"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