"An Alternative Economic System?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 24, 2023
Scripture:  Matthew 20:1-16


If you were in worship last Sunday, I warned you that Jesus spends a lot of time talking about money in the readings assigned to this fall. If you had been at the Board of Stewards meeting on Tuesday night, I also warned the Stewards that Jesus doesn’t always talk about money in the way that the Stewards and treasurers might want him to talk about money!

 

I have to confess, I’m not an economist. I don’t have a deep understanding about how money works – when I do need to understand how money works, there are people I can hire to understand it for me! But even I can recognize that what the landowner does in the story that Jesus tells doesn’t make any sense at all.

 

We live in a society that runs on capitalism.  The goal of capitalism is to earn as much money as possible and to spend as little money as possible.  In a capitalist version of this story, the landowner would pay the workers who had worked all day a denarius – the day’s salary for a labourer.  And then the landowner should have pro-rated the salary for the workers who only worked part of the day. Remember that capitalism says that you want to spend as little money as possible to keep as much as possible for yourself.

 

In an extreme capitalist version of this story, the landowner probably could have even set up an employment bidding war – put out a RFP (a Request for Proposals) and the labourers willing to work for the lowest salary would have been hired on for the day. There seems to be a surplus of workers – more workers than jobs – and so the law of supply and demand says that the landowner could have saved even more money that way.

 

But this isn’t the story that Jesus tells.  Jesus tells us a story about a landowner who pays the workers who worked all day the going wage, a denarius.  But then the landowner goes on to pay the workers who only worked part of the day the same wage, a denarius. Even the workers who only worked for the last hour of the day received a full day’s salary.

 

From the perspective of capitalism, this parable makes no sense at all.

 

And if we were to take the perspective of the workers who worked all day long, through the hot hours of midday, through to the exhausting hours of late afternoon… to see these johnny-come-latelies receive the same salary… well, this seems to be downright unfair.  Why are you getting a higher hourly wage than we are, when we’re the ones who did all of the hot and backbreaking work?

 

One of the downsides of capitalism is that it puts all of us in competition with each other.  I work hard so that I can get ahead. Ahead of who, you might ask.  Ahead of all of my neighbours so that I can have the biggest house and the newest car and the most exclusive vacations.

 

But Jesus tells us a different story.  Jesus seems to present us with a different economic system than capitalism.

 

The thing about a denarius is that it was a subsistence wage.  You would be able to pay your rent and feed your family for a denarius, but you wouldn’t be able to put any money aside for a rainy day.  It would keep you alive, but no more than that.

 

And those workers who weren’t hired first thing in the morning… their need for subsistence wasn’t any less than the workers who were hired on first thing.  They still needed to pay their rent and feed their families.  And so that is what the landowner gives them – a denarius – a day’s wage.

 

It's almost as if Jesus is presenting us with an alternate economic system to capitalism.  An economic system where needs are met without any need to “earn the right” to be fed and housed and clothed.  An economic system that respects the dignity of people over the need of the wealthy to make more money.

 

And just as he did in the parable we read last week, Jesus begins this one with, “For the kingdom of heaven is like…” Jesus is painting a picture of what God’s world is like.  A world where everyone has enough.  A world that is governed by generosity rather than by greed.  A world where nobody needs to be afraid of scarcity.  A world where the right to subsistence is given rather than earned.  A radically different economic system than the one we are living in.  An economic system where there are no winners and losers, but only winners.  An economic system that is determined by grace.

 

This is what God’s kingdom is like.

 

And just as I said last week, I truly believe that we in the church are called to be a microcosm of this sort of world.  The kingdom of heaven hasn’t yet been realized across the whole world… some day it will, but not yet.  But while we are waiting, within the church we can start practicing living with this sort of grace.

 

That is why I think that something like Ida’s Cupboard is such a fabulous initiative.  When we are able, we put some extra food in the cupboard; and then when someone is in need of food, they can come and take it, no questions asked, no need to prove their need to anyone.  This is operating on God’s economy.

 

Or something like Mission & Service.  We give our money to Mission & Service each year, or each month, or each week.  We may never know who that money goes to help, we will likely never meet them, but we hear stories each week about how what we give is giving a leg up to another person or another community so that they can build a better life.

