Readings for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A) Proper 20 – Track 2
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday September 24 2023.
Several years ago, I picked Ashley up at the SFO airport after the holidays when we were first dating and drove her back home to Berkeley over the Bay Bridge. To bypass some of the traffic I got in the carpool lane when we arrived in the East Bay. However, while driving along I noticed that the carpool lanes required 3 or more passengers in the vehicle, not just 2. As soon as I saw the sign, I merged back into the congested lanes; and when I did, I noticed a car in my rearview mirror with only one person in the vehicle zoom past me in that carpool lane, which then splintered off north. I remember being tempted to follow that rebel, but I knew I was doing the right thing. And that’s when a cop pulled me over. I explained to him that as soon as I saw the sign about the 3-passenger requirement, I got out of the carpool lane, but that didn’t seem to arouse any compassion in the highway patrol officer, who proceeded to write me a ticket for traffic lane violation, a ticket that was going to wipe out all my savings. I felt like I was being punished for doing the right thing and it would have been better if I had just stayed in the carpool lane like that rebel driver behind me and zoom away, scot-free. I began to grumble about the situation, like the laborers in the parable who worked a twelve-hour shift in the scorching heat of the day and got paid the same amount as those who worked just one hour in the coolness of the evening. I was upset with the patrol officer, who was really just doing his job, and jealous of the driver who got away. I began to look at the situation with what Jesus calls “the evil eye.” And that is what I want to preach about today: the evil eye. It’s a term used often in ancient literature, but I didn’t know that our Lord and Savior used it until I looked more closely at the Greek text of today’s parable.[1]
The last question that the landowner asks the laborers is, according to our translation, “Are you envious because I am generous?” Literally, in the Greek, he asks, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” Are you looking at this situation with the evil eye because I am a good and generous landowner?
Our parable today is yet another troubling one that grabs our attention. The kingdom of heaven is like an unfair landowner who pays those who work twelve hours the same amount of money that he pays those who work one hour? Yikes. Now we all know that life isn’t fair, but don’t we all hope that at least God is fair? And if this landowner represents God, which would make sense, then is Jesus really teaching us that even God is not a just and fair God? When we give ourselves over to the power of this parable and let it read us, we begin to see that not only is our God indeed a just and fair God, but that our vision is often tainted and obscured by the evil eye.
If we look more closely, we see that the laborers who worked 12 hours (from 6 AM to 6 PM) got paid the exact amount that they were promised, the usual daily wage, a denarius, which could help feed a family for a few days. If they didn’t receive this payment that they were promised then we could deduce that the landowner, and therefore perhaps God, is not only unjust but also a liar, a breaker of promises. But the landowner pays them exactly what he agreed to pay them. The reason the laborers grumble is because others who worked less got paid the same amount and they are jealous. When we compare ourselves to others and to what they have (even if we have the same thing), we can become susceptible to the “evil eye.” The great Anglican poet and playwright William Shakespeare, in his play Othello, describes the evil eye when he says, “Beware of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster, which doth the mock the meat it feeds on.” In other words, the evil eye will eat you alive.[2] You might be the wealthiest person in the world, but it will still not be enough if you give the evil eye even an inch. In an interview with The New York Times, Elon Musk was apparently on “the verge of tears while describing a self-enslavement he admits is unhealthy but which he has no intention of altering.”[3] We can so easily become slaves to the evil green-eyed monster of jealousy. In our reading from Jonah, the prophet is so torn up by the green-eyed monster that he begins cursing everything, even the shady bush that withers and even his own life. Jonah becomes so tortured by the evil eye that he wants to die. The monster will eat us alive. Jesus knows this well which is why this theme shows up all the time in his parables.
We are all so lucky and blessed, but then maybe we go on Facebook or Instagram or turn on our TVs and see that others are also very lucky and blessed, perhaps they seem more lucky and blessed than us; and we wonder if they worked as hard as us to deserve those blessings, so now we’re upset, and we give them the evil eye. But like withholding forgiveness, the evil eye does the most damage to us, not to the other person.
So, what’s the antidote? How do we protect ourselves from the green-eyed monster? How do we protect ourselves from the evil eye? Now you might not like the answer, especially coming from me because you might think I have some ulterior motives, but the answer is “come to church!” More specifically, come to Eucharist, which means “Thanksgiving.” Come into the beauty of holiness and give thanks to God for making you the luckiest person in the world, not lucky and blessed at the expense of others, but lucky and blessed with others. Give thanks to God for all the times that you got the lucky break, just like the laborers who only worked one hour and got paid a whole day’s wage.[4] Give thanks with the Psalmist who sings, “I will exalt you, O God my King, and bless your Name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless you and praise your Name” (Psalm 145:1-2). Give thanks to God even in the midst of serious challenges because, in the words of Paul, God “has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (Philippians 2:30). Give thanks with a grateful heart because God’s grace is indeed amazing.
Before I was devoured by the evil green-eyed monster that began to seep into my soul after I received that traffic violation ticket, my girlfriend and another close friend at the time reminded me how lucky and blessed I am by generously paying the ticket for me. So, in the end, that story is not about how unfair life is, but how blessed I am, blessed with such loving and generous friends. And in the end, that’s really what today’s parable is about. It’s not about God being unfair at all. God’s not unfair, but God is boundless in his benevolence and generosity and grace to you and even to some whom we think might not deserve it. It’s not up to us to decide who deserves what, but it is up to us to obey the most frequent command in all of Scripture: to give thanks and praise to the Lord for his amazing grace each and every day. Amen.
[1] I am indebted to Amy-Jill Levine’s translation and commentary on this parable in her book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 214 – 215.
[2] William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3 Scene 3 lines 195 – 197. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Tolkien chose to portray the most evil force in all Middle Earth with the symbol of the Eye, the Eye of Sauron.
[3] https://www.entrepreneur.com/living/elon-musk-is-sounding-very-unhappy-and-assumes-his-life/318630
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor invites us to imagine that we are the lucky ones, explaining that we often hear this parable as if “we are the ones who have gotten the short end of the stick; we are the ones who have been gypped. We are the ones who have gotten up early and worked hard and stayed late and all for what? So that some backward householder can come along and start at the wrong end of the line, treating us just like the ne’er do wells who do not even get dressed until noon!” She says, “That is how most of us hear the parable, but it is entirely possible that we are mistaken about where we are in line. Did you ever think about that? It is entirely possible that, as far as God is concerned, we are halfway around the block, that there are all sorts of people ahead of us in line, people who are far more deserving of God’s love than we are, people who have more stars in their crowns that we will ever have.” Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons from the Episcopal Series from the Protestant Radio Hour (Cincinnati OH: Forward Movement, 1990), 78 – 79.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 