You gotta love Kinko's.

It's a place you can visit to check your e-mail, send a fax, make a copy, print a poster, process some pictures, type a document, or even do some videoconferencing.

To call it a "copy store" would be downright disrespectful. Instead, it's a network of work stations for the informal, mobile-office, road-warrior, knowledge-worker on the go.

A writer named Rob Walker describes Kinko's as a "cultural phenomenon," in a New Economy kind of way. He has some fun with the fact that the people who work at Kinko's aren't called "employees" or "workers" -- instead, they're called "co-workers."

Get it? They're the customer's co-workers. They're OUR co-workers. They're on our team.

One of Rob's friends suggests that if we are all TRULY co-workers -- customers and Kinko's workers together -- then maybe there is something special that we should be doing when we visit the store. You know: Take out the trash, or straighten up. (Rob Walker, "Suggestions for My (Kinko's) Co-Workers," Slate Magazine, December 13, 2001, http://slate.msn.com/?id=2059736)

Today's gospel lesson from Matthew, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, is a story about co-workers -- not Kinko's co-workers, but kingdom co-workers. The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, is like a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He rounds up a group, agrees to pay them the usual daily wage, and then puts them into action.

At nine o'clock, he rounds up another group. At noon, he recruits a third team, and then at three o'clock, a fourth. Finally, at five o'clock, he finds still more laborers who are willing and able to work. He sends them into the vineyard to do what they can before sundown.

For a while, it appears that the vineyard is one big happy team of Kinko's co-workers. But then, as the day ends, the landowner instructs his manager to pay the workers, beginning with those who started at five in the afternoon. Their pay: One denarius, the usual daily wage. Then the three o'clock team is paid -- one denarius. The nooners, one denarius. The nine o'clock crowd, one denarius.

Finally, the early birds -- the all-day workers -- get their pay, and it is the same: One denarius. They are livid, believing with every ounce of aching muscle that they deserve more than the workers who began their work at the end of day. "These last worked only one hour," the sunrise crowd grumbles, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (Matthew 20:12).

They are about as annoyed as a Kinko's customer in a long check-out line, wondering why they can't get some special attention. They are feeling that they deserve some bonus pay, having worked so hard and waited so long.

But these laborers are not thinking like kingdom co-workers. "Friend, I am doing you no wrong," explains the landowner to one of the all-day workers; "did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?" (v. 13).

"Well, yes, in fact I did," admits the laborer.

"Take what belongs to you and go," advises the owner; "I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you" (v. 14). As unfair as it may seem to pay a one-hour worker the same wage as a 12-hour worker, we have to admit that the landowner is perfectly free to do what he chooses with what belongs to him. If he wants to be generous, he is certainly entitled to be generous.

Call it the next New Economy. The economy of the kingdom of God.

This parable, unfortunately, is a real bitter pill for hard-working, fairness-minded, early-to-bed-early-to-rise, nose-to-the-grindstone, punch-the-clock and put-in-the-hours Presbyterians. It's a tough one for us to swallow. We choke on it every bit as much as we gag on the parable of the prodigal son, that equally surprising story from the mouth of Jesus in which a rebellious young punk ends up with a party that really should have been reserved for his industrious older brother. We get downright envious when God decides to be so generous. It just doesn't seem right.

And yet, in our more honest moments, we know that we can't work our way into heaven. We can never do enough good in this life to earn everlasting retirement, whether we start our Christian service at six in the morning or at five in the evening. Our Individual Righteousness Accounts -- yet another kind of IRA -- will simply never be fat enough to fully fund a future in God's eternal kingdom.

We all need the Lord's grace and forgiveness, every single one of us. And so in terms of everlasting salvation, we can be glad that God chooses to be generous.

But what is the impact of this parable on life today, as opposed to life everlasting? What guidance does it give us as we strive to be Christian co-workers in the church and community? This is where the parable gets truly interesting, and also quite instructive.

Think, for a moment, about the church as an office -- an office of co-workers. Like Kinko's and every other corporation across this country, the church is full of people with a wide variety of talents, interests, passions, energy levels and abilities. No company is going to be made up of people who are equally adept at dealing with the public, keeping the books, maintaining the equipment, managing personnel, handling publicity, and producing quality products. Individual interests and strengths and perspectives are what make a group productive and strong.

The very same is true for the church. In this Christian community, we do not all have the same work to do. Some of us can teach, others sing, others cook, others organize, others visit the sick, others evangelize, others serve the poor, others care for children, others repair the church roof. Some of us love traditional worship, while others respond to contemporary forms; some of us get energized by mission work, others by studying the Bible. Like the workers in the vineyard, we have different tasks to perform, with different time frames, energy levels, and abilities. But the cool thing is the egalitarian nature of the rewards. No matter how menial or glorious the task, we all get paid the same.

In God's eyes, you see, we are all equal. At the end of the day, we are all paid the same, and are paid what is right.

This is a radical message in an economy that pays executives more than it pays janitors, and rewards sports figures with more money than school teachers. This is a truly shocking stand to take in a corporate culture that pays full-time workers more than it pays part-time workers, in a culture that would surely grumble if one-hour workers were suddenly "made equal" to 12-hour workers.

But the point is this, says New Testament professor Darrell Doughty: "In the kingdom of God all people are already equal -- because all people are loved by God." In the kingdom, every person should receive "what is right" -- regardless of the work they do. In the kingdom, all people are equal -- rich and poor, wealthy and destitute, righteous and sinners, powerful and powerless -- all people are equal because all people are loved by God. And since this is true in the kingdom, it should also be true in the life of the church, whether we are elders or youth group members, leaders or helpers, teachers or students, administrators or nursery attendants. Since we are all loved by God, we should be deeply respectful of one another, across all the lines that tend to separate people from one another. (Darrell Doughty, "Laborers in the Vineyard," Jesus: History or Myth? http://www.courses.drew.edu/sp2000/BIBST189.001/vineyard.html. Retrieved April 1, 2002)

In the church, as in Kinko's, we're all co-workers. And we all receive exactly what is right. Amen.

 

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