 

Or there is the push for GLI or a Guaranteed Livable Income, that so many United Church people are advocating for in Canada.  That is exactly in line with this parable – every person receiving an income that will allow them to live with dignity, simply because they are human and not because they have crossed some arbitrary “finish line” of having done enough to earn it.

 

This is what grace looks like in action.  This is what God’s economy is like.  This is the kingdom of heaven beginning to break into our every-day life.

 

Let me finish with one more story, this one coming to us from Lewis Carroll and his fantastical book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  I know that I’ve shared this part of the story with you before, but a good story is always worth re-telling!

 

You might remember that Alice falls down a rabbit hole, and ends up in Wonderland, a place where anything might happen.  Right away, she ends up growing to more than 9 feet tall, and then shrinking down to just a few inches high, back and forth a couple of times; and then she ends up tiny but swimming in a sea of tears that she cried when she was tall, along with a bunch of other small animals and birds.

 

When they all make it to shore, and are quite wet, they try to figure out how to get dry; and after a few false starts, the Dodo suggests a Caucus Race.  And now, in the words of Lewis Carroll, this is what happened next:

 

“First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.  There was no “one, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.  However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’

 

“This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence.  At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’”

 

And so I would summarize the parable of Jesus that we read today in the words of the Dodo and say, “The kingdom of heaven is like a Caucus Race – everybody wins, and all will have prizes.”

 

 

An Economy of Grace:

“Take what you need; leave what you can.”

Ida’s Cupboard, Westfield United Church

"What's the Catch?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 17, 2023
Scripture Reading:  Matthew 18:21-35


Once upon a time, in a land far, far away – let’s call it Canada – there lived a single mother who worked at the local Tim Hortons.  She was paid minimum wage but she worked hard and she usually got full-time hours, so most months she was able pay her rent and her bills; and even though she had to sometimes go to the food bank or the local little free food pantry, she and her daughter had never gone hungry.

But then one day, this woman got a letter from the bank telling her that she owed the bank 6 billion, 6 hundred million dollars.  The woman didn’t know what to do with this letter.  She knew that money had been tight, but she had absolutely no idea how she could have ever accumulated such an enormous debt.  She was terrified that she and her daughter were going to lose their apartment; and without a home, she was worried that her daughter was going to be taken away from her.  She decided that she had to go in to the bank to try to negotiate the terms of her debt.

 

She went into her local bank branch and asked to see the manager.  When she got into his office, she fell on to her knees and started crying.  She begged the bank manager to look at the terms of her debt.  There was no way that she could even begin to pay just the interest on a debt that big, no matter how small the interest rate.  She begged the bank manager to give her a 0% interest rate, and to let her pay off just a little bit of the principal each month.

 

The bank manager looked at the woman in his office.  He knew her – their children were in the same class at school – and he knew how hard she worked to make ends meet each month.  And so he made a couple of phone calls, and within a couple of minutes he was able to tell the woman that the entire debt had been cancelled.  She didn’t have to worry about it any more.

 

The woman left the bank feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.  Her steps were light and she was almost dancing down the sidewalk as she went to the school to pick up her daughter.  Even though she was going to still have to work hard just to make ends meet each month, the weight of the 6 billion, 600 million dollar debt had been lifted from her.

 

But on her way to the school, the woman met an acquaintance that she had known years ago when they were in high school together.  This woman remembered that years ago, she had loaned this acquaintance $11,000 to keep her from being evicted.  She thought that maybe if she could get that money back, it could help her to get ahead instead of living paycheque – to – paycheque.  Maybe this was the step up that could lift her and her daughter out of the constant fear that she lived in.

 

And so she walked up to this acquaintance, gave her a shove, and said to her, “You still owe me that money.  Pay it back now, or I’ll see you in court!”  The acquaintance said, “I don’t have it with me now – give me a couple of weeks and I promise I’ll get it to you!”  But the woman didn’t accept that offer and said, “Not good enough.  See you in court.”

