{"id":99,"date":"2011-09-18T13:14:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T17:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bendroth.org\/?page_id=99"},"modified":"2012-02-28T10:42:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T15:42:35","slug":"hell-is-for-accountants","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/?page_id=99","title":{"rendered":"Hell Is for Accountants (with apologies to any accountants)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Matthew 20: 1-16 \/ 25th Sunday in ordinary time \/September 18, 2011\/Norman B. Bendroth<\/p>\n

A man owned a vineyard.\u00a0 It’s been a good year, weather-wise.\u00a0 The grapes are rich and full and ready for plucking, so Mr. Bordeaux gets up early, showers and shaves, and goes down to the village to hire some laborers to pick the grapes.\u00a0 Un\u00adfortunately, every other grower is looking for help, too, so Mr. Bordeaux must pay a premium wage to get the people he needs, say $150 per day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Bordeaux loads his crew into his pickup and heads back to the vines.\u00a0 But the harvest is so good and the grapes are so ripe, Bordeaux quickly sees that he needs more hands. So, back in the pickup he goes, at 9 a.m., then again at noon, and finally at 3 p.m., giving all the workers the same line.\u00a0 He’ll pay what’s right, top dollar.\u00a0 One hour before quitting time he sees that the job won’t get done without all the hands he can muster, so he goes back one last time.\u00a0 All that’s left by that late hour is your usual group of losers that nobody wanted to hire, hang\u00adin’ out, shooting craps, drinking cheap wine.\u00a0 What the heck, thinks Bob.\u00a0 He goes up to them and offers them work.\u00a0 What the heck, they think.\u00a0 It’s only an hour before dark.\u00a0 Maybe we could make enough to go halves on a six-pack.\u00a0 Let’s go.<\/p>\n

So, what do you think happens when Bordeaux drops off each successive group at the vineyard? Right.\u00a0 They ask the guys who got there first, “What’d the old man say he’d pay you?\u00a0 $150 bucks!\u00a0 Well, let’s see, 150 divided by 12, wow! That means those of us who got here at noon will get $75 bucks.\u00a0 You guys that just got here, well that’s a good $12.50 for you.\u00a0 You can buy a couple of six packs with that.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

Bob Bordeaux, however, had a surprise for them.\u00a0 At the end of the day, with all his grapes safe in the vats, he’s happy.\u00a0 May\u00ad\u00adbe he’s been into a little of his 1985 Bordeaux.\u00a0 He’s feeling good.\u00a0 At any rate, he pays everybody off, beginning with those shift\u00adless losers who got there last.\u00a0 So when the first guy, the one with the sunglasses and the gold earring, opens his en\u00advel\u00adope and finds 15 tens in it, he doesn’t say, “Mr. Bordeaux, ex\u00adcuse me, I think you make a mistake.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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No, he plugs in his iPod and starts walking as fast as his blue jeans will carry him.\u00a0 He’s out of there before the old man realizes what he’s done.\u00a0 And when his friends who got there earlier finally get their envelopes and catch up with him, he can’t wait to tell them what jerks they were for sweating out there all day when he got the same money for one hour of work, and in the cool of the day, too.<\/p>\n

Think how the people felt who had been there since dawn! They hightail it back to Bordeaux\u2019s ranch, screaming their heads off. “What kind of way is this any way to run a vineyard?”<\/em> they demand to know.<\/p>\n

“Look, pal,”<\/em> says Bordeaux, who by this time is well into his sec\u00adond bottle. “Who made you chief bookkeeper? You agreed to work for $150 per day. You worked one day. You got $150.\u00a0 If I want to give some guy in sunglasses and a gold earring the same as you, so what? Why is your nose out of joint? I’m only hav\u00ading a good time.\u00a0 Here, there are no early insiders or late out\u00adsiders.\u00a0 Here everybody gets to have a good time.\u00a0 Why should you mope about my generosity?\u00a0 Go on by the tasting room and get a free chardonnay.\u00a0 Drink up, or get out.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now, think hard.\u00a0 Is this parable a case study in the grace of God or in the judgment of God?\u00a0 Well, you say could say grace, because the losers got clobbered by the sheer, un\u00adde\u00adserved, extravagant love of God.\u00a0 Or maybe, you say it’s not about grace, but about judgment? How so? Because the out\u00adcome was great for that lazy street rat, but lousy for the hard working day laborer?\u00a0 I thought grace was supposed to make everybody feel good.\u00a0 Why does grace sometimes sting?<\/p>\n

