A View of the Kingdom

“AView of the Kingdom" The Dover Church
September 18, 2010 – Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture: Psalm 145, Matthew 20: 1-16

I grew up something of an anti-snob snob. I’m sure you know what I mean: the self-righteous type who thinks he’s better than all the superficial people who are hung up on status, money, power, possessions. In other words, a complete hypocrite who was truly as hung up on these things as any of the people I was looking down on, if anything, worse, because I was a charlatan who was kidding myself whereas they were at least honest. Let me paint you a picture of just how pathetic I was.
As I said, money, power, possessions, those weren’t my things. I was an academic who lived in his books, and I was a fly fisherman for trout. I accepted my position at the University of Colorado because of the fantastic trout streams nearby. At least that’s what I told myself. Yes, I had a Ph. D. from the University of California, Berkeley; yes, I was at the top of my game and was good at what I did, but the truth was that I was lucky to get the only advertised entry level position in Scandinavian Studies in North America that year. And I was excited about the trout streams because they fit into my life somewhere between the real joy I have in fishing for trout with flies and my self image: beard, messy L.L. Bean’s clothes, battered fishing hat, and a little red Nissan pickup with a camper shell on the back in which all my rods, reels, fly boxes, waders, and camping gear were ready to go at a moment’s notice. And there were a lot of moments in those years: every weekend, school vacations, afternoons, early mornings. I was living the dream.
One day I was in a National Forest up by the Continental Divide, having driven a long way in on a fire road that my little two wheel drive truck could manage. My professed feelings about four wheel drive at the time were that they were designed to encourage fools to drive into places where they shouldn’t have gone in the first place. Talk about self delusion! If someone had given me a souped up Land Cruiser or Range Rover, I would have been psyched. Anyway, there I was, deep in the woods when I came to a clearing and the stream I was planning to fish. I could see that the road led into the water and came out the other side. Park here and fish? Or try to ford and see what was further on? I got out, pulled on my waders, and walked in to see how deep the ford was and how fast the water was moving. After only about five steps I realized that it was a no go, too deep and too fast, which meant that I was rigging up here for the day. Great! This is going to be awesome. The water looked perfect with not another person in sight.
Just as I had locked my truck, up drove my worst nightmare: a hotshot, George Clooney looking, yuppie, weekend warrior fisherman in a very shiny Nissan X-Terra. When he jumped out with a big smile behind really expensive sunglasses and a brand new brand name baseball cap, wearing the swankiest fishing clothes from Orvis or Burberry, I smiled back. We talked a little bit, during which time I learned that he fished high end bamboo rods, had just come back from a fishing trip to Argentina, lived in an expensive suburb of Denver, and did something that must translate into an income at least 10 and probably 20 times mine. This guy was hitting all my self-righteous anti-snob snob hypocrite buttons right where I was vulnerable, fishing.
It didn’t take long for him to get bored with me, which I assure you was a mutual feeling, at which point he said, “I think I’ll drive over to the other side and follow the road up a few miles. There are supposed to be nice beaver ponds up there.” “Well, I already checked the river bed and I think you’ll need a Hummer to make it.” He looked at my little truck, at his jacked up truck, at the river, and finally back at me, and said, “Oh, I think I’ll be alright.” “Good luck then, “ I said. “Maybe I’ll see you later as I’ll be working my way upstream. Don’t catch them all.”
He climbed back in, started up, and drove down the bank and into the river with a smile and a wave. I just stood there and watched as he made it about ten feet before the water surged up the side of his truck. He gunned the engine as his wheels spun and went under and the truck started to slide downstream, i.e., out of the shallow ford and into really deep water. I was thinking smugly to myself, “I wonder if that thing will float.” He finally gave up, well and truly stuck, unable to make it across and wise enough to see that any further attempt would only end up with his truck at the bottom of the pool below. I forgot to tell you, but he had not put on his waders while we were talking, so now he was going to have to climb out his window and wade wet through deep water to come back to shore. I shrugged to him and waved.
