Walking Uphill Both Ways

“Walking Uphill Both Ways”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

Matthew 20.1-16

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

As a child I was told by my grandfather that he walked uphill both ways to school in the snow without shoes after his many chores. Most of his childhood stories involved hardship and the wildness of Native Americans; somehow, they went together. As a young man I came to see the geographic impossibility of his educational path- outside of the drawings of Escher, it is impossible to walk uphill both ways. As an adult, though, I came to see there was some truth at the core of his exaggeration and penchant to spin a yarn.

When he was young his family lived in South Dakota. They lived on a farm not far from Wounded Knee. His grandfather was part of the history of the Dakotas. They were “settlers” that came west to “fight the Lakota” after fighting in the Civil War. He did walk to school, though not uphill both ways; and it was a one room schoolhouse.
The family legend is that he received the beatings and burdens of being the eldest child. He had a tough father who abused him. After high school he fled the Dakotas and went to California like so many did during the Depression. He joined the Navy; served in the Pacific during WWII; came home and became a cop. After a series of twists and turns and marriages, he ended up designing rockets for Honeywell and living in Los Angeles.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, when I was born his life had almost reached rock bottom once again. The decades of his life are like a series of peaks and valleys. He would do great and then he would fall apart cataclysmically. Sometimes the fall was his making; sometimes not. I am mindful that I am right now his age when he spent time with me as a young boy. As is often the case with seasons of life, I see things quite differently now as a grandfather as opposed to a grandson. The generational differences are clear to me.

I don’t know what it means to grow up in rural America; I don’t know what it means to live through a world war or a global depression. I struggle to understand how a high school education in a tiny one room schoolhouse would prepare someone to design rockets or motorcycles or homes, all of which he did. I don’t know what it means to be beaten and abused as a young boy or flee a homestead and not return.

Looking back I can see that part of the lore and yarns of his childhood challenges were a way of saying, “I showed up early and worked late. You have come late and worked just a little.” This is a habit of older generations, to see the younger generation as frivolous or ungrateful. We have all heard someone say, “kids have it easy today” or “you don’t appreciate what you have because it didn’t cost you anything.” You might have seen the slogan, “freedom isn’t free.” The idea is someone sacrificed for you, gave up their life so your life would be good.

And there is a lot of truth to this. The truth of giving your life away so others can live is the very core of the gospel, it is the truth of being human. Jesus says if you would follow me, you must deny yourself and pick up your cross. This is a sacrificial path of being a good person. Yet, as the parable infers, the sacrifice and rewards of life, what it means to be human, are not equal, nor do they seem to be fair. Some crosses are heavier than others. Some people are called to or find themselves in places of extreme sacrifice, while others are not.

I listened to a lawyer give a lecture this summer on the notion of fairness and how it relates to justice. She told the story of being chastised by her teenage daughter. The daughter castigated her mother for judging someone unfairly. She implored her mother to consider walking a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge. If you do, she advised, your judgement will be more gracious, and you will have a new pair of shoes because you are a mile away and no one is likely to catch you. Both true.

Although there are exceptions like people who cheat or steal or horde, for the most part, people try to be fair. It is part of being a good human being. People want to give their fair share, offer a fair shake, not take more than what is owed or needed. For the most part this is true. A great example of this is found in Rotary International and their four questions to guide your life. When you come upon a challenge or a difficulty, Rotary says ask four questions. Is it the truth? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? And is it fair to all concerned?

Great questions. They don’t give the answers, but they do clarify what’s at stake. Is it fair to all concerned? The “all concerned” is key. Fairness has a limit, a context, a proximity. Fairness only goes so far. Beyond this fairness becomes impossible. We’ve all heard adults say to a child “well, life isn’t fair.” This is said because life in general, beyond our reach is often unfair. Walk through villages in sub-Saharan Africa and you will be hard pressed to justify the fairness of life. How do we justify our life of opulence while other starve? You can’t.

