Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, by Peter Lewin

Exodus 16.2-15
Philippians 1.21-30
Matthew 20.1-16

Today’s Gospel reading picks up in Judea, and I’m going to start a little before that passage. The disciples have asked Jesus what they would get as a reward for following him. He responds that his followers would sit on thrones alongside him in the “new world”, and that everyone who follows him for his name’s sake will “inherit eternal life. But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”

He continues his response with the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In it, the landowner hires multiple cohorts of labourers throughout the day. And, despite their different contributions, he pays them all the same. The early workers feel it’s not fair, and they’re angry.

At Jesus’s time, a denarius - a wage for a day’s work - was for those who were destitute: day workers, those living on the edge of existence. Their pay was existential. Would they be able to eat? Would their families? Would they fall into debt and become slaves? Their survival hinges on this pay. The sense of unfairness is appropriately intense.

And if you think about it from the landowner’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense. Who on earth would pay inflated wages if they could avoid it? The maths don’t work.

But Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven. The point is not work. The point is not pay. The point is not maths. The point is the landowner, God, calling people to tend to his vines, a plant rich with sacred meaning, and the people who hear him and become workers all receive the same reward: a day’s wages, enough to survive for a day. Daily bread.

It’s not for us to look at how others have come to God, assess ourselves against them, or measure our contributions: the first will be last, and the last will be first. Since Jesus is talking to his disciples, his first followers, to me, that suggests not an inversion of place, but that we will occupy the same place, together. Through Christ’s sacrifice for us, we may also be together with God, who is, and who is love, eternally and infinitely. We can all participate in him, and we should not let our egos get in the way.

But a relationship with God is hard work. It always has been. In our reading from Exodus, the Israelites are suffering terribly.

God has just rescued them from hundreds of years of slavery, as he had promised Abraham. But the path has been rough. The individuals with Moses have lived through ten plagues; crossed the Sea of Reeds; and suffered a long, wild way to find themselves in the wilderness. They are so miserable as to wish they had died back in Egypt.

But, as he had promised, God sustains them. He turns bitter water sweet. He reveals himself in Glory and sends them meat and dew and manna.

I want to focus on a detail towards the end of the passage, which is that when the Israelites gather the manna, no matter how much they gathered, each ends up with an “omer”, or daily ration of bread. God corrects their portions to only what they need for the day.

This point is emphasised In the verses after our reading, where we learn that any uneaten manna would go bad before the next day. God provides every day, but every day, the Israelites must gather and consume exactly the right quantity of bread.

In both the parable and this passage, God provides in his generosity, yes, but in both cases it requires daily attention and restraint to participate in his gift. There is no banking our relationship with God.

A relationship with God is hard work. The Israelites grumble, the disciples grumble, and we might grumble.

Paul, on the other hand, not only understands pain but also lives with it, in faith. (To be fair, some of what he writes seems to border on grumbling, but he’s quick to say that he’s not complaining.) He has been beaten, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked, sleep deprived, and starved.

As of today’s letter to the Philippians, he is in prison, which I think of as a sort of limbo. He is kept from his disciples and not yet seated beside Christ. His sentencing will send him in one direction or another. In an intimate line, he writes of that duality, not as a spectre of suicide, but demonstrating his faith in the throne he will occupy next to Christ in the new world, as well as utter conviction in his mission in this one. In custody, he continues his ministry in his letters, and he implores the Philippians to live by the gospel, in unity under Christ, even if he is absent.

In the last two verses of the passage, Paul also says that our path is one of suffering for Christ’s sake, and we should struggle as he did.

Both suffering and struggling are big topics. For the next few minutes, I am going to focus mostly on struggling.

Paul’s word for struggling is ἀγῶνα (agōna), which has elements of athleticism to it. Where suffering is passive, struggling is active. It’s what we do, not what we receive. But what does struggling mean today?

Paul was unique in his conversion, mission, and acts. The saints and martyrs are also special, and most Christians have been neither. I don’t want to speak for you, and I can’t know what God has in store for me, but I’d be very surprised to end up a canonised saint or martyr.

And that’s ok. The first will be last, and the last will be first. The question is, how do I live for Christ’s sake, as God has made me? What does my struggle look like?

I believe that, for now, for me, the answer is struggling with the tension of living a Christian life oriented towards God in a world, and in a self, that is not always inclined to it.

St Augustine wrote, “Lord make me chaste, but not yet.” He seemed to recognise that tension.

I have many faults as a person and as a Christian, but I hope you’ll give me permission to share a few insights from my own struggle towards God. And the first threshold to cross was, how should I struggle closer to God?

There were many paths for me to consider. Some focus on avoiding the trappings of this world: practices like asceticism, vows of silence, corporal mortification, and even cold showers. There are reflective practices like the Ignatian Examen, which helps us catalogue what we’ve done in the day and how virtuous, or otherwise, we’ve been, and ask God to help us be better. The number and variety suggest there is not one right way.

For now, I practice contemplative prayer and private intercessions. Through these practices, and study of these practices, I’ve landed on a formulation of what it means for me to struggle closer to God. I’d like to share it with you, in case you find it helpful.

Here it is: the more time I spend in prayer, the closer I feel to God. The closer I feel to him, the more I want to share in his perfect love, and the more I feel my own failure to love perfectly. It’s a practice of constant disappointment, particularly because the thing distracting from love is usually myself, reacting to something or someone in this world. And it requires continuous renewal of faith that God is there, and that he loves me, and conviction that what I am doing matters. That can be hard, especially when witnessing or experiencing loss, deprivation or injustice. But I believe persistence through suffering makes faith and conviction stronger.

Like everyone else, when I’m not praying, I live in this world, working, exercising, looking at art, or spending time with my friends here and outside of church. Most of the time, I fail to love as much as I know I should, and sometimes that feels bleak.

But I don’t think the point is being perfect. Only Christ was perfect.

The point is embracing the struggle, looking for God as we suffer, and trying every day to love as God loves. Some will do better and others worse. We will grumble and be imperfect. It will be hard. It is also beautiful and revelatory and magnificent. And we can go back to Him every day in prayer and communion, to share in his love.

Because God, who is, and who is love, is waiting for us always and everywhere, as our daily bread.