On this Sunday each fall, we present Bibles to our fourth graders as gifts from their church. It's such a joy to continue this tradition that has been part of our church's life for so long. And of course, our prayers go along with this gift, that each of these young Christians might come to know and treasure the words in these pages, as they journey on through all that life will bring them.

These kids will grow up to be adult Christians one day, hopefully Bible still in hand. This week I ran into one such grownup at a local coffee place. And there she was, Bible and Disciple Bible Study workbook in hand, delving into the pages of Scripture in a new way, searching for depth and knowledge. But it clearly wasn't the Bible she might have herself received as a fourth grader years earlier. It was a new, big, fat study Bible, crammed with facts and footnotes and cross-references, ready for a year of diligent study to get underway.

There are so many ways to study the Bible. We can study it as literature-as narrative, as poetry, as story. We can study it as a history of its time, as a cultural artifact. We can study it as theology and source of inspiration. We can study it as an archeological puzzle, and we can continue to puzzle over how best to translate its original languages into current vernacular.

Last year I came across a brand new translation of the Bible into French. It's a big, thick book, because the pages are laid out as dialogue, as story, and as poetry rather than as the solid contin-uous text we usually see. It's a translation based on the Masoretic texts, Jewish texts of the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., and each book has been prepared by a team of a biblical scholar working with a contemporary French writer-poets, authors, mystery writers, a grand collection of folks.

As you can imagine, this translation is fresh and full of energy. Hearing its words and phrases in another language, hearing it in such a contemporary form, causes the words to leap off the page. New insights abound. It brings a very ancient text alive in new ways, and when added to the King James Bible-my first Bible-and the RSV, the Jerusalem Bible, the NRSV . . . , creates a tapestry of wisdom, enough to ponder for a lifetime and more.

Today as a congregation, we pass along to a new generation of Christians the book that is so dear to us, and pray that it will be so for them. As we offer it to them as our gift, we might all remember that it is first God's gift to us.

Sometimes it's easy for us to receive the words of Scripture as God's gift. When, in times of grief, we turn for comfort to Psalm 121 or Psalm 23. It's powerful at memorial services to join together in reciting the 23rd Psalm, familiar as it is even to people who don't go to church often, if at all.

And at weddings, we frequently delight to hear I Corinthians 13. Often in the planning of a service, the couple won't know the citation and may not be very familiar with the Bible, but will ask for a reading of these familiar "words about love."

But sometimes, God's gift is not anything we think we want to receive. It's like the Christmas gift from that one relative who always sends something that you know in advance you're not going to like or want. And today's Gospel story is one of those gifts. The story of the laborers in the vineyard.

Do you remember this one? When grapes are at their prime, the vineyard owner needs extra workers to harvest them quickly. He goes to the marketplace, where people needing work are waiting, hoping to be hired. He strikes a deal with some workers, who agree to the standard wage of one denarius for a full day's work, just about enough to buy food for that evening's meal. So far so good. But a bit later, evidently concerned that the harvest might not be completed in time, the employer goes back and hires some more men. At noon, at three, at five he's still hiring! An hour before the close of the day, he hires some more workers, and promises them all that he'll pay what is fair.

Given how we normally think about these things, it's probably safe to imagine that they figured they'd get a proportion of a denarius, according to the amount of time worked. There's no indica-tion that the ones hired later were trying to get a better deal. When they were still there late in the afternoon, still hoping for some work, they said it was because no one had offered them a job.

The shock of this story comes at the close of the day's work, when the employer gathers them round and pays each the very same wage no matter how many hours they'd put in or how many bushels of grapes they'd picked. The ones who'd been out there picking all day long were angry. This isn't fair, they charged!

The vineyard owner replies, "Friend, I do you no wrong. Am I not allowed to do what I chose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

Matthew's story of the Laborers in the Vineyard has also been called the Story of the Generous Employer, and, surely, that title puts the proper spin on it. Jesus is trying to show us the astonish-ing, incalculable, undeserved abundance of God's love for all his children. And Jesus knows it will rile us up, stick in our craw. We, who live by calculations and measuring sticks. We, who are afraid that if someone else gets more, we'll get less. We, who always feel that we've been cheated out of something if we see someone else prospering. We, who forget that everything is a gift from God and really isn't ours to dole out stingily after all. Jesus tells this story for our souls and, just to make sure we get it, he sticks that haunting question at the conclusion: "Or are you envious because I am generous?"

Some wise person once noted that the Bible becomes real in our lives, a living book, when its questions become our questions. And today's is a doozy: "Are you envious because I am generous?" Every parent has heard it, trying to navigate the perilous waters of sibling jealousy, and God our Parent feels just like we do amidst those tantrums. "His piece is bigger. She got more cookies. But I wanted that toy!"

The literal translation of this question makes it even harder to face. "Is your eye evil because I am good?" That's how the King James puts it: "Is thine eye evil because I am good?" The power of the original text contrasts our evil-causing look with the abundant goodness of God. We tend to envy, jealousy, resentment, whereas God intends only good. The new French translation puts it something like: "Does your heart turn my goodness into something evil?"

Sometimes we humans, children or grownups, are so blind. Blinded by our own sense of entitlement, we miss the fact that God's love is there in abundance for us, too. For this parent God, through the words of the Bible, turns our entitlement systems inside out. The God who provides manna in the wilderness, the God who forgives us seventy times seven, the God who fills our cup to overflowing, is a generous God. The God who gave his only Son that we might have life does not count the cost, nor does he keep score. God is ridiculously generous with love. Can we free ourselves to receive that love?

Jesus so wants us to comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of God's free and generous love for us. We need not feel resentment at another's fortune. We need not be envious of another's gain. There is enough, more than enough, for them all-and for us as well.

So, in honor of Bible Presentation Sunday, I invite you to make sure to find your own Bible at home this week. Take it off the shelf, dust it off, open it to Matthew's gospel, the twentieth chapter and read again verses 1-16. Live with this piercing question: "Are you envious because I am generous?" See what it is asking you-in your personal life, in your family. What is it asking about your work, your circle of friends? Ask what it might mean in the world. Ask what it might mean for the life of our congregation. Live the question.

For we'll never be able to see the Kingdom of God if our eye is jealous or mean-spirited. And we risk missing the bottom line of this story-that there really is an over-abundance of God's amazing grace, and so each and everyone of us might always have as much as we need.

I conclude with this traditional prayer of the church:

Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given to us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2002. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.