It's Five O'clock Somewhere (Sermon)

“It’s Five O’clock Somewhere”

Matthew 20:1-16

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/4/15

         The longer I wandered around in this story, the more it became a kind of rising river. And the deeper I waded into the river, the more urgently the flow tugged at my whole being. It began to pull me deeper and push me further than I wanted to go. Anything I might have chosen or expected, anything I might have fished for in that river began to dilute into the irrepressible cataract of holy purpose.

         As a pastor, I am committed to the intentional community called the church. I have a very personal stake in the well-being of the organization. If the church falls apart, my career ends. No more salary, or benefits, or self-actualization. It is clearly in my own best interests, as well as those of many others, to maintain the integrity of the institution as well as its message.

         While that is not a bad thing, I do recognize the danger of institutions devolving into beasts. Governments, corporations, universities, individual congregations, religions in general – the list goes on. At some point, almost all institutions face the temptation to exist simply to survive for their own sake. When this happens, an institution abandons its mission. It becomes a ravenous maw on the earth. It consumes far more in resources than it produces in benefits.

         Perhaps the recent, bold-faced fraud of Volkswagen represents a good example. So does Duke Energy’s self-preservationist denials of the now-proven hazards to all life near its many ash ponds. Pharaoh, Jezebel, Caesar, the Pharisees – all of these are biblical metaphors for both political and religious institutions run amok.

Moses, Elijah, Jesus – all of these reformers and transformers are, in some way, products of the institutions, yet even as agitators, they are gifts of God for the people of God, whether God’s people are ready to welcome them or not.

Through the prophetic words and actions of these human gifts, God reveals anew God’s scandalous presence in, with, and for the creation. The trouble with prophets is that they seem, at first, to represent far more in the way of threat than hope. We face an abundance of threat, but only hope that redeems. To help us discern God’s kingdom-revealing hope in the work of holy agitators, Jesus tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

         The kingdom of heaven, he says, is like a landowner who chooses to give as generously to workers who labor for one hour as he does to those who labor all day.

         The defining characteristic of God’s true prophets is a gratuitous generosity that deeply offends our sense of all that is right and just. Their generosity challenges everything that we have been taught lies at the foundation of our familiar institutions.

‘This won’t do,’ we say. ‘If such a practices become standard procedure, all laborers will show up at 5:00pm expecting to receive a day’s wage for an hour’s work. Such wanton openhandedness threatens the very foundation of our culture!’

         I do not know exactly how institutions might adopt more gratuitously generous practices. Raise the minimum wage? Increase maternity leave? Offer more vacation days? Many economic arguments against such things clearly have merit. So do biblical arguments for them – as Jesus’ parable clearly illustrates.

I am not in a position to impact decisions in any institution beyond the small community of this particular congregation. But something seems apparent enough to me. It’s five o’clock somewhere. It is always time for you, for me, for us to express our utter faith in God by living more generously than we might think is warranted or even healthy.

Five o’clock urgency broke through again on Thursday when yet another angry young man killed or wounded some 20 people in Oregon.

Five o’clock urgency cries out from Syria as hostilities continue to escalate in that country.

Five o’clock urgency beats at the borders of many nations as refugees from violence, poverty, and natural disaster force people from homes they would rather not leave.

Five o’clock urgency is, right now, sending new people in search of help at Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, soup kitchens, and shelters throughout the world.

It is five o’clock all over God’s creation. And institutions that exist for their own sake will simply dismiss the hour with anemic “thoughts and prayers.” Unless they discern some clear financial or political reward for taking decisive action, institutions that exist for their own sake will do nothing.

Even if we are in some way part of the institutions, as individual “landowners,” you and I cannot depend on them. It is time to be prophets, as inside agitators. It is time for us to enter the rising river and to offer gratuitous generosity to everyone, especially those who seem to be caught in the throes of 5:00 loneliness and despair. As we are reminded virtually every month on some campus, in some church, in some theater or shopping center, initiating undeserved kindness can be the difference between life and death for many people. It seems to me that in the long run, no firearm will ever make any person or community safer than the generous practice of faith, hope, Love, and gratitude.

Jesus’ parable says that the kingdom of heaven is not manifest in some new world order imposed by some victorious institution. We manifest the kingdom of heaven in our willingness to actively engage and witness to the alternative way of life of Jesus – a way of life marked by a generosity so profound that few institutions dare to participate.

Sadly, this seems to be true even for the institutional Church.

Friends, it is five o’clock – here and now. As we come to this table on World Communion Sunday, we proclaim yet again, even when our jealousy prevents us from fully enjoying it, the boundless, limitless, perfect, and perfecting Love of God in Christ.

Everyone, come to the table. Enter the rising river, and embrace the terrifyingly generous life of Jesus.