Two statements from high school are seared into my mind. One is from economics class, and it may very well be the only thing I remember from that class. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. I suppose it’s true, although I’ve been in some situations in my life where I did indeed feel like I was getting a free lunch. It was usually when I was the recipient of a free trip or a lavish gift of some kind from an institution with way too much money. But in general, and certainly where capitalism reigns, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I don’t think this is meant to be a pessimistic statement but rather a wise admonition. Wikipedia will tell you that it means that the universe is basically a closed system.[1] If you want that fancy vacation home, you will either have to earn more money or make some cuts to your budget. There’s a finite number of resources, and so something must be sacrificed for everything to equal out.
And this brings me to the second memorable statement from high school, but this time from physics class. It was not my favorite class, but I do remember Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If you push on a wall, it’s also pushing back against you. According to this law, the universe is definitely a closed system. There’s a finite amount of energy that must be conserved, hence the equal and opposite reaction.
Those two statements from well over twenty-five years ago have stayed with me not because I’m obsessed with economics or physics. I can assure you that I don’t miss those classes. But I remember those statements because they apply to more than just the physical exchange of money or the world economy or the daily gravitational forces we experience but usually fail to think about. Those two statements from high school imprinted on my brain also apply to human nature.
We humans are wired to operate within a closed system. Think about it. If someone is offering you an unexpected gift, your first reaction will probably be to assume that you owe something in return. What’s the catch? you might say. This is too good to be true. Someone could be giving you a free trip to Bermuda, but you’re going to have to pay somehow. Maybe you’ll owe them a favor, or maybe the trip comes with a whopping dollop of a guilt trip, but whatever it is, I’ll bet that you won’t think the trip is a free lunch after all.
Or think about this: if someone insults you or someone you love, I’ll bet that your instinctive reaction will be to respond in kind. We can write it off as righteous indignation or defending ourselves or someone we love, but at the end of the day, Isaac Newton’s epiphany extends well beyond the physical world. It reaches into the emotional and spiritual depths of our being.
Unsurprisingly, Jesus teaches us a very different way. Jesus seems to know very little of this closed system that we inhabit, which is why his way makes no sense to us. We’re wired to be suspicious of free lunches and to respond with equal and opposite reactions, but Jesus tells us that when someone strikes us on the cheek, we’re to turn the other cheek, not lash out in response. We heard just a few weeks ago that when someone sins against us, we’re not supposed to return the sin or to lick our wounds until they’re raw. We’re to name the offense and seek forgiveness. When Jesus heals, he doesn’t charge by the hour. When he invites people into a relationship with him, there’s no ulterior motive and there are certainly no strings attached.
I suspect that this is why people can’t understand Jesus or why he simply disturbs them. His actions, preaching, and teaching sound like fairy tales. And this is also why the parable of the laborers in the vineyard makes absolutely no sense. What did you think about it? Since I’m already on a betting streak today, I’ll bet again. I’ll bet you thought that the owner of the vineyard was ridiculously unfair. What kind of employer gives the same wages to those who work all day as she does to those who work only one hour? What kind of stupidity is this? The landowner sounds utterly capricious: can’t I do whatever I want with whatever is mine? How many of us would last more than a day working for such an employer?
But then, the landowner says something that cuts through the bone way down into the marrow: are you envious because I am generous? Or more literally in the Greek, is your eye evil because mine is good? Ouch. That one hurts. Suddenly, we have been extracted from a closed system and into a completely different universe, where the laws of economics and physics don’t apply, and we have no clue how to act.
We have, in fact, been brought into the kingdom of God. As we describe it in Godly Play during Sunday School, this kingdom is not like the kingdom we live in. It doesn’t sound like a kingdom we’ve ever heard of. This kingdom is utterly foreign to us because it’s so difficult for us to wrap our minds around the fact that God doesn’t work in the closed system in which we live.
And what a gift that is! It frees us from the closed system that turns us inward on ourselves and pits us against the rest of the world. In our world, there’s a limited supply of everything. If someone else gets the job we desire, we lose. If someone else gets into Harvard, our chances of getting in get slimmer. If someone else is given praise, then we are insulted.
But it goes deeper, because the closed system in which we live starts to eat at our trust and it injects us with a strong dose of fear. I’m underpaid at my job, so why should I advocate for salary raises at the non-profit for which I volunteer? I wasn’t given a pay raise last year, so why should I increase my contributions to that charity?
Soon enough, the closed system breeds entitlement. I’ve worked here for twenty years, she’s only been here five, and she got the promotion. I’ve been following Jesus for forty years, he’s a recent convert, and I have an incurable disease while he’s healthy. I’ve not missed a Sunday of church in all my life, but that criminal on death row finds Jesus at the last minute. You see how it goes. When someone else wins, we lose. It’s a closed system. And for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
Which is why I’m going to make another bet. Why not? I’ve been doing it all over the place for the past eight minutes. I’m going to bet that all these equal and opposite reactions are because most people can’t even begin to comprehend the extent of God’s love. Of course, how can we ever understand it? But then again, there are those who claim to understand it, and then live their lives as if in a closed system. They live with strings attached to everything: to their money, to their volunteered time, to their gestures of “love.” And this simply means that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. And there’s certainly no such thing as a free lunch.
But let’s say that God is more like the landowner in the parable than like us. Or perhaps better yet, let’s imagine that God operates within an infinitely open universe that is based on the bizarre economics of that parable. When people rage against God and curse him and go after other gods, God still gives back infinite love. When a convicted murderer repents minutes before being put to death, God forgives just as much as he forgives the pious churchgoer of eighty years. When we hold back on our gift to the church because we’re too worried about our future, God doesn’t put our name on the chalkboard; God loves just as much as he loves the most generous donor in the world. God knows no equal and opposite reaction. God only knows an equal action extended to all his beloved children.
So, what if we could live in God’s open universe? What if we responded to every action with an equal action of love? What if when we see generosity we responded with generosity in kind, not with envy or resentment? What if the only reaction or action we knew how to take was that of love, generosity, mercy, or compassion? What if we let God cut all the enslaving strings attached to our relationships and money and gifts of time? What if we stopped keeping score? What if we forgave even when we’re not forgiven? What if we loved even when we feel unloved? What if we rejoiced in others’ successes even when we seem to be failing?
Maybe, just maybe, we could then catch a fleeting glimpse of an infinitesimal amount of God’s infinite love. The same is given to the first as to the last. Its abundance knows no end. And no matter how we act toward God or his beloved children in our distorted, closed world, God’s reaction is always the same: God’s reaction is no reaction at all. It is one wondrous action of pure, unbounded love.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 24, 2023
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch