Are you a generous person? Would the waitress who served your last meal consider you generous? Would your employees? Would your spouse? Would God? Today we are starting a new series on generosity at FCC. Here is the first message: Oct 12, 2014 Love Grows...through generosity Matthew 20: 1-16 The Apostle Paul tells us that there are certain qualities that grow and mature in our lives as we open ourselves to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. He calls them the “fruits of the spirit” and he names the following qualities: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23).” As our spiritual lives deepen, these “fruits of the spirit” become more and more evident in us. For the next five weeks here in worship at FCC we going to be focusing on the spiritual fruit of “generosity.” We are doing so, in part, to prepare us for our annual pledge Sunday on November 9th when we invite everyone to pledge their financial support for the ministries of the church. But we are also holding this five week focus in worship because generosity is a spiritual discipline that we need to practice in order to grow into deeper relationships with God and with our neighbors. Today we heard a disturbing parable that Jesus told about the laborers in the vineyard that reminds us that in order to get to generosity, we have to be willing to move beyond fairness. I think fairness is one of the biggest theological stumbling blocks we encounter in life. We are so preoccupied with fairness in our culture that when finally realize that God is not fair, it throws us into a theological conundrum. In our culture, fairness has been elevated to divine status. We’ve written it into our creation narrative: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and God saw that it was “fair.” We’ve made it one of the canons in our sacred Decalogue: thou shalt be fair. Fairness is one of the foundational principles of family life. Parents are excruciatingly careful to distribute their time, attention and material resources equally among all their offspring. When dinner portions are distributed they are carefully measured and monitored to insure that no one gets more or less than another. When Christmas gifts are chosen for each child, they are equalized for monetary value. When one-on-one time is allocated it is carefully balanced to insure that all of the siblings have equal access to quality face time with mom and dad. Fairness is an important principle for any household. It is a safeguard against sibling rivalry, insecurity, jealousy and resentment. We have horrible stories in our sacred texts that speak of the injury caused when parents show undue favor to one sibling over another: Cane and Able, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers…. By being fair about the distribution of time, attention and material resources parents assure their offspring that they are all equally valued and loved. Fairness is also one of the foundational principles of our democracy. When we declared our independence from England, we cited the importance of fairness in our common life: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness....” Those beautiful words of Thomas Jefferson are immortalized in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and even though women and African American slaves and indigenous peoples were exempted from this principle of fairness when our nation was founded, having that declaration in the founding document of our nation continually brings us back to re-examine whether and how this principle of fairness is being lived out in our common life. Fairness has been at the heart of some of the most significant, controversial and far reaching legal and political debates in our history: the 13th amendment abolishing slavery in 1865, the 19th amendment establishing a woman’s right to vote in 1920, the civil rights act of 1964, the voting rights act of 1965 and gay marriage rights that are now quickly moving through state and federal appellate courts across our nation. Fairness has been used as a justification for affirmative action programs to restore fairness to disadvantaged populations who have been denied access to opportunities available to others and fairness has been invoked as the principle for dismantling affirmative action programs by giving unfair advantages to some over others. The language of fairness is woven into our cultural jargon with phrases we invoke like: “level playing field, equal opportunity and fair share.” Even though the reality of fairness continues to elude us, the value of fairness permeates our culture. So it is not surprising that this notion of fairness also permeated our theology. Because we expect our families and our neighbors and our government to be fair, we have made God the final arbiter of fairness. We expect God to insure that everyone gets what they have coming to them. We expect God to redress any injustices that violate our sense of fairness. We expect God to reward the good and to punish the wicked. But at some point in our lives, something inevitably happens that shatters the illusion of fairness that we’ve incorporated into our theology. It might be a devastating loss: a child dying in infancy, or a marriage unraveling in divorce, or a close friend struck down with cancer before attaining the average life expectancy of 77 years for a man or 82 years for a women. Or maybe your retirement savings was swindled by a disreputable financial planner, or the cost of your medications has used up all the income you had set aside for travel or maybe your job was terminated and you haven’t been able to find anything that pays a comparable salary. Eventually something will shatter our illusion of life’s fairness, and when it does, it rattles the foundations of our faith. Some religious people deal with the reality of life’s unfairness by setting their sights on the life to come. Even though life in this world is harsh, brutal and unfair, they believe that life in heaven will be different. Fortunes will be reversed: the first shall be last and the last shall be first. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the injustices of this life will finally be corrected. The wicked will be held accountable and the righteousness of the faithful will be rewarded. Other people deal with reality of life’s unfairness by giving up on God. Their faith has betrayed them and they can no longer subscribe to a belief in a God who allows the wicked to prosper while the righteous suffer. Instead, they revoke their faith, withdraw from religious community, and abandon any hope that God’s kingdom will ever prevail. They become like Job’s wife who, in the face of life’s unfairness, advised her husband to, “curse God and die.” But those who persevere in their faith after their illusion of the fairness of God is shattered discover that beyond fairness is generosity. God is not fair. God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. As the Psalmist once said so beautifully, “(God) does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is (God’s) steadfast love… (Psalm 103: 10-11).” Beyond fairness we discover the generosity of God: the one who breathed into lifeless dust the breath of our lives, the one who sustains us day by day with the good gifts of creation, the one who invites us into sacred community with people who engage us with compassion and understanding, patience and forgiveness, laughter and joy. Those who hold on to faith even after their illusion of the fairness of God is shattered discover that life is a precious gift that is ours to cherish and savor and share for a season. There is nothing that anyone owes us. There are only opportunities to share the blessings that we have received with others. The only way we can ever get to generosity is to move beyond fairness. Generosity is a fruit of the spirit that grows and matures once we realize that life is a gift and all of the blessings that fill our days with joy are not things we’ve earned or are entitled to or deserve. They are gifts that are ours through the generosity of God’s mercy and grace. When we awaken to that spiritual truth, then gratitude fills our hearts and inspires us to live generous lives. When we receive each day as a gift from God, then we feel compelled to share our blessings with others who are equally undeserving. So where are you in the parable that Jesus told? Are you the early morning laborer preoccupied with fairness and resenting the generosity of the owner? Or are you the laborer hired in the last hour who is astonished at the owner’s generosity? Your capacity to live a generous life depends on your answer to that question. Amen.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 10:21:16 +0000
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