Kingdom Scorekeeping

A few years ago, I was overseeing a basketball ministry that included elementary age children, from those on the verge of middle school, all the way down to the youngest kindergarteners. It was that later group that was the most fun for me to watch. Have you ever watched kindergarteners play basketball? Amoeba ball, they call it. Everyone swarming around the ball the whole time, a pulsating blob moving down the court back and forth. Usually one or two kids grabbed the ball all the time, most of the rest of them chased after those two, and there were always one or two kids sitting on the floor playing with their shoes. Needless to say, we did not keep score with this age kids. It was more about them learning the game and figuring out how to play on a team. How to dribble and shoot. Actually, let me correct myself. The referees did not keep score. And the children did not keep score. But the parents. Oh, no. They knew the whole time what the score was. There were always a few parents who meticulously kept the score every basket. Even in the midst of amoeba ball, there was a need to say “I have more than you.”

We live in a world that loves to keep score. The elementary student who notes how many A’s they got compared to the person sitting next to them. The teenager who keeps track of their Instagram likes, understanding that their social value is caught up in how big that number is. The married couple who silently keeps track of how many times the other fails to empty the dishwasher or turn out the hallway light before bed. Church folk who quietly compare how much they give to the church, or how many hours of service they put in….how many jewels we can earn for our heavenly crown.  We love to keep score.

But when we live that way, it feels like we can never really catch up. The things we do and the things we don’t do matter. But somewhere along the way, we cross a line. We become the things that we do or don’t do. Our worth is tied up in the things that we do or don’t do. Our value is equivalent to our accomplishments. We move from keeping score, to being our score. Jill McNish says something similar in her comparison between guilt and shame. She writes:

There is a distinction to be made between guilt and shame. Guilt has reference to an action perceived as wrong, whereas shame has reference to the self… Simply put, one feels guilt for making a mistake. Shame is a felt sense of being a mistake.

In other words, we can never do enough things…we can never score enough points…it feels like we always miss the shot at the buzzer.

This is an important distinction to keep in mind as we explore today’s Scripture passage. Jesus tells a story about keeping score. There once was a keeper of a vineyard. The time came where he needed some extra employees. Perhaps it was harvest time or planting…day laborers were needed. So, he went out early in the morning, and hired a bunch of workers. And then he went out midmorning. And then again at noon. And at midafternoon. And then, as the sun was setting, he went out once again and hired a few more to finish the work. But then it came time to pay the workers. But instead of prorating the payment, giving those who worked more hours more money, they all received a full daily wage. Those who worked more than the others freaked out: “But I worked harder, I am owed more!” But the keeper of the vineyard insisted that they had agreed to work for a daily wage, so that is what they would be paid.

Did you ever notice how the vineyard-keeper did this? The story tells about those who are hired, beginning at the first and ending with the last. But then, he pays them in reverse order. He starts with the last workers and pays them first. It seems to me that if he had just paid the first workers first, sent them on their way with their daily wage, and then moved on, the story would have ended very differently. Then the next workers could have ALSO received a daily wage, surprising and thrilling them…on down to those who only worked a short time at the end of the day. But that isn’t what happened. It was like this vineyard-keeper was messing with them. It’s like he was intentionally disrupting their assumptions for some reason. What would that reason be?

Remember, when Jesus tells these stories, he is inviting us to ask the question, “Where is the kingdom here?” How is this story demonstrating something about the counter-order way of living that Jesus set out in the Sermon on the Mount? How is this way of living about peace or about humility or meekness or righteousness?

And I think the first part of that answer comes in the first line. The Greek word for this vineyard-master was that he was the “keeper of the household economy.” The one who set the rules in the estate about who would do what and who would receive what. According to the story, this keeper of the household economy was creating a disruptive and astonishing new way to keep score. Jesus seemed to be saying that when we engage in Kingdom living, we are participating in the intentionally disruptive practice of rebuilding notions of worth and value for ourselves and for those around us. Instead of participating in the scorekeeping practice of the world around us, Kingdom disruption is meant to change the way we keep score. Those who end up last in the world’s economy will end up first in the Kingdom economy. And vice versa. The things that presume value and worth in this economy are turned on their head, for a different set of rules.

