Summer is over, and at church we are returning to fuller worship and the familiar rhythms of parish life. Yet none of us is coming back exactly as we left—we can see it most obviously in how much the children have grown. Some of us have travelled and rested; others have worked straight through. There have been joys and losses, illnesses and recoveries. We come back to church as the same community, but never quite the same people.

As such, the theme of making room for change and diversity was on my mind for today, and reminded me of two children’s books on this subject. One had been handed to me by a parishioner a few months ago and was waiting for just such an occasion. It is about a red umbrella that goes out into the rain, and as people and creatures gather underneath, it always has room for one more.

This, in turn, reminded me of a story from my own childhood, which is almost identical, except that it is about forest creatures who shelter from the rain under a mushroom. And unlike the miraculous mechanism behind the umbrella’s limitless expansion, which remains unknowable, this book hints at the very natural cause of the mushroom’s growth—the rain itself. The very thing the creatures hide from is what causes their shelter to grow and accommodate them all!

So if I were to name my vision for our parish, it would be this: to stretch forever like the red umbrella or grow like a mushroom with each new person’s arrival, so that both newcomers and long-timers feel comfortable shoulder to shoulder. The stretch is multidimensional, ranging from improving physical accessibility and online reach, to including persons of all ages and backgrounds, to enabling everyone to apply their gifts and feel fulfilled. And I think that here, as a community that intentionally gathers to pay attention to these principles and to act “with God’s help,” we already do many things well. But what about as individuals? Are we as stretchy and expansive when faced with issues of equity, equality, and fairness in our world? I’d say each of us has some way to go; otherwise, the stories about fairness we read today wouldn’t have been written! [Click here to read The Parable of Workers in the Vineyard, and Jonah’s Anger]

Let me retell the parable of the workers in the vineyard using some back-to-school imagery that bears an uncanny resemblance to the situation described in the Gospel. When my husband was in Grade 7, he was once paired with another student for an assignment in English class: a debate. Neither of them was interested in debating, neither applied himself, and neither did well. But my husband was aware that he had contributed considerably more than his partner. He received a mark of 58% and knew he deserved it, but when he learned that his partner had received 55%, that seemed extremely unfair. Yes, he did poorly, but the other guy had done much worse! How could their marks be almost the same? The teacher’s explanation was honest: he had graded my husband according to the work he had produced, but he had chosen to be generous to his partner to make sure he passed.

We can readily label getting almost the same grade, no matter how low, for different qualities of work as unfair. Or receiving the same amount of money for doing more work as unequal. Yet we mostly begin to complain only once we notice what other people receive. And the complaint is not, “Why don’t you give me what I deserve?” It is, “Why do you give others what I get if they are less deserving?” It is the same situation that makes Jonah so livid: “Why would you spare people the negative consequences of their poor choices, as though they could get away with their past disobedience simply by having repented?” In fact, that’s exactly why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh in the first place! He grumbles that God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” The irony is that his words match Psalm 103:8 almost word for word, except here he is not praising God but complaining about God.

Jonah says: They haven’t been good enough. The labourers say: They haven’t worked enough hours. A Grade 7 student says: He didn’t do enough work. Underneath is the false assumption that if someone receives more than they deserve, something about my own reward has been diminished. Many Christians resist the idea of universal salvation for this same reason. But grace, by definition, does not behave like a fixed amount of shelter under which we compete for space. The mushroom and umbrella in the children’s books keep growing simply because they have a life force, real or magical, and so will “heaven,” to accommodate us all — each of us “barely passing” the assignment of loving your neighbour as yourself. Why? Because before we have accomplished anything, we are created and called good, which establishes our innate worth and means that there will always be room for each of us within God’s life.

The vineyard parable, in fact, gives us another version of the same idea. The workers really do work, and those who have worked all day really have earned the wage they were promised. But even their earning takes place within something they did not create. They did not plant the vineyard, create the job, call themselves into it, or produce the denarius out of thin air. The landowner already possessed all of those things and invited them to participate. Their work is real, but the possibility of working and receiving begins as a gift. And if that is true of us, the same is true of the person beside us, even if we disapprove of their choices—maybe rightly so!—their opinions irritate us, their contribution seems inadequate, or they arrived at five o’clock after we have been working since morning. It may or may not have been their fault. Perhaps they were known to be lazy, or perhaps that morning supply simply exceeded demand. Their character or circumstances do not determine their fundamental worth. The parable is really not about fairness, but about human worth.

