Eighteenth Pentecost, Proper 20, 2005:

A fellow driving a Yugo (that’s a really small imported car for those of you who do not subscribe to Car & Driver magazine), pulls up at a stoplight next to a Rolls-Royce.  The driver of the Yugo rolls down his window and shouts to the driver of the Rolls, “Hey, buddy, that’s a nice care.  You got a phone in your Rolls?  I’ve got one in my Yugo.”

The driver of the Rolls looks over and said simply, “Yes, I have a phone.”

The Yugo driver says, “Cool!  Hey, you got a fridge in there too?  I’ve got a fridge in the back seat of my Yugo!”

The driver of the Rolls, looking annoyed, says, “Yes, I have a refrigerator.”

The driver of the Yugo says, “That’s great, man!  Hey, you got a TV in there, too?  You know, I’ve got a 27 inch flat screen in the back seat of my Yugo.”

The Rolls driver, looking very annoyed by now, says, “Of course I have a television.  A Rolls-Royce is the finest luxury car in the world!”

The Yugo driver says, “Very cool car!  Hey, you got a bed in there, too?  I got a bed in the back of my Yugo!”

Upset that he did not have a bed, the driver of the Rolls sped away, and went straight to the dealer, where he promptly ordered that a bed be installed in the back of the Rolls.

The next morning, the driver of the Rolls picked up his car, and the bed looked superb, complete with silk sheets and brass trim.  It was clearly a bed fit for a Rolls-Royce.  So the driver of the Rolls begins searching for the Yugo, and he drove around all day.  Finally, late at night, he finds the Yugo parked, with all the windows fogged up from the inside (now, don’t jump to any conclusions yet).  The driver of the Rolls got out and knocked on the Yugo window.  When there wasn’t any answer, he knocked and knocked, and eventually the owner stuck his head out, soaking wet. 

“I now have a bed in the back of my Rolls-Royce,” the driver of the Rolls says, rather arrogantly.

The driver of the Yugo looks at him and says, “You got me out of the shower to tell me THAT?”

Envy and begrudging others very often causes trouble.  It adds to credit card debt, gives rise to the increasing number of people claiming personal bankruptcy, and does more than its share to increase the trade deficit. 

The late Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, once said, “The world as we live in it today, is like a shop window into which some mischievous person has stolen overnight and changed all the price tags around, so that the cheap things have a high price tag on them and the really precious things are priced low.”

We don’t get much help from a consumer-oriented society in defining what those really precious things are.  That’s the mission of the Church, of which the Episcopal version is a charter member.  We must always stand ready to reassert the priceless quality of things like love, friendship, peace, compassion, sympathy, patience, forgiveness, and salvation.  “Things” can be rebuilt, re-bought, restored, and renovated.  Human life, cut short by tragedies, natural or manmade, cannot have a price tag attached.

The Lord of this life and the life that is to come used parables to help us remember what those truly precious things are and what it takes to be committed to defending them.  These parables are like search lights what play across the walls of moral darkness, illuminating the farthest corners of our lives, exposing and very often revealing the secrets we wish to keep secret.

The Parable of the Generous Employer, the Gospel for today, is one of those searching spotlights that shines against one of our darker and more prevalent sins; the sin of envy and begrudging others.  Envying and begrudging others when they get more than we do or more than we think they deserve automatically diverts our attention from the really precious things in life.

The Parable of the Generous Employer is about the Kingdom of God and the super overabundance of God’s grace.  It is not intended to be used to establish an economic system, but to establish our oneness with God.

Envy and begrudging tempts each one of us and if it is not dealt with effectively, it will do certain things to us.  It will cause a preoccupation with the physical world and away from the spiritual life.  It is difficult to grow in faith if we begrudge those who make more money, have a bigger house, are more talented and popular, and have bright, clean-faced kids.  The problem with keeping up with the Joneses is that it only works until the Joneses make their next big purchase.  Or you could be like the woman who gets home, screeches he car into the driveway, runs into the house, slams the door and shouts at the top of her lungs, “Honey, pack your bags.  I won the lottery!”

The husband says, “O my God!  Are you kidding?  What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?”

The wife yells back, “I could care less…just get out of the house!”

Be careful what you wish for and even more careful what you work for; you might get it.

Envy and begrudging are never lonely and offer no gratification.  Those who suffer from severe envy are usually sly and seek to belittle others who have more.  That is usually done through gossip and slander.  Such folks generally seek out others who agree that so and so doesn’t really deserve what they have.  It is a tough lesson to teach and even tougher to learn; no one has ever risen by bringing down someone else.  Even when the envious and begrudging think they have won by belittling and envying another they really lose.  It is analogous to the animal trapped in the jaws of a still trap that gnaws off a limb just to get away.

Envy and begrudging do little to commend to others the faith that we call Christian.  At its very core the Christian faith, established by the one called Jesus the Christ, is based on standards far different from those of the world.  Oh, I pray that the blessed will share with others; that before worrying about a second home, they will work like mad for those who do not yet have the first one.  I pray that the basics of the Christian faith can be recaptured in such a way that those with abundance will come to understand what a blow they could strike for humanity if they will share with those who have not.  Perhaps the church needs to be creative enough to find some way to pay preachers who will say those kinds of things and work for them and not have that pay come from those who are hearing it.  I suspect we have been given a message grander than Handel’s Messiah and have too many preachers who are playing it on the tuba. 

Jesus the Christ repeatedly exposed the sin of envy and begrudging and called on his followers to trust that whatever they needed would be supplied by the Father in heaven.  He knew that dealing with the sin of envy and begrudging would not be easy in this world.  But, as we work at it, accept God’s grace in overcoming it our lives blossom forth into a truer kind of servant-hood and we shed a pound at a time one of the heaviest burdens with which we are afflicted.

Asking God to remove that character defect allows us to look beyond the things of this world and see again the really precious things that need to have the high price tags put back on them. 

Let it be our hope and our prayer to move beyond envy and begrudging so that together we may do the work God in Christ has given us to do.  After all, we should rejoice that even those who come at the last hour, like the thief on the cross next to Jesus, will, by the grace of Almighty God, inherit the Kingdom.  Whether you drive a Yugo or a Rolls-Royce is not the issue.  Placing both at the Lord’s disposal is what’s important.  Amen.