What More Do You Want?
Reflections on Wildernesses and Vineyards
RCL Proper 25A
20 September 2020
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Memories are tricky rascals. Just when I’m deeply engaged in some serious work, such as preparing a sermon or arranging an episcopal election, an unexpected gremlin of memory will pop up. As well as being unexpected, even unwelcome, the memory often seems, at first blush, to have nothing to do with what I’m working on.
So this week I’ve been pondering how to handle unhappy Israelites in the wilderness and irate contract labourers in a fictional vineyard as well as all the other aspects of being a vicar and an archdeacon. Suddenly I heard the voice of my Dad saying, ‘What more do you want? An egg in your beer?’
Now I don’t know if any of you have ever heard this expression. My parents used it often when my sister or I would make some unreasonable request or ask for extra icing on top of an already iced cake. I always thought it a very strange remark. Who would want an egg in their beer? None of my dad’s friends who drank beer ever did. Who, for that matter, would want to drink a beer anyway, thought my childhood brain. A question a college education would answer for me.
Apparently the saying may have originated here in the Pacific Northwest more than a hundred years ago. In 1915 a Seattle judge ruled that cracking a raw egg into a glass of beer did not break the law prohibiting bars from giving their patrons free food. Within twenty years this ruling may have been the source for a colloquial response to someone who already has something good asking for undeservedly more, a not uncommon habit of humankind, I might add.
For example, a nomadic, pastoral people are drawn to take up residence in the heart of a great ancient empire. Relations between the immigrants and the native inhabitants are good at first, especially since the immigrants will do work that the natives don’t like to do. But after a few generations, the government begins to change its attitude towards the immigrants. Discrimination, forced labour and attempts at controlling the immigrant population are employed to keep things under control.
After generations of oppression the immigrants are miraculously liberated and begin their journey towards a new home. But it’s not an easy journey. There are all these people and their possessions, including the wealth that they extorted from their oppressors. They don’t really know where they are going and their leaders seem to have their own problems. Personal rivalries and simple human stress lead to active resentment towards these leaders and a distressing lack of faith in the God who is the engineer of the people’s escape.
Suddenly no one seems to remember their deliverance from one of the mightiest, most sophisticated militaries of their time. No one seems to remember when their leaders, guided by God, turned bitter water into sweet. All they can do is whinge about how things were great when they were slaves.
And God says, ‘What more do you want? An egg in your beer?’ And the people say, ‘That would be great. Maybe a cucumber or an onion or two as well.’ So God, restraining a divine impulse, not for the first time, to start all over again with a different crowd, sends them manna, bread from heaven. And they eat their fill and, for the time being at least, are satisfied. We’ll leave the people’s subsequent complaints for another time.
Then Jesus comes along in terms of today’s lectionary readings to tell us a story about several groups of unemployed manual labourers. They’re people that Jesus’ followers can easily relate to. They, just like the labourers, have families to feed, taxes to pay and landlords to keep at bay. They, just like the labourers, are used to living in a world where every day is a battle to get by.
I imagine Jesus’ listeners prick their ears up as he begins to tell them this story. They all know men like the owner of the vineyard. They know all about the customary daily wage and the risks of not having steady employment. So Jesus must have them in the palm of his hand as he talks about this employer who negotiates a work agreement not once but four times. When the time comes to pay the workers, Jesus’ audience is primed for a different result than what they and we heard today.
They are probably as aggrieved as the fictional labourers in the story. ‘It’s not fair,’ we can hear them say, ‘for hard-working men who slaved all day to only receive what they agreed on, especially after the employer acts so unexpectedly generously. Is this the kingdom you’re telling us God is bringing about?’ And I hear Jesus say, ‘What do you want? An egg in your beer?’ ‘At least an extra denarius or two,’ they say, ‘not the fulfillment of a binding contract.’
Spontaneous generosity, unexpected largesse, undeserved gifts are sometimes hard for us to accept. Who among us has not read a story about the winner of a lottery jackpot and thought, ‘Well, I think I could do something better with that money.’? Who among us has not felt disappointment when, after working very hard for a promotion or for a new job, see it go to someone else, someone whom we may even respect and know will do a better job than we would have? In those moments a seed might begin to germinate within us, the seed of ingratitude.
At some point along the way towards ordination, I heard a wise spiritual teacher say that ingratitude is the source of most if not all human sins. The little nuclear reactor that fuels ingratitude is fear. And so, to prevent that reactor from generating a good deal of ingratitude, we do need to test how real our fears are.
I’m confident that most if not all of us fear the potential of the COVID virus to harm our lives, whether individually, corporately or internationally. Shall we take precautions? Yes, of course we should and we have. So, instead of living in fear, let us give thanks for all those people who work to protect us, for all those precautions we have taken and for the resources we have to protect ourselves, our households and our Parish. Thanks be to God!
Many of us may harbour fears about the future of our Parish, fears and concerns that predate the pandemic. Are we working to build a more secure foundation for our ministry in the decades ahead? Yes, we are. Has it been the smoothest path? No, it has not. But despite the ups and downs, things known and unknown, we give thanks for the dedicated clergy and laity who have dreamed and worked towards that future.
Like the control rods that cool the heat generated by a nuclear reactor, gratitude cools our fears and quiets stirrings of ingratitude. Two of my mentors taught me that, in all times and places, there were two things to be done every day: (1) to respond to disappointments by saying, ‘Thanks be to God. There’s still work to be done.’ and (2) to write down, at the end of the day what I am thankful for, even if it’s simply, ‘I made through the day!’
So, my friends, there is much for us to be grateful for, even when an arsonist destroys a civic landmark and releases toxins into the air, even when a virus threatens our health and even when a changing society puts our faith to the test. We have the resources we need. Those resources are on-site right now in the pews of this Cathedral and on-line right now wherever our live-stream is viewed.
If we are tempted in the days ahead to whinge a bit or to feel somewhat ill done by, we might hear God ask us, ‘What more do you want? An egg in your beer?’, I think that we can truthfully say, ‘Thanks. The beer’s more than enough . . . . . . But we wouldn’t say, “no”.’
