The text is below the video… (it’s almost the same as the video!)

Sermon preached Goldsboro NC Episcopal Churches Sunday September 20 2020 by the Reverend Alan Neale “But That’s Not Fair”

Matthew chapter twenty, verse fifteen: “Why do you begrudge my generosity?”/ “Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?” “Why is it that you are working so hard to become so malicious?”

Years ago I taught at a very, very, very minor league preparatory school in England. Oh those poor boys! Sometimes when homework was given, or discipline exercised for miscreant behaviour, hands would soar into the air and the cry would be heard, “But sir… that’s not fair!!”. Which all would soon be followed by the lament, “Yes, sir, we know… life is not fair!”.

That’s how many respond to today’s parable in Matthew chapter fifteen. The man who works all day is given the same wage as the man who works barely an hour… “but sir, but master, but Lord… that is not fair!”.

One commentator pompously declares, “The parable is not meant to reflect normal economic practice, nor to be a pattern for labor relations” – well, duh, I hope we could figure that out for ourselves.

I believe our text is a significant way to understand the parable, “The master asks, ‘Why do you begrudge my generosity?”.

I believe this to be one of the great mysteries of the spiritual life, one of the great unsearchable riddles for Christian and for Church… How is it that we spend time with the God who abounds in graciousness and generosity and yet resolutely be people who carry shriveled hearts and minds and lips. Oh yes, in the words of the spiritual, we “steal away to Jesus” in worship and religious talk but there is no “thunder in our soul” – no thunder of generosity sounding in what else is all too often a miserably wretched, demeaning and demanding world!

Moses and Aaron are confounded… why is that the people of God are so complaining when they have experienced the sovereign and gracious act of God to set them free?

Months ago I attended an AA meeting and one of those present said that when he attended a meeting for the very first time, he was told, “You are the most important person in the room?”. The next day, another newcomer was there and our friend heard these words spoken to the visitor, “You are the most important person in the room”. Immediately, he said, “I had a resentment!”. The begrudging of generosity!

“The master asks, ‘Why do you begrudge my generosity?”/ “Why are you working so hard to become so malicious?”

Well, master, let me offer three reasons for such unreasonable and peculiar behaviour?

Theological, experiential and confrontational.

Theological – often, generally, the reason we “begrudge God’s generosity” is that the picture we have of God defines him as mean, distant… some divine curmudgeon who needs be persuaded to let go of some blessing which he may, if we are fortunate, dole out sparingly from his hands. Oh my… this is not the Father whom Jesus shares with us, this is not the Father to whom Jesus longs to introduce us. The complaining, self-righteous servant takes issue with the master… but if only he really knew the master’s heart, if his own heart could beat with the heart of the master, he would have kept silence.

Experiential – often, generally, the reason we “begrudge God’s generosity” is that we have been ourselves the unwitting and undeserving victims of thoughtless and vindictive meanness. Perhaps the constant drip of actions and words (from our very youth) that have expressed nastiness, malice, cruelty, spite… this drip has somehow caused our hearts to calcify, to harden. I heard once these words, “Senseless and empty cares force their way into our minds and often fill with madness our hearts, when they are robbed of hope”…. yes, when “robbed of hope” that we will be treated generously and with love than stinginess and meanness invade our souls. The complaining, self-righteous servant takes issue with the master… perhaps such meanness had been once shown to him that he can now only find it in himself to show similar meanness to others?

Confrontational – often, generally, the reason we “begrudge God’s generosity” is that we become unhappy (perhaps angry) when our acts of pettiness and meanness, when our lack of generosity, is confronted by the liberal generosity of God. It has been said, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” – I thought said by Plato, though others think by Erasmus but, whatever the source, the quotation has truth… much of the time we may pride ourselves on our qualities of heart, on the kindness of our minds, on the charity of our words… but when we are confronted by the overwhelming generosity of God, His love, His grace beyond our “wildest imaginings”.. . then we will either want to change and become like Him or we will be angry and resolve, adamantly, to remain as we are. The complaining, self-righteous servant takes issue with the master… perhaps he was offended that his own lack of charity was made plain, quite and demonstrably plain!

St. Paul urges the Christians at Philippi to live a “life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ” – we cannot do this if we are living lives which evidence meanness rather than generosity. In our worship we confront the generous, out-pouring of love by God on the Cross… how can that “thunder” not sound and echo and reverberate in our lives?

All too often churches begrudge generosity shown to the guest, to the visitor, the outcast, the marginalized… how very, very sad!

All too often Christians behave with mean spiritedness to one another… how very, very sad!

Today, we are presented with peculiar challenges…in a time of viral pandemic, financial forebodings and economic gloom, how we will respond? What will be the manner of our lives that distinguishes us from the world – will we boldly do our best to walk the path of divine and boundless generosity?

I recall the story of a mother with, I think, eleven children. The mother was asked, “But you must have one or two favorites amongst the eleven children; one or two that you love more than others?”. The mother said, “Yes, you’re right. There is one that I love the most… the one who, at that time, is hurting the most”. Who are we to begrudge that mother’s generosity shown towards the one who is “hurting the most”.

And so, friends, and so… it is with God. Praise God’s Holy Name. AMEN