Despite the limit, we want life to be fair. The desire of the workers who came early for the landowner to justify his payments, to explain why he gave the same wage to all the workers, to show how this is fair, should resonate with us. If you were one of those who worked the whole day, would you not balk when you were paid the same as someone who just showed up? If you do more, should you not be paid more? Wouldn’t that be fair? Was the landowner fair to all concerned?

At the end of the parable there is a clue to help us navigate this tricky lesson about the matter of fairness. To see the truth of the kingdom of God here: we need to ask the questions of the landowner: am I not free is the first question; and what is generosity is the second? How are we free here; and what does it mean for us to be generous?
Let’s start with the second, with generosity. I was always amazed each year about this time when our children were young with a habit of my wife. Each year, Kathy kept a 3x5 note card in her wallet. On the note card were initials and after the initials were marks only she could interpret. We knew what the marks represented: they were Christmas gifts. With six children to be given a good Christmas morning, one where each child felt lucky, loved, she would purchase items and keep a tally so it would fair.
There was no way to tell what gift was symbolized by the code. And believe you me everyone tried to decipher the note card, figure out what present you were going to get. She didn’t hide it; it was there for all to see. But try as they may, no one could solve the riddle. What they could figure out was the truth of her generosity. She wanted things to be fair “for all concerned.”

I admire this type of generosity and how much effort she put in to being fair. This is not easy. And, if truth be told, outside of Christmas, things were not always as fair. The Christmas tree and the stockings were unique in a sense. The truth is: Sometimes we do more for one of our children than do for the others.

And this leads to the first question: the matter of freedom. We all want to be generous, to be giving, to give our life away to those we love. But are we free to do so? Am I not free to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Like most questions in parables, the first answer, the quick answer is a trap. Yes, we are free to choose. Your stuff is your stuff; I am not here to tell you what to do; nor should anyone else. You are free to choose. But do we live such freedom? And is our freedom defined by generosity?

I struggled over the ending of this sermon. The image of my grandfather kept hovering as I was writing. He was in the beginning, and there was a kind of goading presence demanding he be brought up in the end. I struggled with bringing him back up because the example he gave to me in the end was one lacking grace. He truly struggled with being gracious. It’s an awful thing to say and tricky to offer but I am going to try.

Sometimes the lessons we learn, the examples we have are negative and not positive. As a teen and young adult I found this with my grandfather who walked uphill both ways as boy. In a sense, I have come to see he never lost this struggle. He was ever fighting the hardships of that South Dakota farm, the scars of abuse, the low points of his life in California, the disappointments of his career. He was a really smart guy, but he never seemed to find a sustained peace and joy.

In the parable, the landowner is both fair and generous. I might be reading this in, but his image for me is happiness. He was fair and gracious by his choice; he wanted to be such a person; and he was happy. The workers who came early, who worked the longest, for me I see them as an image of disappointment, unhappy. There are moments in life where we struggle with this choice, how life is not fair, and generosity can be influenced by disappointment making us unhappy.

One of my grandfather’s final acts serves as an image of this challenge. Even as he died, he was still trying to get his fair share, to get more instead of giving. He was struggling to breathe. He was on oxygen, but he wasn’t getting enough. Being dissatisfied with the flow of oxygen, he took apart the valve and redesigned it. He drafted a whole new device. And then he filed for a patent. Even at the very end of his life he was still trying to get more, to achieve something. He never really felt that peace and joy of generosity.

Maybe it was the hurt of his childhood; maybe it was the ups and downs of his life, but what I came to see was how little happiness he possessed. He was ever the worker who came early and was angry about the wages. It may have come from parts of his life I just didn’t know, the bitterness. I guess in a sense I am disappointed for him.
My hope is to live like the landowner who was both fair and gracious. Life isn’t fair; and there are times when being generous is tough. True. But I still want to live like the landowner. It’s a struggle, but it is my hope. Remembering my grandfather begs the question: will I live in happiness despite the struggle? Will I find joy even in the challenge of fairness and generosity?

Following Jesus is challenging. Picking up a cross, denying yourself. Certainly difficult—clear. What is not clear is the happiness. Will we find the joy of generosity; will we be the landowner, or will we be a disappointed laborer? We are free to make this choice. Amen.