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Useless People
A sermon preached by Lonnie Lacy, Seminarian at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bethesda, Maryland – September 18, 2005
You know, there’s that wonderfully honest old joke about the guy who died, went to heaven, and was greeted by St. Peter. St. Peter asks, “Religion?” and the man replies, “Episcopalian.” St. Peter looks down his list, and says, “Go to room 24, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.” Another person arrives at the gates of heaven. “Religion?” “Lutheran.” “Okay, go to room 18, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.” Yet another person arrives at the gates. “Religion?” “Jewish.” “Very well. Go to room 11, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.” The man then says, “I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why do I have to be quiet when I pass room 8?” St. Peter tells him, “Well, you see, the Southern Baptists are in room 8, and they think they’re the only ones here.”
It’s a joke that most of us have heard a hundred times, but there’s something that rings true about it. The fact of the matter is that there are always those people in our lives who we really hope we won’t see in heaven (mostly because we can’t stand the sight of them now!). But Jesus has a response for us in today’s Gospel lesson. In today’s lesson, he looks at our divisions and silly judgments, then looks us in the eye and says, “Get over it.” The parable he tells today is a hard pill to swallow for the simple, unavoidable reason that it pushes you and me to the limits of our tolerance and asks of us, “Can you really worship a God of truly infinite, truly unconditional love? Can you really worship a God who lavishly wastes love on those who don’t deserve it?”
When I read this parable, I find it helpful to think about it through the lens of my experience living in a developing suburb of Atlanta . This town was a small, isolated place ten years ago. Now it is a bustling suburb complete with restaurants, movie theaters, soccer fields, and million dollar homes . . . almost all of which were built on the backs of poor, Hispanic migrant workers.
In this town, if you drive by the Super Wal-Mart at about six o’clock in the morning, you’ll see droves of migrant working men standing and waiting for a contractor to drive by and hire them for the day. (I understand there are also places near here where you can see that very thing.) And sure enough, contractors will drive up, whistle and point to those who look strongest, load them into their pickup trucks, and drive off for a hard day’s work. By nine o’clock , all the really strong men are gone. By noon , all the young men are gone. By three o’clock , all the remaining able-bodied men are gone. And by five o’clock in the afternoon, the only ones who remain standing next to the Super Wal-Mart are the old men, the young boys, and the crippled . . . all too weak for real work. And yet, there they stand, hoping even in that late hour that someone will pick them up, give them a job for the day, and reward them with something—anything—with which to feed their families. But there are reasons why they have not been hired. These last people standing next to the Super Wal-Mart at five o’clock in the afternoon are, for all practical purposes, useless. No contractor in his right mind is going to waste his money on people who can’t do the work. That is why they’re still standing there at five o’clock .
And that is why it is so extraordinary that the Landowner in Jesus’ story actually hires them. Can you imagine being one of the workers who had worked since six o’clock in the morning? Having “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” only to find yourself working next to someone who can’t even perform the task? Who can’t even carry his load? Whose inabilities and weaknesses hold up your productivity and—at times—unwittingly but clumsily undo some of the work you’ve been doing all day? It is no wonder, then, that the workers who worked all day long are enraged when those who worked only one hour receive the same full daily wage. “They don’t deserve that much!” they demand. “Did you not see how useless they were . . . how inept they were? They have done nothing to deserve such reward!” To which the Landowner simply replies, “Get over it. What’s mine is mine to do with as I please, and I choose to be generous.”
And so it is with God.
You and I all have people in our lives whom we consider useless, who we point to and say, “I have no use for you.” Every one of us can think of a handful of people who are worthless and undeserving of recognition, of reward, of love. And we can’t let the context of the parable fool us. The people you and I consider useless are not those who are physically weak and unable to work . . . we do a good job of caring for those sort of folks. No, the people who you and I most often consider useless and undeserving of our love are those who hold power over us and who work against us. We do our best to love everyone unconditionally, but it seems we always have in the back of our minds the question, “What has this person done to deserve my love?” What has your alcoholic father done to deserve your love? What has your rebellious daughter done to deserve your love? What about people who bomb abortion clinics? What about folks who want to exclude gays from the Church? What about Osama Bin Laden? What about George W. Bush? Can you love them unconditionally, or are they just too useless to you?
I’ll leave the list making up to you, but the question remains, “Is this the God we want? Can you and I actually stand to serve a God who stoops so low as to love even those who don’t pull their weight, who make a mess of everything, who—in our minds—just flat out don’t deserve it?”
I hope so. I hope so because I don’t think that we as a “progressive church” can be truly progressive or truly the Church if we don’t bear witness to the difficult, unfair, unconditional love of God. In every action, in every prophecy, in every call for peace and justice that comes forth from this church, we are called—above all else—to act in a way that mirrors the irrational, extravagant love of God . . . especially to those who don’t deserve it. It is a tall order and a difficult task, but I’ve yet to experience the people of St. Luke’s as a people who shy away from hard work.
Each week at the end of the Eucharist, Stephanie blesses us in the Name of the God “who lives to disturb and heal us” and this is a week in which God clearly has it in mind to disturb us. But if you and I are honest with ourselves and with one another and with God, I think we might just find that there is tremendous healing and tremendous grace in the midst of our disturbance.
As the old folks back home used to say, “God does not make junk.” Whether we like it or not, God is desperately in love with all of humanity, even the useless, even those who don’t deserve it, and that makes all humanity family. And in the end, in the end when the first will be last and the last will be first, I am convinced that it will have been our ability to live out that truth above all others that will determine the merit of the good work we have done. Let it be so.
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