As I think about it, our economic reality is troubling in two significant ways.  First, the practical: it is troubling to watch the balances fall in retirement accounts.  It is troubling to watch friends, colleagues, associates lose their jobs.  It is troubling to worry about losing our own.  Or if we already have, finding a new one.  You could surely add your own personal experiences to this list.  As worrisome as these so-called “practical” concerns are, there is more.  Our economic reality is troubling in an existential way as well.  I say existential because some of the things on which we ground our existence seem suddenly up for grabs.  What I mean is this: when money market funds lose money, then we are hit by the fact that what we thought was secure actually wasn’t secure at all.  Or, as one reporter responding to a failing fund put it, “What, in today’s world, is truly safe?”[1]  Everything feels up for grabs.

Which takes us to our scriptures for the day.  In both passages, individuals find themselves confronted with the fearful prospect of everything in their world being “up for grabs.”  In Exodus, it is the recently freed Israelites who face this challenge, and in the gospel a small group of day laborers have their expectations turned upside down.  In both instances, the people face practical and existential questions.  And in both instances God answers with staggering generosity.

Let’s begin by considering the Israelites in their Exodus.  But first some important context.  Last week, we closed our service with what Richard called the “praise” of the people.  Taking our cue from the Israelites freed from slavery in Egypt, we offered our individual thanks and praises to God.  Remembering the words of Miriam’s triumphant song—“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea”[2]—we shared stories from our lives that made us want to sing praise to God.  Now, with our shared praises and the praises of Israel fresh in your minds, hear again the opening verse of Exodus.  “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.”  From praise to complaint like that.  “If only we had dies by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger.”[3]  We followed their lead last week, will we today?  Should we end today’s service with the “complaints” of the people?

I’m kidding…sort of.  We won’t have an organized gripe session at the conclusion of worship.  But I suspect that each of us might have something to say.  Which doesn’t make us ungrateful or bratty or faithless.  On the contrary, much of what we might protest to God would come from a place of deep love and profound faith.  “God, why is my dear friend sick?!  I know you desire wholeness for her!”  “God, how could my investments take such a hit?  I need to provide for my family!”  The Israelites’ complaints make some sense now don’t they?  Imagine mothers with young children in a strange land with no home—they might have been slaves, but at least they could count on their next meal.  Can’t you hear them voicing the same question as the financial reporter, “What in today’s world is truly safe?”  Everything was up for grabs.

Sometimes, like the ancient Israelites, we have to leave behind familiar things because they were harmful to us.  Sometimes, like them, we have to step into new, unknown spaces even though they are fearful to us.  But God is there. Sometimes we don’t feel like singing, but only complaining. Sometimes we fail to see what we have to be thankful for.  Sometimes we feel spent and empty right after we felt full and joyful.  But God is there. Sometimes we do lose our jobs.  Sometimes the money does run out.  Sometimes our reserves get spent.  But God is there.  Or as the psalmist put it in Psalm 139, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?”[4]  The answer: nowhere.

 Here’s the word for us today: we cannot complain ourselves away from God.  We cannot despair ourselves from God’s reach.  We may lose jobs or money or security but we cannot lose God.  God’s very nature is generosity and God will not withhold.  Remember, our story from Exodus this morning that began with the Israelites’ complaining ends with God’s bountifully sending quail and manna to fill their bellies and calm their hearts.

Does that feel good, to rest in the constancy of God in the midst of a world that feels precarious?  Yes.  it can, and I hope it does.  But God is not generous only to make us feel better.  God is generous to make us feel generous.

In the parable from Matthew, Jesus likens the “kingdom of God” to a landowner who hired some day laborers to work in his vineyard.  On five occasions throughout the day the landowner goes to the local hiring site and asks people to come and work.  At dusk when the workers come to collect their wages, the last ones to come on the job are paid first and given a full day’s wage.  Those who began working in the morning are paid last, also given a full day’s wage.  And they are outraged. Their worldview has been turned upside down, leaving them to wonder “What in today’s world is truly safe?”  If people who only worked an hour got a full day’s pay, then everything was up for grabs.  The landowner answers their question with a few of his own, “Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”[5]

The common interpretation of this parable is that God is the landowner, we are the workers, and that God will be generous to all of us—no matter how slowly we come to live our faith.  The first will be last and the last will be first.  If this parable is understood strictly theologically, then such an interpretation will do.  But remember, like we explored two weeks ago, our God is a political God—one intimately involved in the lives and decisions of the people.  Which is why the parable of the landowner needs more than just a theological interpretation…one that begins with the possibility that we are they landowner.

It works, does it not?  Many of us in this room are real landowners.  And if not landowners, then at least capital owners.  We certainly aren’t the day laborers in our village.  Not a one of us here spends our mornings in the parking lot of Straight Gate church.  So what does it mean to be the landowners?  It means that God is calling us, in the midst of uncertain circumstances, to shake things up with our generosity. It’s ironic that on a week like this, when so many have lost so much, even in this room, we're being asked to consider being generous people, even as God is generous.

One day last week I read an op-ed about corporate greed.[6]  In it the writer lambasted the pay scale typical for CEO’s.  One fellow (whose company just went under) was making approximately $17,000 an hour.  And the columnist was right—that’s just not o.k.  But you know, it’s easy to criticize that. In the same way that it’s easy just to assume that God is the landowner in the parable.  Because, it takes the responsibility off of us.  because we’re not earning 45 million dollars a year, and we’re certainly not God!  But  we together—the church—we’re the landowner.  Not each one of us, but all of us together.  And yes, while the salary of one CEO may in fact be enough to get clean drinking water to half of Africa, we as a community have together the resources—creative, financial, and otherwise—to have an equally large impact. 

Friends, I believe God is pleading with us today in these stories we’ve considered.  Pleading with us to see two very simple, yet profound truths.  First, God says, “Be generous as I am generous”.  And second, as God did with the Israelites in their uncertainty, today God is taking our hand and saying to us, “I know it’s scary.  Complain, fret all you like, but I’m not going anywhere.  I’m here. And it’s going to be o.k.”