Pecking order in the vineyard

Proper 20 September 24, 2017

The University of Greifswald was established in 1456. It is the 4^th oldest German university. From 1648 to 1815 it was part of Swedish Pomerania. At Greifswald on May 12, 1921, Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Gallus domesticus in seinem täglichen Leben.” – the daily life of chickens.  Thorleif, a 27 year old Norwegian scholar, drew on 17 years of observation and study to introduce the concept of pecking order in chickens. The technical term is “Dominance hierarchy.”  In social living groups members compete for access to limited resources and mating opportunities. Rather than fight each time they meet members of the group develop a set of relative relationships – a hierarchy that lets the participants know the proper order.

Such hierarchies are universal. We have ranks in the military, pay scales in business and the professions. The Pay Scale website says that in 2015 six of the highest paid CEOs make more than 300 times the salary of their typical employee. The average is about 70 to 1. In 1965 it was about 20 to 1. That is an economic hierarchy. Stockholders vote for boards of directors who approve executive compensation. Dominance hierarchy is the way of the world.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus calls the church to be different.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” Those who heard Jesus – and Matthew – immediately thought of Isaiah 5:5 “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting . . .”  The vineyard owner went out to hire day laborer because when the grapes are ripe lots of hands are needed to pick them. In Israel as today there is a place where day laborers go to be hired. And there is a dominance hierarchy to determine who gets first chance at any available job.

In the parable the owner goes out 5 times to hire pickers – at daybreak, at 9, 12, 3, and even at the last hour of daylight. Monastic communities traditionally pray at those 5 hours - daybreak, 9, 12, 3, before the evening meal and also Compline before bedtime and a night hour before dawn. The first time the vineyard owner agrees with the workers for the standard wage - one silver coin a day. To the other workers he simply says, “I will pay you whatever is right.”  And so they went. Better to take what you can than not work at all. The difference comes at the end of the day. The first laborers hired receive their agreed-on wage. Hierarchical thinking is an hourly wage. Part-time work gets part time money and no benefits. Half day half pay, and so forth. But the owner pays all the workers a full day’s pay. That upsets the hierarchy. Those who “have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” thought they should have received more than they had first agreed to.

What are we working for?  In the parable everyone receives a day’s wage, regardless of how many hours he worked. We receive not a silver coin, but a relationship. Our Creator offers us his unconditional and eternal love; he offers us his unconditional and eternal forgiveness for all our sins; he offers us a clear conscience; he offers us a relationship with his Son, our Lord Jesus. Jesus dwells in our hearts by faith. The Holy Spirit of truth and power guides us into all truth and gives us the power to do that truth. We get it all. All of us get it all, always. The relationship is permanent. Jesus’ resurrection assures us that this relationship of love continues through the gate of death into everlasting life.

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  The Christian community is radically egalitarian. As we enter the church we leave behind the hierarchies of the world. When we are baptized into the one Lord, Jesus Christ, we receive a fundamental identity as a child of God.  Saint Paul wrote to the church at Philippi in northern Greece, “standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel,” Paul wrote to the church in Galatia in Asia Minor “You have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female; you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (3:28)

No more dominance hierarchy, no more of Thorlief’s chicken pecking order. All share equally in God’s unconditional and eternal love. All share equally in the forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ death on the cross. All share equally in his new and eternal life. All share equally in the gift of the Holy Spirit of truth and power.

Our task as a church, our task as Christian people in all of our relationships, is to live as much as we can in this new paradigm of love. In this world the chickens continue in a pecking order and all creation is bound by a dominance hierarchy, but we are spiritually free from these constraints, free to treat one another as loved and forgiven children of God, as St. Paul says, “standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and in no way intimidated by our opponents.”