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I had a scary dream the other night. Dreamed I died and went to heaven. Well, that wasn’t the scary part. What was scary is what happened there at the pearly gates. St. Peter met me and said before I could enter the heavenly realm, I had to make a complete public disclosure of all my sins. Man! I’d always heard you had to do that, but I’ve been kind of hoping it was a misprint in the Bible.

Well, St. Peter took me over to a place where there was a giant chalkboard. It was so high it disappeared into the clouds. And alongside the chalkboard was this ladder that reached all the way up the entire height of the chalkboard, into those clouds of heaven, and all the way – St. Peter said – to the very throne of God. Then, Peter handed me this enormous piece of chalk with which to write my sins. It was so big I could barely hold it in both arms. I asked, “Why is the chalk so big?” Peter said, “So you won’t run out!” I asked him if anyone had ever run out of chalk. “Not in the history of the world,” said St. Peter. Then he said, “Start writing.”

And so I did. Starting on the bottom rung of the ladder, I went back to the beginning and listed them all – every sin I’ve ever committed. That time when I was a little kid in a high chair, and for breakfast my mother had made me an egg, but I wanted two eggs, and she said “You can have another egg when you finish the first one,” but I yelled, “Me want TWO EGGS and me want them NOW!” and then I threw the plate across the room. I wrote that one on the blackboard. And I could hear people snickering over it, but I didn’t stop because I had a long ways to go to get to heaven.

Rung after rung I climbed, writing sin after sin on that giant chalkboard. And St. Peter was right. That enormous piece of chalk didn’t even get a dent in it, despite all my many infractions – smoking cigarettes behind the house with my buddy Dennis, forcing my neighbor Danny to let us lower him by his ankles down the sewer to retrieve lost whiffle balls, stealing penny candy from the 5 and 10, thinking dirty thoughts, thinking dirty thoughts, thinking…well, you get the idea.

My confessed sins rapidly accumulated, but still that big piece of chalk held up. Finally, my arms grew weary under its great size and I had to take a rest. So I leaned against the ladder, exhausted under the weight of both the chalk … and my many egregious sins.

But just then, I heard a noise! Up above me, there were human voices. Then I heard footsteps coming fast and furious down the ladder from up high! Then I felt someone step on my hands gripping the next rung up. I looked up in sheer fright. And lo and behold, a very scary sight!

It was (insert the name of a friend or church member)!

I gasped, “(Name)! What are you doing here?”

 (Name) said, “I’m writing down all my sins.”

I said, “But why is everybody else going UP the ladder… and you are going DOWN?”

(Name) said, “Gotta get more chalk!”

Comparisons.

Who’s a bigger sinner than who?

I was with a family once who’d just lost their husband and father to cancer. As I visited with the family, they began to talk about the prospects of their lost loved one making it to heaven. Now I like to stay out of those conversations because I think only God knows such things. But that family really got into a heated argument about it. Finally, the widow piped up and said to her children, “I think daddy went to heaven. Compared to most of the men I know, he wasn’t half as bad!”

Comparisons.

The President of the United States – the head of the last great superpower and the leader of the free world is paid $400,000 a year. Aaron Judge, the great outfielder for the New York Yankees will be paid 40 million dollars this year. And Aaron is only the third highest paid ballplayer!

Comparisons.

It has taken the world’s most hated dictators decades to gain, at best, marginal control over their people. On the other hand, it has taken only seven months for our grandson Ryan to gain complete control over ALL the people in his little world.

Comparisons.

They’re all around us. And whether we use sins, or morality, or compensation, or status to measure the differences between us, we live in a world that thrives on the business of making distinctions between people.

And perhaps one of the greatest challenges of living as a follower of Christ, is learning to lay down those comparisons – to see beyond those artificial, human-made distinctions – in order to discover another way. A better way. God’s way.

That’s really what the parable is about in today’s lection from Matthew 20.

