Some years ago my good friend Marv and I drove to Massachusetts for a concert at the Tanglewood Music Festival. The featured performer was Frank Sinatra and we had purchased tickets two months in advance and paid top dollar for the best tickets available: Row T. After seeing Sinatra in concert a few times from the nosebleed section at Madison Square Garden, we were happy to have seats only twenty rows from the Chairman of the Board. After the concert, and facing a two hour drive, we stopped for coffee at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. There's a large front porch where people sat with their coffee or assorted drinks, and we struck up a conversation with four young men who had also been at the concert. One of them said, "On a lark I called yesterday to see if there were any tickets; we got four seats in the front row!" (Just as an aside for those of you who might spend more time in church than a theater, in a theater, unlike a church, the front row seats are the prime seats.)

Suddenly the Row T tickets of two clergy from Westchester didn't seem so good. Suddenly the ticket sales policy of Tanglewood didn't seem so fair. To be honest, if it weren't for the chance conversation with those four young men, Marv and I would still be talking about the bargain we had, rather than the beating we took. Then again, I wouldn't have this introduction to our text! The last shall be first, and the first shall be consigned to Row T.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who, once upon a time ... went to Main Street and Route 22 in Brewster and hired some Hispanics to work in the vineyard." And just as the disciples are more-than-familiar with a vineyard, perhaps many of us and familiar with the early morning gathering of Hispanic men on street corners in Mamaroneck or Peekskill; Mt. Kisco or Brewster. Men looking for an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

One day long ago, early at the break of dawn, a landowner goes to the center of town where the laborers are gathered and hires a few for the day ... at the agreed upon usual pay for a day. And later in the morning he goes back to town center and hires a few more. Three more times he makes the trek into town to hire more workers ... the last time about five in the afternoon. Get this: with only an hour or so left on the time clock, he hires some more. At quitting time the workers are paid. The five o'clock fellows receive ... the usual pay for a day. The three o'clock fellows get ... the usual pay for a day. The noon workers get ... the usual pay for a day. And we begin to notice a trend. By the time the early birds get paid, they expect a bonus ... but they too receive, the usual pay for a day. And surprise, surprise: they grumble. They are far less happy with the bargain they made, as they emphasize illogically the beating they took. "You have made them ... equal to us." And that is a key point to the story. "You have made them ... equal to us."

When Jesus tells a story - watch out! His stories usually have a twist that causes good religious folk to shift uneasily from one foot to the other. The ones who do not come off looking so good are the hardworking citizens who bore the brunt of the heat of the day. If you worked twelve hours in the heat of the day and got paid the same as someone who worked just an hour ... you might grumble a bit. Just like those men in the vineyard. If you bought tickets months in advance and for the same price somebody else bought better seats the night before ... you might grumble a bit - just like Marv and I. If your folks came over on the Mayflower and now newcomers from New Delhi run a gas station with a deli ... and they make more than you and get the same slice of the American Dream, well sure, you might grumble a bit.

I wonder if Peter grumbled when he heard the story? Peter was among the very first to trade his fishing pole for a vineyard shovel. That counts for something, doesn't it? Evidently not. This story is either about the grace of God or a grumbling humanity. Either way, it's not so easy to swallow.

Presumably, the Peters and Patties among us can put ourselves in the shoes of the fisherman. We would expect that at the end of the day and the end of a life - the harder we've toiled in the vineyard, the more we have given, the greater the reward of the Lord. Evidently not. From our human perspective ... this whole thing just does not seem fair. It's not fair that some Tom, Dick, or Harry gets Baptized on his deathbed - it's not fair - that he would get the same red carpet treatment into the Kingdom as, say - Mother Theresa or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Lutheran, or John Paul II. "Don't get us wrong, Lord," we tend to grumble, but the folks who come down with a serious case of religion late in life ... they are going to get the same wage as we are going to get? Where's our shop steward? That ain't fair, Lord!"

Our God doesn't treat us according to our standards, but according to God's. And the measuring rod God uses is spelled out in today's parable - generosity. God's own generosity. And if we want to begrudge God God's generosity, we better be careful. Speaking for me, and me alone, I'm looking for a break from God - and the longer I live the bigger the break I'll need. But my God is a generous God and so maybe you'll agree with me. "God, you want to be generous? Knock yourself out! Go for it""

The landlord - who in reality is a People Lord - says to the grumblers, "are you envious because I am generous?" Each of us needs forgiveness our God so generously obliges. God was dying to forgive us ... and die God did; and forgiven we are. We may not feel we have done enough for God to love us like there's no tomorrow. That's what we might say. But God says, "Nonsense, I'm feeling generous!

As one commentator says, "... if we believe in the God of this parable, who welcomes us and is so generous, then we have to reflect this generosity in our lives. We have to stop keeping strict accounts. We must stop measuring people by how much they have; how educated they are; how long they have been coming to our church; how "worthy" we think they are. We need to put on the eyeglasses today's parable provides and see ourselves and others as God sees us all." Sometimes it seems we are so inept in doing God's will, as if we don't know our right hand from our left. Still - Jesus extends both hands toward us ... nail-pierced as they are - hands both right and left.

Thank God we poor critters do NOT get treated as we so richly deserve. Instead of God giving us our just desserts ... Sunday after Sunday we get bread and wine, the vitamins of God's vineyard. We don't get what we deserve. Jesus tells us in this parable that we'll get far more than we bargained for. We have been irrigated in Baptism and we have been forgiven through the Cross. As ol' Blue Eyes sang at a long ago concert, "They can't take that away from me."