But here’s the problem with doing things that way: it is actually a horrible business practice! What a terrible businessperson! I mean, think about it. If you publicly tell your employees that the person who works eight hours will get the same as the person who works one hour, what do you think will happen the next day? Suddenly, a lot of alarm clocks will fail to work. Who is going to come in and work for 8 hours when they could get the same amount for 1? This is an impractical generosity. It’s not unlike the passage from last week about forgiveness. Last week, the Two-Way [sermon discussion group] suggested that more needed to be said in the sermon about forgiveness. They pointed to a history of the church excusing abusive partners, clergy, or volunteers, all in the name of forgiveness. They acknowledged that in practical terms, there have to be limits to this way of living. These stories are about extravagant and unrealistic notions of forgiveness, grace, reward, and generosity.

But perhaps that is the point. Maybe what Jesus is trying to say here is that the exception needs to become the rule, and the rule needs to become the exception. When our way of living is primarily shame-inducing, humanity-destroying, worth-undermining, sprinkled with a few exceptions, we have missed the point! Instead, kingdom scorekeeping is about creating a new way of being, insisting that worth and value be placed on people not by what we accomplish. Not on how many grapes we pick. Not on our works. The keeper of the Kingdom economy has made a choice to restore each and every worker based on what they need for the day. Worth is based on who we are and who we are made to be. That must become the rule. 70 times 7. 8 hours and 1 hour. The math doesn’t work. But that’s the point. Kingdom scorekeeping is about over-generosity, disrupting assumptions that the world makes about how much we matter.

Imagine how this Kingdom rule-keeping starts to mess with our sensibilities. If we were to get serious about this way of over-generosity, imagine what it would do to our conversations around debt forgiveness. Fair wage. Equity and reparations. Imagine if we began to see with new eyes the one-hour workers in our world, those who have traditionally been left out on the margins because they haven’t done enough. What if we chose to follow the Jesus rule that all of our neighbors would receive what they need, and not what they deserve? Not what they earn?

And how would we begin to see ourselves differently? How many of you ever feel like 1-hour Christians in an 8-hour Christian world? An 8-hour Christian congregation? How many of you look around and see others who look more committed, more respected, more talented, more more more? My guess is that if you asked some of those “8-hour” Christians, you might find a lot who feel like they are woefully inadequate themselves.

But here is the main point. The good news for us all is that we are all 1-hour Christians. Yet, according to the scorekeeper of the Kingdom, we are all worthy. We are all enough.

Bishop Desmond Tutu and daughter Mpho Tutu share this truth with us in their poem, from their collection Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference:

You are my child,
My beloved.
With you I am well pleased.
Stand beside me and see yourself,
Borrow my eyes so you can see perfectly.
When you look with my eyes then you will see
That the wrong you have done
and the good left undone,
The words you have said that should not have been spoken
The words you should have spoken but left unsaid,
The hurts you have caused,
The help you’ve not given
Are not the whole of the story of you.
You are not defined by what you did not achieve.
Your worth is not determined by success.
You were priceless before you drew your first breath,
Beautiful before dress or artifice,
Good at the core.

And now is time for unveiling
The goodness that is hidden behind the fear of failing.
You shout down your impulse to kindness
in case it is shunned,
You suck in your smile,
You smother your laughter,
You hold back the hand that would help.
You crush your indignation
When you see people wronged or in pain
In case all you can do is not enough,
In case you cannot fix the fault,
In case you cannot soothe the searing, 
In case you cannot make it right.
What does it matter if you do not make it right?
What does it matter
if your efforts move no mountains?
It matters not at all.
It only matters that you live the truth of you.
It only matters that you push back the veil
to let your goodness shine through.
It only matters that you live as I have made you.
It only matters that you are made for me,
Made like me,
Made for goodness.