The Scandal of Grace

Today we're beginning a three-part series of messages on God's grace.

Someone says, "Why talk about grace? That's basic stuff for Christians."

It may be basic, but grace is a concept we struggle with all our lives. That's why we need to revisit it—so we can understand it better. Even more importantly, so we can live it out in our lives.

There's a difference between talking about grace and practicing grace—living it out.

We know God freely showers us with his grace, but we also should understand that grace costs something—that "cheap grace" distorts God's message.

So let's consider grace. Next week we'll see that grace leads to something more—The Effort of Grace. In two weeks we'll look at Transforming Grace—how grace can radically changes us. Today, we're going to talk about The Scandal of Grace—How grace offends us.

TEXT: Matt 20:1-16

This parable describes the kind of thing that frequently happened at certain times in Palestine. The grape harvest ripened towards the end of September, and then close on its heels the rains came. If the harvest was not gathered in before the rains broke, it would be ruined. So harvesting was a frantic race against time. Any worker was welcome, even if he could give only an hour to the work.

A denarius was the normal day's wage for a working man. I'm imagining something a little better than minimum wage, maybe $7 or $8 an hour. Of course, in those days, they worked from sunup to sundown—12 hours, no over-time.

The men standing in the market-place were not merely loitering. The market-place was the place you went to find a job. Day laborers would hope someone would come along and hire them. They went there first thing in the morning, carrying their tools, and waited. The men who stood in the market-place were waiting for work, and the fact that some of them stood on until even five o'clock in the evening is the proof of how desperately they wanted it.

These men were hired laborers, the lowest class of workers. Life for them was always desperately precarious. Slaves and servants were probably more stable—at least they had steady employment, along with food, clothing, and a roof. It was different with hired day-laborers. They were entirely at the mercy of chance employment; If they were unemployed for one day, their children would go hungry. With them, to be unemployed for a day was disaster.

The hours in the parable were the normal Jewish hours. The Jewish day began at sunrise, 6 a.m., and the hours were counted from then until 6 p.m., when officially the next day began. Counting from 6 a.m. therefore, the third hour is 9 a.m., the sixth hour is twelve midday, and the eleventh hour is 5 p.m.

Normally, the fewer hours a man worked, the less pay he should have received. But this farmer was generous. He knew a denarius a day was barely getting by. He knew if a workman went home with less, there would be a worried wife and hungry children. So he went beyond standard practice; he gave them more than they deserved.

How would you have felt if you'd worked all day and received the same as the one who worked only an hour?

Have you ever said, "That's not fair!" Has anyone ever said it to you...your kids, for example? "You're the worst parent in the world! Everyone else gets to do it. Why can't I?"

Our sense of justice is very highly developed, especially when we are the ones suffering the injustice. If someone cheats us, we feel moral outrage. If someone takes advantage of us, we are indignant. Offended. Angry.

The U.S. government (i.e. us, the taxpayers) spent $85 billion to bail out AIG. So I'm upset to hear that the departing CEO Martin Sullivan was paid $47 million (in severance, bonuses, and cash awards). He left AIG in shambles, but he took $47 million personal profit. My sense of equity and fairness is offended by that. I don't know Mr. Sullivan, and I'm sure he's a nice man once you get to know him, but $47 million? What about cutting him back to a mere $4 million? Wouldn't that be more fair?

Interesting figure—the ratio of average CEO pay to average pay of U.S. blue-collar worker: 531:1. Yet it's the bad decisions of highly paid executives that often run their companies into the ground. So we are justifiably offended. [from Bob Kaylor]

When a thief trying to break into a business falls through the skylight, injures himself, and then successfully sues the owner for damages, I say that's not fair. When a man tries to trim his hedge by holding his power mower over the branches, cuts his fingers off when it slips, and sues the manufacturer for not properly labeling the mower, I say that's not fair.

We know what "fair" is because God has planted a moral compass within us.

We understand that the highest paid professional athletes are faster, bigger, stronger, and more skilled. We understand grading on a curve—those who receive A's are those with the highest scores. We understand that job promotions should go to those who have the best training and the most seniority.

So when it comes to grace, we tend to think the way we think about everything else. We think that the bigger the sinner, the more grace is required.