 

Some people had witnessed this encounter, and knowing that the woman had just come from the bank, went there and told the bank manager what they had seen.  The bank manager called the woman back and told her, “We are going to have to take another look at that 6 billion, 600 million dollars that you owe to us…”

 

So… you’ve probably guessed that what I’ve just done is to translate the parable that Jesus told his disciples into a contemporary context.  It really is a shocking story that Jesus tells, but the shock value is easily lost without understanding the context.  The slaves in Jesus’ story would have very little or no control over her own life, just as the woman in the story that I told had little control over her life circumstances – the cost of living, the low salary that she earned on minimum wage, trying to support her daughter as a single mother.

 

And the amount of the two debts I calculated based on a minimum wage job.  A denarius was the amount that a day labourer – a minimum-wage earner, if you will – could earn in a day’s work.  With the current New Brunswick minimum wage, on full-time employment you can make about $110 per day.  The amount of the second debt – 100 denarii – then would be $11,000.  It’s still a big debt – almost half a year’s salary – but it’s nothing in comparison to the first debt.  That first debt in the story is a bit more complicated to calculate – one talent was equal to 6000 denarii, or $660,000 using my math, or about 24 years’ worth of labour. It’s unlikely that a slave would have ever possessed a single talent, let alone had access to 10,000 talents! By my calculations, the 10,000-talent debt would be equivalent to 6 billion, 600 million dollars in our time and place.

 

One other thing that adds a layer of complexity to this story is that in the language and culture that Jesus was speaking to, 10,000 was the largest possible number, and a talent was the largest amount of money that could be imagined.  So that first debt of 10,000 talents represents the biggest possible debt that could exist – a debt beyond imagining.

 

I have so many questions about this story that Jesus tells. How on earth did a slave… or anyone, for that matter… manage to accumulate such a large debt?  And then why on earth would the king… or bank manager… cancel out such a large debt?  And finally, after having had such a large debt forgiven, why on earth did that first slave withhold debt forgiveness on a much smaller scale from someone else?

 

It's that last question that intrigues me the most.  That first slave… or our single parent in the contemporary version I told… they have been living under the weight of debt for so long, they have been living with the intense fear of scarcity for so long, that when the weight is lifted from them, when they no longer need to be afraid of scarcity, they can’t quite let it go right away.  They are still so afraid of scarcity, that when an opportunity presents to acquire a sum of money, they leap at it, even though it means hurting another person.

 

I don’t think that Jesus told this story as an example of good behaviour. We aren’t all supposed to go out and treat others in the same way that the slave did.  We are supposed to be shocked at how the slave behaved.  Remember that Jesus teaches us to pray: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  If we were Presbyterian, we would pray slightly different and even more explicit words:  forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

 

One key to reading the parables of Jesus is that whoever has the most power in the story is usually supposed to represent God, and in this story, that person is a king.  (Or a bank manager in the modern telling of it!)  But the king in this story isn’t an unjust, tyrannical ruler like you might expect in an ordinary fairy tale with a similar beginning.  Instead the king in this story is generous, with an abundance that is almost impossible to imagine.

 

Which makes this a parable that teaches us both about human nature – it is hard to receive undeserved forgiveness or grace; it is hard to let go of our fear of scarcity; it is hard to forgive others.  But it is also a parable that teaches us about God.  God is not only all-powerful like the king in this story, but God is also good and generous beyond our ability to imagine or comprehend.

 

Jesus begins this parable by saying:  “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle his accounts.”  Can you imagine a world that is governed the way that this king governs his kingdom?  A world of abundance and generosity.  A world where debts are forgiven, no questions asked, no catch, no strings attached.  A world where the right to existence doesn’t have to be earned, but is a given.

 

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle his accounts.

 

And I think that we, as the church, we are called to model this sort of world to the world around us.  We are called to be a microcosm of this kingdom of God that is coming.  We are called, not to be like the slave who refused to forgive his neighbour’s debt, but instead to be like the king who offers grace and generosity and forgiveness.

 

It's not easy.  If it were easy, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to teach us about it!  Following the way of Jesus is really, really hard at times.  But it is also beautiful and joyful.  And we don’t have to do it alone.  We travel this path together; and it is the Holy Spirit working in us that allows us to do the hard things.