A woman – or a man – owns a vineyard. It’s harvest time, and she needs to get the grapes in to start making wine. So she goes down to the union hall and hires some workers. She agrees to pay them a fair day’s wage. And they go to work.

But three hours later, she realizes she’s got more harvest than she’s got workers, and afraid that she’ll lose some of the crop if she doesn’t get it all in that day, the woman goes back down to the union hall and hires some more workers. She promises to pay them whatever is right.

And again, three hours later, the woman gets more workers. And three hours after that, she gets even more.

Finally, evening comes, and the woman calls all the workers together so she can pay them. She calls up the men hired last – in the last hour of the day – and pays them a denarius which is a full day’s wage! Imagine that? An eight-hour paycheck for one hour’s work!

Well, the other workers, who were hired earlier in the day are watching all this. They become very excited! Why, if the workers who came late were paid so well, imagine what THEY who came early will be paid!

But when they receive their paycheck, they’re disappointed to see it’s for the exact same amount of money.

And they begin to smolder with anger. They mount a protest.

“These men who were hired last worked only ONE hour, and YOU HAVE MADE THEM EQUAL TO US who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day!”

Can you hear how ticked off they are?

I mean, wouldn’t you be upset? If you worked eight hours under the hot sun and then found out you were paid the same as some Johnny-come-lately who worked just the one hour before the whistle blew, wouldn’t you be indignant? Wouldn’t you be offended? I would.

And that’s really why Jesus tells this story. To get us all riled up! To get us onto the side of those first workers. To get us as ticked off as they are! Because, you see, when we’re all worked up about this apparent injustice, we can consider a key question:

What are you so mad about, REALLY?

Well, I’ll tell you what it is for me. I’m offended because this is an assault against our human practice of making distinctions between us and others that make us feel more important. This is a direct attack on human pride, and our compulsive need to elevate ourselves above others. This is an offense against our life-long need to value our worth above the worth of others, our needs over other’s needs, and our willingness to establish artificial and self-serving comparisons to prove ourselves better than them.

YOU HAVE MADE THEM EQUAL TO US!

That’s the offense the landowner has committed. That’s why we’re so mad!

Now listen to something important. This story is not a biblical lesson on how to run a business. Whatever you do, don’t go back to your business and try to run it like this. The point Jesus is making here is not that bat boys should make 40 million a year just because Aaron Judge does. It does not mean that short-term employees should be paid the same as long-term workers. It does not mean you should take what little is left in your 401K and give it away to those who have nothing, although that would be a nice thing to do if you did!

No, this is not a story about fair vs. unfair business practices. This is a parable after all.. And its point is this: there comes a time in your life as a follower of Christ when you have to get your eyes off your own self-absorbed self in order to see something higher and better.

Here, while we stew in our wounded self-centeredness, the owner, representing God, speaks and the words she says strike deep in our hearts. “No, I’m not being unfair to you. I’ve given you what I promised and what we agreed upon.”

 And you have to admit, she has a point there. We’ve been paid exactly what we were promised, and what we agreed to. So it’s not a matter of fairness. Then, she continues:

“ If I want to give the person I hired last the same as I gave to you, don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?”

And then she asks a devastating question:

 “Or do you begrudge me my generosity?”

Can you see the picture Jesus has painted? Our selfishness…held up against the backdrop of God’s generous grace toward everyone! Not only the first, but also the last. Not only us, but even them.

And we are left to ponder a final question.

Which, do YOU think, is the better way? The way of self-concern, or the way of mutual concern? Our way? Or God’s way?

And which way, do YOU think, will result in a better world?

And so we are left with a picture of God. How generous and gracious is the Lord! He makes no comparisons between us. He erects no artificial distinctions in which some are more equal than others.

No, God loves all His children. Each one is special and valued. And God pours out amazing grace onto all of them, despite the world’s protest.

And then there’s one more thing.

You and I are called – as God’s representatives in the world – to go and do the same!