It's like laundry detergent! Bigger stains require more detergent. For really difficult stains, we use the Tide, and the bleach, and the Borox 20-mule team. "Yes, I need my sins washed away. But he—well, he needs a lot more cleaning than I do. His sins are really bad."

So when somebody is trying to cheat the system our common sense tells us. We instinctively understand basic rights and wrongs—and we get upset when we see great injustice.

But have you ever said "That's not fair!" to God?

• Have you ever accused God of giving you a raw deal?

• Have you ever become angry with God because he allowed something to happen that you didn't like?

• Ever been upset or ticked off because God sometimes seem to violate his own rules about fairness?

• If so, then you understand what I'm talking about when I say that grace can be a scandal.

Our word "scandal" comes from the Greek skandalon, which originally meant "a trap with a springing device." It occurs 13 times in the NT, but it's not translated into English as "scandal." Usually, it's translated as "stumbling block" or occasionally "rock of offense." It's something that trips us up, something that traps us.

Example: "...we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews..." (1 Cor 1:23) The cross was a scandal (a trap) to the Jews because (1) they couldn't accept the idea of God giving his life on a cross for our salvation; (2) they were so steeped in the idea of earning God's favor by following the Law.

In the same way, grace can be a scandal for us—because it offends our sense of justice. We are outraged when the guilty get off on a technicality, but grace seems to let them off easy.

Jesus said, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matt 5:45). Now, let me ask, is that fair? Of course not! We don't want the sun to rise on evil people. We want the unrighteous to suffer, to be punished, to pay the consequences for their actions.

We are scandalized by grace—scandalized because really bad people can find forgiveness.

Remember Ted Bundy? He was an serial killer, murdering over 30 young women, many of them college students, across the United States between 1974 and 1978. Typically, Bundy would bludgeon his victims, then rape and strangle them to death. Bundy asked to be interviewed by psychologist James Dobson on January 24, 1989, less than 24 hours before prison guards strapped Bundy in a chair and sent 2,000 volts of electricity through his body. In that interview, he described the agony of his addiction to pornography. He went back to his roots, explaining the development of his compulsive behavior and how it fueled the terrible crimes he committed. At one point in the interview, Dobson said: You told me...that you have accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and are a follower and believer in Him. Do you draw strength from that as you approach these final hours? Bundy answered: I do.

As someone said to me last night after the service, how would you like it if the first person you met in heaven was Ted Bundy?

• Grace makes it possible for the worst sinners to be saved.

• Grace means nothing we do can make us worthy of salvation.

• Nothing we do can make God love us any less.

• Nothing we do can make God love us any more.

C.S. Lewis (I'm paraphrasing here): Christianity is the easiest religion and the hardest. It's easiest because no human effort is required for salvation; but it's hardest because human nature is to do something.

For us, the scandal comes when we imagine terrible sinners receiving grace and forgiveness. Our sense of justice says: "They should have to pay something. They should at least be required to suffer the consequences of their actions for a while. We've worked hard at being good. They should have to work just as hard."

It is a scandal to us that God gives undeserving people such an incomprehensibly great gift. It offends our sense of fair play. It upsets our system of merit and justice.

Jesus' story scandalized the people to hear of these inequities! How unfair! How unjust! They were morally outraged. It was as though Jesus were saying that all their religious diligence and spiritual discipline mattered nothing at all to God.

It was as though Jesus was painting God out to be unfair in the way he treated people. Some do very little and yet they get the same reward as those who do a lot! The very idea offended their moral sensibility.

For the Jews of Jesus' day, it was especially hard to imagine that God would welcome the undeserving. They had been raised with the conviction that they were God's favored people; they were his chosen race. Their attitudes had become entrenched over many generations going back centuries. They called Gentiles (non-Jews) "dogs." They avoided them like the plague. They didn't want to be contaminated by non-Jewish influences.

Our feelings about sinners and saints can run as deep as the Jews of the first century. We are scandalized to think that someone we think is undeserving—an obvious sinner, someone we'd like to hold accountable—is welcomed by God's grace.

Do you know the average non-Christian views evangelicals as judgmental, hypercritical, homophobic, and intolerant of sinners? And the church has singled out certain sins for special condemnation—homosexuality, for instance. Why is this considered worse than other sins? Why don't we jump all over fornicators and adulterers and those who cheat on their income taxes? Sin is sin—and we all need a Savior.

