Offensive Grace!

 

Sunday 20^th September – Trinity 15 – Proper 20

Jonah 3:10 – 4:11. Jonah is angry with God because he shows mercy to the people of Nineveh when they repent. Nineveh was the capital city of the hated Assyrian empire who had conquered Israel in 722BC and sent the people into exile. This exposes an all too human trait towards exclusivity that expects God to favour only them or their sect while everyone else is Damned. This natural human reaction exposes a basic insecurity, a desire to possess God for one’s own benefit, so anyone outside your “club” becomes an unwelcome competitor.  

Philippians 1: 21-30. Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell and his future fate is uncertain – will he live or die? Paul assures the recipients of this letter that whatever happens, neither option does he see as failure or loss because “living is Christ and dying is gain”. But whatever happens, he wants them “to live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ”. The gospel is freely given to human beings and this is our appropriate response.  

Matthew 20: 1-16. The jealousy, nay anger, of people at the extent of God’s generosity exhibited by Jonah (see above) is in some sense natural but ultimately groundless. This sense of natural justice is exhibited in this parable of Jesus by the labourers who had worked all day for their wages and got no more for their efforts that those who had just worked an hour. The point is that we all get the same – boundless love, mercy, and redemption – no matter when we respond.   

 

This week the theme of God’s generosity and Mercy continues by underlining two further elements that have always bothered people, then and now.

Jonah is so angry with God because he shows mercy to the people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians had conquered Israel in 722BC and so of course were hardly in the good books of the Hebrew people.

The natural enmity that Jonah felt for them, he naturally thought God should show for them too – but in a little acted parable God demonstrates that Jonah in fact has more care for a shady bush shielding him from the hot sun than he does for a large city full of people.

God himself of course is Lord of all people, whether he is recognised and acknowledged or not.

The same natural instinct is true for us. We find it very hard to recognise that God could care just as much for our enemies and rivals as he is for us.

Whether that be Germans in the second world war, Russians in the cold war, Chinese in a trade war or on a much more personal level, our adversary in court, the person who robbed our house, or just given us a parking ticket.

Surely God must prefer us and be completely on our side, mustn’t he?

I’m the good guy here. But all sides think the same. During WW11 the belt buckles of German soldiers carried the slogan “Gott mit uns” – God is with us.

God cares for all creation.

Sure, he cares about me but he also cares about all other living things as well because nothing in creation exists beyond his orbit of love and mercy.

The gospel story highlights another aspect that bothers us about God’s mercy.

We can be fervent and observant Christians all our lives but apparently, according to this parable, we get nothing more than a rogue who lives a dissolute life and who makes a deathbed conversion.

Our sense of human Justice kicks in and thinks we must deserve much more than them?

But you can’t get more than everything – that is what God gifts to all people that turn to him no matter when that happens.

As the parable says “Are you envious because I am generous?

An important point to mention is that this parable wasn’t told to the crowds but to the Disciples themselves and so was a warning to people who were already insiders about the reality of Divine Grace.

Grace doesn’t rest on the merit system and because of that we insiders can grumble, inwardly if not openly,

“Doesn’t grace undermine the whole reason for being good, for having standards, for keeping rules, and living justly?”

We romanticize the notion of Grace without taking seriously how it undercuts our entire system of merit and justice, which Grace offends against.

We are not against Grace as such. We are against Grace being shown to others.

It’s an old story. From Jonah resenting Mercy being shown to the people of Nineveh, the elder brother resenting the love shown to the prodigal son, the pharisee thanking God he is not like the sinful publican.

When we have invested so much in the merit system and want to see a reward for our labours, Grace shown to others we consider less deserving cuts deep.

Grace no longer seems to be so sentimental. It has a hard edge we can find offensive.

But as God affirms in Isaiah 55: 8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.