God's Odd Calculus Exodus 16:1-8, Matthew 20:1-16

Imagine a world where the value of pi did NOT equal 3.1415926525…,
or the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle
was NOT equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides,
or, God forbid, ax squared + bx + c did NOT equal 0?.
Alright, most of you out there are saying to yourself…”So?”
But you engineers…you engineers understand that the world as we know it
would be very different if these classic mathematical formulas didn’t hold true.
We rely on their constancy.

There are certain GIVENS in this world we depend on –
theories that have risen up through centuries of scholarly inquiry and reflection
that seem to accurately describe the way things are and ought to be.
But every now and then there is a moment of new illumination;
every now and then there is a sudden crack in a pet assumption
and a radically different reality comes into focus;
Without warning a flat earth becomes round,
and this round earth moves out of the center of the solar system and becomes
just another planet circling the sun,

The initial response to such breakthroughs is usually resistance;
persecution by those who have a vested interest in the old way of seeing.
But once you shift your perspective to the new reality,
everything becomes so much clearer.

The thing that made Jesus such a threat to those in power
was that his teaching and ministry put a big crack in the general assumptions
that kept those in power IN power.
In Jesus, light and color was streaming through, illuminating the dull, gray landscape
and it irked those who liked things the way they were.
In a direct challenge to all the political, economic, social, and religious elements
that characterized the GIVENS of life in Jesus’ day
Matthew reports that Jesus came talking about the Kingdom of God,
NOT as a FUTURE promise, but as a PRESENT reality.
He came amongst them talking about God’s odd new calculus
where the first would be last and the last first.

The first will be last and the last first.
THAT is a huge crack in the given order of things.
Who in their right mind would ever have THAT idea?
It’s AGAINST direct experience.
It’s AGAINST all common sense.
What kind of world could operate in that manner?
Would we WANT a world that operated in that manner?

Jesus tells a parable to illustrate his point;
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning
to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.”
We’re told the landowner did the same thing four more times,
only these times he told the laborers he would pay them “whatever is right.”

Although the end of this parable is a stunning reversal
of the GIVENS of economic theory and good business practice,
UNTIL the end, the landowner behaves very much
according to what many in our business world would call “best practices.”

First of all, we have in this story an engaged landowner.
He is not one to delegate the work of hiring to his manager as one might expect.
At the Darden School they call this MBWA - “Management by Walking Around.”
Second, we need to note that the landowner isn’t particularly generous
in the deal he makes with the first workers.
The usual daily wage was just enough to get by, nothing more.
Though he is eccentric, we can’t accuse him of being economically naïve.
Third, the landowner apparently can’t stand idleness.
Five times he schleps down to the village square to pick up workers.
Nobody who CAN work should sit idle.
Who can argue with that?

So, the workers worked – some fortunate to be hired first thing
and able to enjoy the security as they worked through the day
that when evening came they would have enough to get by until the next day.
The others, however, did not enjoy that security.
They expected less than the usual days wage
which was better than nothing, but not enough to keep them and their families
from slipping deeper into poverty
Still, by virtue of the landowner’s good business practices
and willingness to hire even at the end of the day,
everyone would have something.

We know the rest of the story.
The eccentric landowner sets it up so that the “All Day” laborers
will be last in the pay line
so they can see that everyone present is paid the usual day’s wage.
They are set up to feel the intense discomfort that anybody feels
when a cherished assumption is blown out of the water,
when suddenly 2 + 2 = 5 2/3.
These workers grumbled against the landowner – and who can blame them –
because it hadn’t yet hit them how life in God’s kingdom
where everyone gets what they need
is, in the end, far better for everyone
than a world where some have everything and some starve.

Still, all the Sunday school piety aside
we look at this parable and immediately our defenses go on alert.
A little voice says, “What is this? Communism?”
Another little voice says, “This is a sure fire recipe for a welfare state!”
But look closer.
Jesus doesn’t refute a system where there is a landowner and workers.
And nobody in the parable gets paid for doing nothing.

The landowner is richer than anyone.
But in God’s kingdom that doesn’t make him better or worse than anyone else;
It only means he bears the responsibility for treating the workers of his village fairly.
The point is NOT that he is compelled to pay them the same amount.
But as one who has everything,
he does bear the responsibility for seeing that they each receive enough.


This is the critical difference between the marketplace and the kingdom of God.
In the marketplace it’s every person for him or her self.
In God’s kingdom, we have a responsibility to each other.
In the marketplace we are angry if our portfolio loses money
even if we have enough.
In God’s kingdom, what matters is not my return on investment,
but that all God’s children have enough, not just to get by, but to thrive.

We in this country are feeling the miserable consequences of economic practices
that have been motivated largely by greed and self interest.
It’s easy to point our finger at mortgage brokers or Wall Street gamblers
but any of us who benefited from rising stocks or property value appreciation
were willing, if silent partners in the process.
At the same time developing nations are being crushed by rising fuel and food prices.
It’s enough to make me want to ball up in a protective shell
and just ride it out until things recover.

But now, more than ever, is the time for the Church of Jesus Christ,
for those of us who claim citizenship in the Kingdom of God
to speak of an alternative world view
than the one that’s gotten us in this mess.
It’s time for us, not to ball up, but to extend our hand further to those who are hurting,
to those who do not have enough.
Heine Vingerling, our partner who with others has founded orphanages
and feeding programs in Haiti was here visiting a few weeks ago.
He met with our Mission Ministry Team and recounted how it’s never been so bad.
But then he said, “But isn’t it wonderful that God has given us this opportunity
to be the church and to take advantage of this chance to serve in God’s name.”

The first shall be last and the last first.
It’s not so much a program as a state of mind.
It’s hard for us to take it to heart;
it’s so different from our usual way of looking at things, such an odd calculus.
The interesting thing, though, is that, time and time again,
those who have the courage to try God’s new calculus
find that it actually seems to work.

Mark Labberton, a Presbyterian pastor in Berkley, CA
tells of a bakery he goes to sometimes called Bake Sale Betty’s.1
It’s in a bad neighborhood in a run down shopping center
and business after business in that spot has failed – until Betty’s.
Labberton recounts the first time he went to Betty’s with his wife.
They ordered coffee and a pastry to split.
Betty’s husband, the clerk, saw the pastry they almost chose,
and he put that pastry on their plate as well.
“Here,” he said, “I think you’ll really like this. No charge. Just tell me if you like it.”
As they got up to leave, they decided to buy one of Betty’s famous chicken pot pies.
Again, as they went to pay, the clerk also put an entire apple pie in the bag.
“This apple pie goes great with the chicken pot pie,” He said. No charge.

Anybody looking at Bake Sale Betty’s profit margin
might say they’re nuts to give food away like that.
But their only advertising is word of mouth
and whenever they’re open a line snakes out the door.
They could carefully account for every crumb,
calculating the maximum amount the market will bear and charging accordingly.
But they’ve apparently caught onto a new math, an odd sort of calculus,
where the first will be last and the last first, and everyone has what they need.

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1 Labberton, Mark, “Betty’s Secret Ingredient,” Leadership Journal, Summer 2008.