We're like the people in Jesus' stories: We look down on others. We believe we are more deserving than others. We think because we work harder at being religious that we are better than others. And we resent those who receive the same grace that we do without having to do everything we do.

We want to set our own religious rules and parameters (things we can manage) and make others jump through the same hoops that we set up. This gives us a sense of justice and fair play, because it makes us judge and gives us control.

Saying Grace means talking the talk. It means preaching forgiveness and second chance. Living Grace means actually doing grace—not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. It means extending grace by the way we accept one another.

⁷ Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ⁸ For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs ⁹ so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy... (Romans 15:7-9)

Everything God gives is of grace. We cannot earn what God gives us; we cannot deserve it; what God gives us is given out of the goodness of his heart. Furthermore, what God gives is not pay, but a gift—not a reward, but a grace. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 6:23). [Adapted from Barclay's commentary.]

1. Grace means no one is too bad to be saved. God specializes in saving really bad people. Do you have some things in your background you'd be ashamed to talk about in public? You don't have to be afraid. God knows all about it, and his grace is greater than your sin. [Brian Bill]

I think the reason we struggle with this parable is because we're so steeped in a human economy that is based on incentives that we have a hard time seeing that God's Kingdom is about the exact opposite.

Instead of incentives, God is offering an invitation. Instead of wealth, God is offering wholeness. Instead of greed, God is offering grace.

Jesus understood the value of all people regardless of what the culture thought of them. He gave all people value, regardless of their portfolio or resume. The last one in the vineyard is as welcome and valued as the first, and the last one to arrive at the table is given a full-course meal.

2. Grace means some people are "too good" to be saved. They may have such a high opinion of themselves they think they don't need God's grace. God's grace cannot help you until you are desperate enough to receive it! The Good News must first be Bad News—that we are sinners—sinners who cannot fix ourselves.

3. Grace puts us all on the same level. The workers' complaint is fascinating: "You have made them equal to us."

At first, the all-day workers don't complain about their wages. They were glad to get the opportunity to work. They had a contract. They agreed to work all day for a denarius. That was a good wage.

They only got upset later because others got the same wage—even though they hadn't worked as long or as hard. The all-day workers felt like if he was going to give partial workers so much, they should receive more.

But they also are given one denarius each. They are torqued. "How can these guys get the same wage as us? We've been out here all day toiling in the sun and we get the same? We should get more."

And most of us would side with them. After all, it's only fair. What kind of business owner is this? Those who do the most should get the most. Everyone should get what they deserve.

The landowner says, "How is this not fair to you? We contracted for a denarius at the beginning of the day and we each met the terms of that contract. As for the rest, I choose to give them the same as I gave you. It's my money and I can do with it what I like. Or is the real issue for you that I choose to be generous?" [Bob Kaylor]

No matter how menial or glorious our daily work for God's Kingdom is, we all get paid the same. In God's eyes, you see, we are all equal. At the end of the day, we all can receive God's grace.

4. Grace reminds us God's favor is a gift. Grace cannot be earned. Remember the "problem" in this story? It's not the injustice of a mean and cruel landowner. The problem is the scandal of a gracious and loving farmer. Verse 15 asks the question, "Are you envious because I am generous?"

This story reveals the generosity of God. These men did not all do the same work; but they did receive the same pay.

None of us is more deserving of God's grace than anyone else. All of us are bound up in a human economy that runs counter to God's Kingdom and none of us can claim superiority or seniority over another in God's ledger. In the kingdom economy, we can be grateful that God chooses to be generous.

The amazing thing is that what God gives us is not fair. If we got what was fair, we would all be in trouble. Because what we deserve is punishment, but what grace gives is forgiveness.

5. Grace offers a fresh start. All through the day, workers were recruited. Those who had no chance before were given the opportunity later in the day—at the third hour, the sixth hour, the eleventh hour. Each time grace was extended, and these workers were given a fresh start. The Christian life is really a series of new beginnings—next steps. That's what grace is all about. None of us has arrived. It doesn't matter where we are on our spiritual journey. The important thing is that there is another step for each of us. God wants to pour more grace into our lives. He wants us to experience a new work of grace.

"The last will be first," says Jesus, "and the first will be last." No matter where you are, you can have a new start.