Today we are confronted with stories about fairness, about justice, about rewards, and about mercy.
First, in the story of Jonah from our first reading:
We only have a partial account here, so let me give you a summary of Jonah's story.
Jonah was a man with a gift of prophecy, but he was also completely self-absorbed.
Yet God called on him, and told him to go to a city called Ninevah,
and prophecy that because of this great city's wickedness, they would be destroyed.
Well, Jonah didn't want to go.
So he tried to run away from God, as if God were to be found in a finite place,
and ended up, for his troubles, in the belly of a fish,
where he had plenty of time to think about what he was supposed to be doing.
Once out of the fish, Jonah made his way to Ninevah, and delivered God's message.
Having been through misfortune himself,
having endured the belly of a fish, he rubbed his hands together in anticipatory delight in the destruction that was going to come to this great city.
He- he - he. Misery LOVES company.
But Jonah didn't get his reward.
Because Ninevah decided to repent - to turn from what they were doing, and go the other way, clean up their act, and follow God's ways.
No destruction, and therefore, no gloating for Jonah.
So Jonah decided to mope.
He went and found a place on a hillside and sat and felt sorry for himself.
For a while he had a bit of shade that God provided,
and then the source of the shade dried up and died,
and Jonah was left moping on the hillside in the hot sun,
mad that his shade had gone away.
ITS NOT FAIR, he cried.
God called him to do something he didn't want to do,
made him do it by making his life miserable,
and then when he did it,
the people repented and he didn't even get to share in their downfall.
And now even his plant died. The injustice of it all rankled in Jonah's heart.
Moving on to today's gospel, we find a parable Jesus told to his disciples.
Its the story of a landowner who began hiring laborers in the morning, and negotiated a wage with them….
and so they went to work - the long sunup-to sundown day that was considered a day's work back then.
But the owner also hired people at noon, and at 3, and even at 5, telling him he would pay them fairly.
When it was time to be paid for the day, he paid the last hired first - and paid them the wage that had been negotiated with the morning's hire.
One hour's work for a day's wage. What a deal.
But those hired at 3, and at noon got the same.
3 hours, six hours for the same wage.
And those who were hired in the morning got the same - 12 hours of labor in the hot sun paid the same as those who worked one hour in the cool of the evening!
It's not fair!
We can hear the echo of their cry of injustice.
So the 12 hour workers confronted the landowner,
And his answer was basically to tell them to take a hike.
Nice guy, this landowner. And yet this story begins, "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who…."
What is God-like about a man who is unfair?
Who pays unjust wages?
Can't you hear the labor unions yelling over this one?
Or maybe you can hear a voice closer to home….
perhaps you have been in a situation with a co-worker or family member, or neighbor,
who seemed to get all the breaks
while you had one Jonah-day after another.
Life is not fair. We know that.
But how does it follow that God's Kingdom is not fair?

Perhaps the parable isn't about the landowner as much as it is about the workers.
Perhaps the message isn't about the injustice of unfair wages at all. Perhaps its about attitudes.
About the disciple's attitudes -
About our attitudes.

For the parable, and the story of Jonah, are there to teach us that there is something much greater than justice.
Much greater than fairness.
There is, in fact, MERCY.
Mercy, and her sidekick, wild, abandoned, unbridled Grace -
Available for us in our worst moments,
And for others we might think are not deserving.

It strikes me that this is a funny passage to have in the midst of a stewardship campaign

Because the message is: We cannot buy our way to heaven, work our way to heaven, give our way to heaven, or volunteer our way to heaven. Stewardship helps us prioritize what is really worthwhile, so that a portion of our time, talent and treasure go to God's work. But its Not what we do, or how much we do, or how much we give, that matters. Because we have all been given the same gift - the free gift of grace. Not really a wage at all - And that's the point! We belong to God - bought and paid for by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross - It is our selves that God desires - our selves, our souls, and our bodies. Each and every person on this earth is important to God - you are not more important than an untouchable in India; you are not less important than the Queen of England. And that is the message - we are not measured, either by our gifts, and what we do with them, or by our lack of action - our Jonah moments. We are, instead, measured by the incomparable gift of grace and mercy through Christ - who took our follies and foibles to the cross with him, wiping out the bookkeeping system of heaven in one fell swoop. We are all day-long employees, worthy only of the great gift of heaven, which is Grace - free and unconstrained to all, deserving and undeserving - a huge, blood-red wine fountain adorning the table at a heavenly wedding, and all we have to do is belly up, and drink freely.