 

God loves you, and God forgives you, just as the king loves and forgives the slave in the story.  You are always surrounded by this abundance of love.  And my prayer for all of us – myself included – is that we might be able to trust in this abundant love, that we might be able to let go of the hurts that have been done to us, and that we might be people who offer abundance to the world.

 

May it be so.  Amen.

 

 

“open” by Molly Sabourin on flickr

Used with Permission

"Breaking Bread Together" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
September 10, 2023 (Church Picnic)
Scripture:  Matthew 18:15-20

 

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about food this week, and what an appropriate week to be thinking about food, with the best potluck of the year happening today!

 

I’ve been thinking about all of the meals that Jesus shared with people.  We’ve got the Last Supper which happened on the night before he died – an intimate meal with his closest friends, when Jesus offered them his body and his blood in the form of bread and wine.

 

Jesus accepted dinner invitations from anyone who invited him, so we also read about him eating with the elite of his time and place, as well as with people who were despised like Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

 

We also have stories about Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish – a miracle of abundance in a place of scarcity.

 

It seems as though Jesus is always eating with people!

 

At that last supper that he shared with his disciples, as Jesus takes the bread, blesses the bread, breaks the bread, and gives the bread to his friends, he says to them, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

 

Whenever we celebrate communion, whenever we share the bread and the cup as a sacrament, we are doing it in remembrance of Jesus.  And yet I wonder if we can interpret this more broadly.  I wonder if it is possible to remember Jesus, if it is possible to re-enact this particular breaking of bread every time we break bread together?

 

Which means that we will be remembering Jesus in the breaking of bread twice in this gathering.  When we share the communion bread and cup, we will remember Jesus; and when we share all of the food that we have brought to this lunch, we will continue to do this in remembrance of Jesus.

 

Which brings us to the teaching of Jesus that Cindy read for us this morning – the reading that ends with Jesus’s well-known words, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  Jesus is with us when we gather to worship.  Jesus is with us when we break bread together.  Jesus is with us when one member of the church offers to pray for another member of the church.

 

I know a pastor who used to joke on a Sunday with low attendance, that Jesus said where two or three were gathered he would be there, and it’s a good thing that Jesus set the bar so low!  But I think that this saying of Jesus holds a deeper meaning than this.  It is all about community.

 

We, as the church, are a community.  We are a communal people.  We celebrate with each other.  We mourn together.  We share with one another and lend a helping hand.  We do all of this together so that nobody has to be alone.  And where two or three are present, where two or three are in community with one another, then Christ is right there in the center of the community.  This saying about where two or three are gathered is all about being present to one another.

 

Which is why I think that this teaching follows immediately after instructions for how a community can be reconciled to one another after the relationship has been broken.  Being in community means being open to forgiving another member of the community.  Being in community means being open to changing our hearts and lives when we have been the one to harm another.

 

But when it happens, it is a beautiful thing!  When we are a community that gathers around the breaking of bread, with Christ at the heart of who we are and what we do, then I don’t think that there is anything more beautiful than church, celebrating Christ’s presence among us, and reflecting Christ’s presence to the world around us.

 

And may we, the people of Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, be just such a church – not just today, but always!  Amen.

 

 

Part 1 of our Gathering:  Worship

(Part 2 was the potluck lunch)

Photo Credit: Margaret Stackhouse

"For Such a Time as THIS" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 3, 2023
Scripture:  Esther 4:1-14

 

(During the Story for All Ages, I read the full story of Esther from a Children’s Bible so that we could hear the full story. If you aren’t familiar with the story, The Bible Project gives a fairly good summary of it.)

 

 

The story of Esther isn’t very well known, unless you have a reason to know it. It is often overlooked when people talk about the overall story of the bible – I was watching a series of Instagram Reels this week where the creator was attaching a theme song to each book in the bible, and she skipped right over Esther, going from Nehemiah right on to Job. (And I have to confess that I only caught the omission because I’ve been spending a lot of time in the book of Esther this week – before this week, off the top of my head I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where in the bible you could find Esther.)