So no, we do not manufacture our worth, but our choices and effort still matter, and our growth in goodness is real. Notice that here the very rain the animals are hiding from is what creates the conditions for the mushroom to grow. Likewise, Jonah is hiding from the blazing sunlight under the plant, but the plant itself needs light. Every now and again, when we find ourselves in the shoes of the latecomers of the second kind—the ones who were not hired through no fault of their own—we too seek shelter from what life throws our way and support from the community: from hurt, ordinary human limitation, difficulty, and vulnerability. I would not suggest that every difficulty is good, nor do I believe that God sends suffering in order to improve us. But we do sometimes discover that knowing what unfairness feels like can make us want to treat others more fairly. Likewise, having needed grace ourselves can make us more able to extend it.

Because the same grace operates both within and between us, it is possible for us to embrace each other despite the seeming unfairness that permeates the world. And in doing so, we actually touch God’s life within each other. This is, after all, the central claim of Christianity. God does not communicate with humanity from a safe distance, but becomes flesh and dwells among us. And in doing something for another person, Jesus tells us, we touch Christ in them: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

That’s why the mushroom image really appealed to me this Sunday. It is alive, it grows, and it shelters. The same movement can describe us. We bear God’s image. Grace enlarges our capacity to love. And so we become more able to make room for others. None of this begins with our own achievement. The animals did not give the mushroom its life, the workers did not manufacture the denarii, and we did not create the divine image within ourselves. But something that is alive has the capacity to grow. Even experiences we would rather have avoided—the rain in which we once needed shelter ourselves—can enlarge our capacity for compassion, generosity, and grace.

And then comes the final step: the mushroom grows in order to make room. Our growth in grace likewise turns us outward, toward other people. But in Christian life, making room for another human being is not merely an ethical consequence of our relationship with God, as though first we love God and then, separately, try to be good to people. The human encounter can itself become a divine encounter. In recognizing and embracing the image of God in another person, we encounter something of God.

In fact, to use a term from the marketing world, a touchpoint is a moment at which someone encounters an organization and experiences something of what it is. God’s touchpoints do include intentional prayer and worship. However, in the Bible, God’s touchpoints are also shown to be present throughout the material world: sleep, work, travel, grief, meals, natural settings, arguments, and doubts. As such, an embodied church community on earth offers touchpoints, too: the website someone visits before they dare to walk through the doors, or an acquaintance who invites them; the greeters who meet them; an experience in the art room; hearing a choir; listening to a homily; or reading my blog post. Someone remembering a name or making room in a pew. A hand offered at the Peace. A conversation when life has fallen apart. Our worship itself: water and oil upon our skin, bread in our hands, air in our lungs as we sing and read Scripture. We might not do any of it particularly “well,” as we gather in one room with all our different ages, capabilities and interests, histories, needs, and imperfections. But these human touchpoints become points of contact with the divine as experienced in community.

This brings me to the words that I have been carrying around for a while. This is not to announce a new parish slogan, but perhaps to try it out with you and see whether these words resonate: Embrace the Human. Touch the Divine.

Does this describe something you recognize in the life of St. Tim’s? Might it name something about the church we are becoming, or would like to become?

Most obviously, embracing one another means making room under that red umbrella, or squeezing a little closer under the mushroom. It means recognizing that the person who arrived at five o’clock—or 10:15 a.m.!—or is new this morning has the same worth as the person who arrived early or has been here for decades. And so we care for, welcome, and serve others, even as we worship, learn, and make music and art.

But it also means embracing ourselves, with all our errors, imperfections, and limitations, just as the Word became flesh to embrace humanity in its fullness and continued to bear the scars of his human life after the Resurrection.

And to “touch the divine” does not mean that once we become sufficiently spiritual, we might occasionally transcend this world. It means that God is found in material touchpoints, ordinary and imperfect as they are. As we age, we acquire scars, make mistakes, depend upon others, change our minds, disagree with each other, grieve, doubt, and grow tired. We sometimes arrive at five o’clock simply because it was the earliest we were capable of arriving.

Perhaps that is not an obstacle to meeting God, and perhaps we do not need a loftier vision or mission statement than this. Embracing the human, and thereby touching the divine, we make room for one another and discover that we ourselves have grown.