John Wesley, on the occasion of being kicked out of an English pulpit, once said, “There are few matters more repugnant to reasonable people than the grace of God.”<\/em> Repugnant?<\/p>\n

How did you feel when you heard that Watergate crook Jeb Mcgruder was headed to Princeton seminary to become a min\u00adister? Were you elated when you learned that millionaire co\u00adcaine dealer John Delorean had gotten born again? Wat\u00ader\u00adgate crook Charles Colson while in prison, got born again, and star\u00adted a nationwide ministry to prisoners and families. When we insiders hear that these “sinners” get the same reward that was promised to us good, faithful, church-going people that burns us.<\/p>\n

So, it is a parable of judgment as much as, maybe more than, a story of grace.\u00a0 When the Lord of the vineyard finally loses his cool, he vents his anger not on the losers, but on the win\u00adners.\u00a0 He is fed up not with the unacceptable outsiders, the dead\u00adbeat do-nothings and losers, but with those insiders who can’t accept the scope of the Lord’s acceptance.\u00a0 He says, “Are you envious because I am generous?”<\/em> literally, the Greek trans\u00adlates, “Is your eye evil because I am good?”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is this “evil eye,”<\/em> this ophthalmos poneros<\/em>, the evil book\u00adkeep\u00ader’s eye, always fixed on the accounts, always keeping score, that has got God’s goat.\u00a0 Bookkeeping is a sin. There is no min\u00adimum balance below which the grace of God refuses to for\u00adgive. There is no debt so high that your credit is cancelled. There is no worry over your credits because all of us live in the red, eternally indebted. If we’re ev\u00ader going to make it to God’s party, it will have to be because we got invited, not because we worked our way in.<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s why Jesus\u2019 harshest words of condemnation are always for the insiders, those presumed to be living in the black.\u00a0 In this kingdom, nobody gets kicked out except for those who are already in.\u00a0 The father said to the older brother who re\u00adfused to party at the return of the prodigal son, “Son, all that I have is already yours. Come on; get that evil out of your eye.\u00a0 Let’s party.”<\/em> That story ends with the no-count loser at the party, and the good, scorekeeping, CPA older brother out\u00adside pouting about the father’s generosity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Robert Capon, Episcopal priest and provocative author, says that if the world would be saved by bookkeeping and set\u00adtling accounts, God would have sent Moses, not Jesus.\u00a0 The law was OK, as far as it went.\u00a0 But about all that thousand years of law proved was that, in Paul\u2019s words, “No one is righteous, no not even one”<\/em> (Rom. 3:10).\u00a0 God, in Jesus, gave up the accountant job, closed the books forever, gathered all our iou’s and nailed them on a cross.\u00a0 After that, it appears, only the “winners” lose.\u00a0 On\u00adly the “losers” win.<\/p>\n

God’s given up on salvation by the books and quit keeping score long ago. Now the only way to get saved is to be willing to come to the party, to let go of our accounting and let God be as reckless, as prodigal, as indiscreet with grace as God wants.<\/p>\n

The most scornful, divisive thing they could say about Jesus is, “This man eats and drinks with sinners.”<\/em> he will party with any\u00adone, have fun with riffraff! Heaven is a party for losers.\u00a0 Would you come to such a party?<\/p>\n

Finally, at the end of the day, when the judge puts on the wig and robe and bangs down the gavel and calls the court to or\u00adder, to pass judgment on our lives, finally our only hope, when\u00adever we got here, in whatever condition we arrived, at what\u00adever hour of the day, our only hope is that Jesus will con\u00adtin\u00adue to party with riffraff, and drink with sinners, and love the losers.<\/p>\n

Hmmmm. Folks like you and me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew 20: 1-16 \/ 25th Sunday in ordinary time \/September 18, 2011\/Norman B. Bendroth A man owned a vineyard.\u00a0 It’s been a good year, weather-wise.\u00a0 The grapes are rich and full and ready for plucking, so Mr. Bordeaux gets up … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":73,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-99","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99\/revisions\/199"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendroth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}