+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” Thus the prophet Micah presents the vision of the Kingdom as the comfortable possession of a landowner at his ease. Likewise, from the prophet Zechariah, “In that day, says the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree.” Stability, permanence, comfort. These are the promise of the life to come, but not, as the Prophet Jonah discovered, the reality of the present age.
Jonah’s short-lived shade tree was meant to encourage in the prophet a sense of empathy for the penitent inhabitants of Nineveh, but it only made him feel sorry for himself. That didn’t have to be his response, but he had already shown himself the most callow and craven of prophets in his attempt to escape God’s call. Thank God for the reminder, yet again, that God can use the most imperfect of instruments to carry out his will (as I mentioned with regard to St. Peter a few weeks ago). Perhaps a more self-possessed prophet wouldn’t have required God’s explanation, but we can also be grateful that Jonah’s imperfection meant that God made the point clear for our sake. The experience of hardship can lead us to sympathize with and provide support for others when we take them as an opportunity for spiritual growth. If we don’t, we might become bitter instead, just like poor Jonah.
I have been very fortunate in life. I’ve had some hardships like anyone, sure, but my own life has been relatively free of precarious situations. So I can only report on what I’ve observed in others, which may not be the whole story, but it seems to me that people who have experienced real, serious hardship in life and have come through it tend to come in two varieties: those who recognize that it is only by God’s provision that they have come to a better place and those who believe that they have come to a better day entirely by their own efforts. The former are some of the kindest, most generous people you’ll ever meet, and the latter tend not to be so, acting as if they believed that their sheer force of personality is what made the shade-tree grow. This is all grossly over-simplified and entirely based on anecdotal evidence, but I’d be willing to bet it may ring true with your experience, too.
In the parable Jesus told about the day laborers in the vineyard one thing is held in common by those who worked all day long, those who barely worked at all, and everyone in between. Their very lives are all defined by a precarious financial reality. Maybe there will be work today and maybe there won’t. Maybe I can buy my family’s daily bread and maybe not. But at some point during the shift, those who’d been at it all day long forgot to be grateful.
Now the parable is about the Kingdom of God, not the labor market. You could try to use it to support “right to work” laws or you could try to use it to support a universal basic income. You could get proponents of both of those diametrically opposed positions together, give them the parable, and see who comes out on top. I don’t think either is the point, though. I think the point may be just as simple as this. We know, I hope, that the Kingdom of God when it comes will not be a reward for our good efforts, but rather as a gift from God. Likewise, all that we enjoy this side of paradise is a gift from God, and we can only truly enjoy those blessings when we realize that and are grateful.
All that said, this is not a sermon meant to encourage sloth, much less a sense of entitlement. By no means! It is simply to put the cart in front of the horse. Gratitude compels us to contribute our best efforts to the good work God has given us the privilege of undertaking in this life. Most especially this is done in the works of mercy, spiritual and corporal: feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted, sharing the Good News of Christ Jesus, and all the rest. “If it is to be life in the flesh,” St. Paul wrote in today’s Epistle, “that means fruitful labor for me.” If you thought he was taking a gloomy, fatalistic turn in that reading, I’d encourage you to take your bulletins home and read that lesson again. I think that there is a great deal of joy in that reading, despite the acknowledgment that the work is hard and unpopular. Joy that the Philippians are holding firm and joy that Paul himself gets in his hope to visit them again and work alongside them. It is nothing compared to the joy of heaven, but it’s still glorious. Maybe it’s because, unlike Jonah and unlike the day-laborers, he’s remembered that gratitude doesn’t just make the work easier. It makes it possible and it makes it joyful.
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.