“Inclusive Trust”
“Inclusive Trust”
Exodus 16:2-15 Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 Matthew 20:1-16
Year A, Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 24, 2023
Pastor Andy Kennaly, Sandpoint, Idaho
This morning’s scriptures are wonderful stories that illustrate the interplay between past, present, and future. Time as duration is involved with this, but chronology is not the focus. What is the focus is quality, intensity, relationship, and intention. In this way, various eras are more connected than it may seem.
In Exodus we discover manna from heaven, the bread God gives to the people for sustenance in the wilderness. This comes only after much grumbling and complaining, and God hears them. God sets up a test to see if they follow instructions or not. God’s faithfulness provides for them in ways that are surprising because usually wilderness starvation doesn’t work out very well.
Psalm 105 echoes the story of faithful provision and builds on it with intentional praises to God. The people are called to “remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,” and this is addressed to the “offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones.” Again in verse 41 we hear that God “brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing.”
Twice this people who seek the LORD and the LORD’s strength, those who seek the LORD’s presence continually, these people are called “chosen.” That word, “chosen” changes the entire tone, feel, and effect of these passages, and this is how linear time gets messed with. Stories of the past are mentioned, but the focus shifts from the past to the present and even the future. Then, songs of praise are not trapped in history, but are current, relevant, and powerful. The present and the future are what this Psalm is really about as people live out the reality of being chosen by God, God’s beloved, a people blessed with divine Presence and promise. Not just them back then, but today.
The passage from Matthew is similar. Rather than a long history, the context is one day, from morning to evening. Various groups of workers engage in farm labor, some all day, others part of the day, and some hardly any work at all. What introduces this story is Jesus saying, “For the kingdom of heaven is like…” and then comes this story of the landowner who hires laborers for the vineyard. The story is filled with familiar things that we know about, like wages and getting paid for work, productivity. We see clock time, early morning, then nine, then noon, and three o’clock, then evening comes. But then there are reversals as the last are paid first and the first are paid last and they all get the same amount in this kingdom of heaven process.
There are a couple ways this involves shifting and surprise. It starts out like a contract, a contract that agrees with the early morning workers to pay them the usual daily wage. Both parties agree, worker and owner. The other groups are told they will be paid whatever is right. What starts out like a contract morphs into a bit more open-ended verbal agreement, but then with the later groups, all one can do is rely on trust. The ones who have trust are blessed with abundance, while the ones who operate like a contract are the ones who grumble over technicalities and failed expectations when they compare themselves to others who are assumed to be separate and different than themselves.
In the church office there are a couple of pictures of this church. Like the one with a women’s group of some sort, with a few men, all standing outside on the front steps of the church. The women are in dresses and the men are in suits. They don’t smile, and I don’t blame them because those dresses don’t look very comfortable. It is a group photo, and the picture captures one moment in time and puts it on film. But you can’t tell from the photo which women have been part of that group for a long time, and which women are newer to that group. Maybe someone in that picture joined them just a couple days before, and yet here they are pictured by long-time members of that group. In the picture, they are all in. They are part of each other and are not separate.
In a similar way, there’s a radical inclusivity that takes place in the story from Matthew, of workers; those from “all day” put on the same level as those who worked just a bit. In that sense, time also blurs as duration is not a reliable measure. How long they’ve been there doesn’t matter. Relationships are more accurate, belonging has more intensity. In that sense, something else is shifting.
This something else is much more intense, yet very subtle, and has to do with Patriarchy’s dominance of organized religion. What this story shows is a shift to the Divine Feminine, which is radically inclusive and regenerative. In this case, it’s not only the Vineyard that is cultivated, but the peoples’ lives experience abundant provision in ways that are removed from meritocracy and patriarchy’s system of reward/punishment. By using stories of the past, a more balanced future calls out the imbalances of the present that are based on separation, drawing us toward wholeness, and inclusion.
As the present and future interact with the past, and these stories inform our lives and understanding today, we’re reminded of what John Philip Newell mentions in his book, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to what our Souls Know and Healing the World. He says, “We live in a threshold moment. We are waking up to the earth again. We are awakening to the feminine and the desire to faithfully tend the interrelationship of all things. In this moment, politically, culturally, and religiously, we are witnessing the death throes of a shadow form of masculine power that has arrayed itself over against the earth and over against the sacredness of the feminine. This shadow form of power, however, has no ultimate future, for it is essentially false in its betrayal of the earth and the feminine. So in fear it is lashing out with unprecedented force. But it is not the deep spirit of this moment in time. Something else is trying to be born.
“Just as the earth is forever pushing forth new life, so it is with the human soul. We can be alert to where this is happening, where new vision is trying to be born among us. In other words, we can be watchful…” (John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, Harper One, 2021, pg. 65).
Like the Psalmist says, “Seek the LORD and the LORD’s strength, seek the LORD’s presence continually.” As creatures of the Earth, our soul resonates with divine creativity, and God’s eternal love is manifested each moment. May God give us open hearts and minds to see beyond our own assumptions, concepts of time, and the death throes of cultural deficiencies. May we be co-creators as the Spirit births new and creative movements that reveal the living Christ. Thanks be to God for stories of the past that shape us, even now, by the future that opens God’s glories that shine. May God be glorified, now, even as forever. Amen.