“For
the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to
hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and
sent them out to work.
“At
nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw
some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them
he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went
to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same
thing.
“At
five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people
standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’
“They
replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’ “The landowner told them, ‘Then go
out and join the others in my vineyard.’
“That
evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with
the last workers first. When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each
received a full day’s wage. When those hired first came to get their
pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s
wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, ‘Those
people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid
us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’
“He
answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to
work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this
last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I
want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’
“So
those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be
last.”
Matthew 20:1-16 (NLT)
Matthew 20:1-16 (NLT)
What is fair? How do you define it?
Is
it fair that I am here, born into this, the most privileged “bubble” of
wealth and comfort in the history of humanity, while others are born into
poverty? Is it fair that I, as
a white privileged European American, consume a disproportionately large
“piece of the world pie” while others starve.
Is it fair that I don’t want “aliens” to infringe on my
expectations of what society should look like based on what works for me?
Is it fair that a huge amount of what America is was built on the
oppression of native Americans? On
what basis do we Americans assert that there’s room for “us four and no
more?”
Of
course
we Americans and we Christians must do things decently and in order
(I Cor. 14). After all who knows that better than Presbyterians?
(I Cor. 14). After all who knows that better than Presbyterians?
Yet
Jesus’ stories, including the one above, tell me, a person who doesn’t like
his world messed with, who hates injustice (at least when others are unjust to
me) that maybe my definition of fairness doesn’t match God’s definition
of fairness.
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Thank you, Pastor, for your two-day series on our response as Christians to President Obama's amnesty action for illegal immigrants. I've wrestled with this but always had this feeling that I should respond with compassion. Your words confirm what probably shouldn't need confirmation.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I would note that there are other viewpoints on this expressing some question even from a Christian perspective. I'm not going to say much about them here, but they are easy to find simply by Googling "Biblical view of illegal immigration". Two that I read taking either a balanced or somewhat contradictory viewpoint were one from Christianity Today and one at www.cis.org/ImmigrationBible. Both note that the first scripture quoted in Monday's blog (Exodus 23:9) probably referred to aliens sojourning (staying but passing through). Nevertheless, I think the New Testament references you mentioned Monday are even more compelling. The CIS article tends to focus on the difference between the appropriate response of an individual Christian and that of a government. It is also critical of the illegal immigrant who is flouting the law under the circumstances and regardless of the reason. They spend time on the issue of who else is most strongly impacted by the decision - generally the poorer Americans competing in the same "space".
Ultimately what this boils down to for us as well-to-do Christians is that we cannot simply be compassionate by "allowing" amnesty. We have to be willing to put "our" (God's) money where our mouths are on this because it is very likely to mean greater costs for social services.