He made it. “Do you want a ride back to the ranger station?” I asked, hoping he would say no as the station was at least an hour away and my generosity would cost me a great day of fishing. “I think they have a wrecker there that can pull you out,” still playing the hypocrite. “No thanks,” he smiled. “I have a cellphone.” At which point he patted down his pockets only to discover that he had left it in his truck. “I’ve got my waders on. Want me to go get it for you?” (what a fraud!) “No, that’s alright. I’m wet already. Thanks for offering.” “Want me to hang around until you’re sure they’re coming?” I asked. “No. Go enjoy the fishing. If I’m still here when you come back for your truck, you can give me a lift out then.” I silently breathed a sigh of relief, put out my hand and said, “well good luck. I hope everything works out for you.” And off I went for a great day of fishing, occasionally finding myself belly laughing with self righteous, holier than thou, smarter than him, who’s the real fisherman, self satisfaction at the memory of that guy who had everything I wished I had, even though I would never admit it, not even to myself, stuck in the river I was catching fish in. It must have worked out for him because I didn’t run into him on the water that day and his truck was gone when I came back that afternoon, not drowned at the bottom of the pool because I could see the tire tracks of the wrecker and the mud and water from where his X-Terra had been pulled out.
Funny little story? Sad little story about the human condition. Sad little story about my human condition that Jesus speaks to in our lesson this morning. We hear Jesus’ parable about this vineyard owner who pays everyone who works for him the same wage, regardless of how many hours they put in, and we don’t know what to think of it. Is this guy being super generous with the folks who only put in a couple of hours? Or is he cheating the folks who put in a full day? And most importantly, what is Jesus trying to tell us about God and us? I think that the reason we don’t know what to make of Jesus’ parable is because it hits too close to home, striking at the very core of all the assumptions and values we walk around thinking and living without knowing that we do. I can say this to you in a non-judgmental way, having just confessed my own messiness. We are so deeply influenced by our assumptions about our personal self-worth and identity, and the self-worth and identity of others, being tied into what we make, what we achieve, what we own, the labels we wear, how we look, that we can’t see what a mess we make of ourselves, our neighbors, and our world. Like me on that trout stream.
Just to make sure you do not misunderstand where Jesus is going with this, Jesus is not condemning wealth, hard work, achievement, beauty, or possessions. How could he? These are the things of human life, which God created and pronounced good and which Jesus blessed by living as one of us. As Dallas Willard, a theologian and philosopher at USC, puts it so well, “Human life is not about human life. Nothing will go right until the greatness and goodness of its source and governor (i.e., God) is adequately grasped…Until that is so, the human compass will always be pointing in the wrong direction, and individual lives as well as history as a whole will suffer from constant and fluctuating disorientation. Candidly, that is exactly the condition we find ourselves in.”
It’s as simple as this: the kingdom of the heavens which Jesus describes in his parables is not someplace else at some other time. It is right here and right now. The only thing standing between us and it is…us, our ways of thinking and being, our assumptions, judgments and delusions. When we see ourselves as God created us to be, that is workers in God’s vineyard, doing well what we do for the joy we have in doing it and to glorify God, in the place where we find ourselves and with the people God has blessed us with, and realizing that God is showering us with abundance each and every day we get out of our beds in our right minds with our health intact, truly our wages for the day, then we can let go of all the grasping for more and resentment of others, all the frustration and scheming, all the judgment and categorization, the fear of not having enough ourselves and our reluctance to insist that so many be helped to have barely enough. Jesus is not telling us about being right or wrong, about being morally superior or inferior, or even pointing the finger at us. Jesus is pointing his finger….to life, to the true abundance all around us right now that we cannot see because it doesn’t make sense according to our way of seeing things.
Life in the kingdom is so much better than the world we make for ourselves. How do I know? Let’s go back to that river that day. What would that day have looked like if I had been a kingdom person living a kingdom life? Instead of doing what I did, I would have invited that guy to use one of the five extra rods, seven extra fly boxes and two spare pairs of waders I had in the back of my truck. He came to fish and didn’t have anything else to do with all his stuff stuck in the middle of the river, so he probably would have agreed, and we would have fished together while we waited for the ranger. Once the trout got over their fright, they may well have stacked up right behind his truck, which was doing a great job as a midstream rock. He’d show me a thing or two about how you catch the big ones in Argentina and I’d show him a thing or two from what I knew and I would have made a friend. In the course of the day, I am sure that we would have laughed together for the pure joy of the beauty of the Colorado Rockies and the trout. Can you see the difference? If you can, then the Kingdom of God has truly come near.