hear the story this way it doesn’t seem that crazy anymore – after all we now that we have a God full of grace and love and that God just wants workers in the field – it doesn’t matter when you get there. And with this rendition of the story we see fairness we say that God is amazing and what a gift grace is.
But, now I want to make the parable challenging once again – but keep our understanding that the workers are followers of Christ, the filed is the mission filed, the wage is grace and the boss is a compassionate God. Sure, we look at this and we say – thanks be to God! We are so happy to hear Jesus say that God’s love is for all – no matter when you fell connected to that love. But, then we are challenged by our human tendencies again – he live in a sinful world and we stray from God’s grace over and over – even if we do come to church week after week.
The Bishop told us that he understands it will be scary for some of us to find new church homes if this congregation closes – and that is true. Let’s look at the ways it’s scary. We won’t know the culture of the congregation, we will be the new kid on the block needing to try out a new womans group, a new mens group, volunteering to help with different committees that do things very different from us, the worship will use a different version of the prayers, might do communion a little different, and lets be completely honest, we are worried if we will be needed and at the same time cared for in a new worshiping community. From the outside we see it as a close knit group that understands their culture so well and how are we ever going to fit in – especially after all the years of working this field at Our congregation Lutheran.
God reminds us in this parable that we all are needed and that we are all needed to do one job and that is to love Jesus and work in God’s mission field by being fed the word of God and sharing God’s grace and love with others. When we find new church homes we are going to feel like the last worker hired for the day and we are going to feel like maybe our paycheck will be smaller at the end of the day – or maybe we are afraid that all the work done here won’t be transferred over – like our pension is lost. But, the reality is, we are going to be the new workers in the filed in a new worshiping community.
If we look at this parable in terms of congregation life we can see that the people that have been life long members of the church are the workers hired at the beginning of the day – they understand the land the best, they know the tricks to picking the grapes the fastest (or in church life speak – who to talk to in order to get an announcement in the bulletin). Then you have the people that have been members for 5 to ten years. They are past their learning curve in the workings of the congregation – they are able to startup new ministries and join teams and have a voice on the team because they learned the inner workings of the congregation. Then there will be us, the people new on the vineyard. We wont know which grapes make wine, which make champagne, which make grape juice. We won’t know who is pulling the grapes off the vines and who is collecting the grapes into the buckets and who is carrying the buckets up and down the steep hills to pour into the pressing machines. We are afraid that the mission field is not going to want us because the inner working look like a well oiled machine. But, when you start to feel that – when anxiety gets the better of you – I want you to remember this parable. It doesn’t matter if you have been a member of a congregation for 50 years, 5 years, or if you are new to the community – God needs all people working in the mission filed, no matter where it is and God’s grace, love, compassion, understanding and life giving hope is available to all and it’s there for all that work in the field – no matter how long they have been in that field.
Bishop was right when he told us on Tuesday that we need to find ways to have life and hope in our worshiping community. We find life and hope when we are doing life giving ministry and not just staying alive. There are congregations that have life giving ministry and are excited to have workers in the mission field no matter the length of years served in that particular vineyard. We are all workers in God’s mission field, we are all needed, and Gods grace is the payment we all receive day in and day out.
Amen.
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