 

It is also the only book in the bible that doesn’t mention God by name. The story implies God’s presence, but God isn’t named.  Esther and Mordecai are ethnically Jewish, descended from a family that was taken into exile in Babylon but then decided not to return to Jerusalem when they are allowed; but even though they are Jewish, there is no mention of them being particularly observant in keeping the laws of the Torah.

 

And yet despite all of this, the book of Esther is part of the bible. Its inclusion in the bible isn’t even contested or debated the way that some other books in the bible are.  It has a place in the story of God working in God’s people.

 

In the part of the story that ______ read for us this morning, we heard what might be the most well-known line in Esther. As Esther and Mordecai are trying to figure out how they can save all of the Jewish people in Persia from Haman’s plan, Mordecai says to Esther:  “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

 

Could it be that God has been working behind the scenes, unacknowledged, working to put Esther into a position where she would be able to speak to the king and prevent the massacre of God’s children?  If you saw my Theology Thursday post on Facebook this week, I made the connection between the story of Esther and our God Sightings that we share every Sunday.  God is always present; God is always at work in the world; but sometimes we need to intentionally open ourselves up to noticing God’s presence.

 

And so can it be that God has been quietly working behind the scenes to put Esther into a position where she can speak to the king?  Esther, as a regular member of a minority religious group in the city would never have dared to approach the king, just as Mordecai, despite saving the king’s life earlier, isn’t in a position to approach the king.  But Esther as the queen is in a position to do so.  She has power because of her rank, and it is up to her to choose how to use her power.

 

That’s not to say that it didn’t take a great deal of courage.  Just look at Esther’s predecessor, Queen Vashti.  Both of them had power based on their position and based on their beauty.  And both of them were courageous enough to stand up for what they knew was right.  Vashti refused to let the king parade her in front of his drinking buddies like an object.  And Esther spoke up to the king to save all of the vulnerable Jewish people in the land.

 

Esther took a risk.  King Ahasuerus is painted as quite an impulsive and volatile character.  The end of Esther’s story could have just as easily mirrored the end of Vashti’s story.  But it doesn’t.  The king is able to hear what Esther is saying, and the story has an unhappy ending for Haman, but a happy ending for Esther and Mordecai and the rest of the Jewish people.

 

Circling back to how God is still present, even when we don’t take the time to pause and notice. God is still working in the world even when we don’t take time to pause and name God’s presence. How might our situation be similar to Esther’s?  Where has God placed us – either as individuals or as the church – for such a time as this?

 

We don’t have to look very far to see what seems like the world collapsing around us.  We aren’t facing imminent genocide the way that Esther and Mordecai were, but we are daily faced with other disasters.  The cost of living is rising exponentially, leading to so many hungry people in our neighbourhood and in our world.  The climate emergency is causing floods and fires right at our doorstep.  The hard-won rights of LGBTQ+ people are being rolled back, here in New Brunswick and elsewhere.  There are increasing incidents of violence related to racism and homophobia and transphobia and Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism.

 

We may not be exactly in Esther’s shoes, but there is no shortage of vulnerable people and groups in our world.

 

And so where has God placed us – as individuals and as the church – for such a time as this?  We may not be a queen, but looking around this space, we do have other sorts of influence.  Many of us have influence related to our skin colour and our economic status and our education level and by who we know.  All of these things give us a certain amount of power in the world.

 

And so, like Queen Esther and like Queen Vashti, the question becomes, do we have the courage to use our power for good?  Do we have the courage to use our position and our influence to stand up for what we know is right?  Do we have the courage to stand up for people who are oppressed?  Do we have the courage to create a space where the voiceless can have a voice?  Even when it is risky, do we have the courage to speak the truth to those who can change the world?

 

For when we do have the courage to do this – courage that is given to us by the Holy Spirit – then we become part of the group of people who are changing the world for the good.  When we have the courage to do this, then God is working through us by the Holy Spirit, and we are acting as the Body of Christ – participating in the work of God in the world around us.

 

And may God give us all the courage to do so, in such a time as this.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

Watercolour by Kimothy Joy.

Uploaded to flickr with permission by Vince Reinhart.

An example of speaking truth to power, this time using the

power of art to speak on the issue of gun violence.

(Click the link below to learn more about this image.)

Used with permission.