Sermons

I was reading an article in Newsweek recently about a new TV show coming out called "Extras" and it follows the lives of some movie extras. One of the stars of the new show is Kate Winslet, who you may remember from Titanic, and on this show she plays herself. Or at least she plays a parody of herself starring in a movie about World War II. In one piece of dialogue I read, Kate Winslet's being interviewed and when asked why she's doing the movie, her reply is, "Oh, I did this to win the Oscar. I mean, when you look at Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan… All the World War II movies win Oscars and I need to win an Oscar. You know I've been nominated three times already and there are millions of people all over the world who are saying, 'What's wrong with that Kate Winslet? Why hasn't she won her first Oscar?'"

Now I don't know about you, but I don't lose any sleep at night wondering why Kate Winslet hasn't won an Oscar. No conversation I have ever had has begun with the words "What's wrong with that Kate Winslet?" But of course, that's the whole comedy of the scene. We end up laughing at her character (as some of you just did) because her understanding of her own importance is so bloated and overblown that it becomes ridiculous. We laugh because there's a part of us that wants to say, "Hey! It's not about you."

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Now, in today's lessons, we find some people who have this same problem as Kate Winslet: they just can't see past themselves and their own idea of how things should be. Let's start by looking at Jonah. As you may recall, God calls Jonah to go preach in Nineveh, which is the capital of the Assyrian empire, the enemies of Israel, but Jonah doesn't want to go, so he tries to sail to Tarshish, which is in Spain, so it’s like the other side of the world for them. And God sends a storm to stop him and Jonah ends up in the ocean where he's swallowed by a big fish. And when he's in the fish he has a change of heart and thinks, "You know, talking to the Ninevites can't be any worse than this." So God tells the fish to vomit Jonah up onto the beach and Jonah goes to Nineveh and tells them, "Hey, straighten up, because God's going to wipe you guys out." And they do. From the king down to the sheep in the marketplace, the entire city repents and God changes his mind.

Now this is where our lesson picks up this morning and this is where Jonah loses it. He says, "I knew it. I knew it. This is why I didn't want to come here. Because I knew you were kind and forgiving and I knew you would forgive them and I don't want you to forgive them. I want them to die. And…and… and if they're not going to die, then I want to die." And then he storms off to pout and apparently waiting for God to change his mind.

Then God sends a plant to grow over Jonah to shade him from the sun and Jonah likes it. He's thinking, “All right, God's finally coming around to my way of thinking. Any minute now and those Ninevites are gonna be toast.”

But then instead of sending something to destroy the Ninevites, God sends a worm to destroy the plant that Jonah is under and Jonah starts whining again. “It's better for me to die than to live.” And God shows up and says “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And Jonah says, “Yes, angry enough to die!” And now God lays the smack down. “Hello? You're angry about losing this plant that you didn't plant or grow, but you couldn't care less about the lives of an entire city of people. You're more concerned about getting a sunburn than you are about the lives of 120,000 people. I know you don't like these people, Jonah, but you know what? It's not about you. It's about something much bigger than you.”

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In the New Testament, we have something similar happening with the workers in the vineyard. The first workers in the vineyard were happy to work for a denarius, until they saw that the workers hired in the eleventh hour were paid a denarius too. Then they go to the landowner and complain because they haven't been paid enough. I mean, they did more work, so they should be paid more, right? Specifically they complain that “you have made these workers equal to us.” Implying, of course, that they are actually better than the other workers. But the vineyard owner just brushes them off and says, “It's not about you. I pay people what I want to pay people and you got what I wanted to pay you.”

To put this in a more modern perspective, let's imagine that there's a football player. And let's say that this imaginary football player is named Terrence Owings. Now a year ago, Terrence signed with a team that we'll call the Beagles and when he signed the contract, everyone thought it was a really great contract, including Terrence. Well, the Beagles had a really great year and did well and Terrence was a big part of that, but at the end of the season, Terrence comes and says, “I'm not being paid enough. There are other players that don't score as many touchdowns or catch as many passes as I do that are making the same amount of money as me and that's not fair. I worked harder than them, I deserve more money.” Now if this were a real life situation, and I'm not saying it is, Terrence's attitude would make me want to say, “Hey, it's not about you. What about the team? What about the fans who love you? What about a chance to win a Super Bowl? All you care about is more money? Stop being selfish. It's not about you.”

Now, the thing is, we can laugh at the stupidity of Jonah or Terrence Owings, but the truth is that we are just like them a lot of the time. Think about it. Who's the person that you really wish would just drop out of your life like a dead Ninevite? What's the thing that you know you deserve because you've earned it, but you just can't seem to get it? Who's the person at work that makes as much as you do, but you know that you do twice as much work as they do? Or how about this: who's the person that's sitting in this sanctuary that you cannot believe they dared to show their face in church today? With all the things that they've done, with what they said to you, they don't deserve to be in the same room with true Christians.

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You see? In truth, we are all like Jonah. We're all like the first workers in the vineyard. We may chuckle at the stories some, but as we think about it, that other side of us comes out and we think, “You know what? It isn't fair that the last workers got the same amount of money. You know what? Jonah was right. God let the Ninevites off too easily. They were really bad people; God should have punished them some first.” Then we think about ourselves and think, “What does this mean for me? Am I going to get what I deserve from God?” Our sense of Justice cries out and we start to think, "I deserve that vine. I deserve better pay than these people. I deserve an Oscar. I deserve more. I deserve better. Me. ME. ME!" But it's not about you.

Now here comes the advertising portion of the sermon. Many of you know that we as a church are about to begin a Forty Days of Purpose campaign next week. And during those forty days, we are going to read through this book, the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. In this book, Warren talks about the purpose of our lives and you know what? The first sentence of this book says, "It's not about you." The purpose of your life is not all about what you want or what you think you need. And during the Forty Days of Purpose, we're going to explore what Rick Warren believes is the purpose of our lives. To do that we're going to be reading this book, and we're going to have small groups that meet every week to discuss the book.

Now don’t use this as an excuse for not participating in a group, but let me give away part of the ending now. I already told you that it's not about you. Let me tell you what it is about. It's about grace. It's about receiving what is not deserved or even expected. You see, the problem with the characters in the stories we read today is that they wanted what they thought was fair. They wanted what was just, but when we start imposing our ideas of justice, we are twisting things to be about us and what we deserve and what we think is right, not about what God has planned. We also think that we are in a position to decide what is just, but we're not.

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We have a tendency to think of ourselves in the place of Jonah in the Old Testament lesson. Or in the place of the workers who worked all day. But the truth is, we are the Ninevites in this story. We are the eleventh-hour workers. We are the ones who have received payment we didn't earn and forgiveness we don't deserve. Before we even had a chance to ask for it, Jesus Christ died for us and for the sins we hadn’t even committed yet. We don't deserve all the grace God gives us because we do make it all about us. We twist and connive things to serve us instead of serving other people. We're more concerned with getting ourselves ahead or securing what we deserve than we are with sharing the only thing that really matters and we did nothing to earn on our own.

You see, the important thing isn't how much the workers got paid, the important thing is that they were invited into the vineyard to begin with. And that invitation isn't based on merit, it's based on grace. And that invitation has been offered to everyone of you here today. Not because of merit, but because of grace.

So the next time you find yourself judging someone's right to be forgiven or loved or welcomed, the next time you catch yourself complaining about what's fair or what you deserve, then remember. It's not about you. It's about grace. And for our sake, thank God that it is. Amen.

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