Open 24/7, you can walk in there, swipe your credit card at a kiosk that formats it for use at the copy machine, then go to work. Or you can run off house plans, format, print and crop and copy color photos, create banners, send a fax, type a document, create flyers or even do some videoconferencing - the works.
So it wouldn't be quite right to call Kinko's a mere copy store. It's that and more. It's a network of work stations for the informal, mobile-office, road-warrior, knowledge-worker on the go.
Rob Walker, writing in Slate recently, describes Kinko's as a "cultural phenomenon," in a New Economy kind of way. He notes that the people who work at Kinko's aren't called employees or workers; instead, they're called "coworkers." Get it? They are the customer's coworkers. They're our coworkers. They're on our team.
Which means that, to them, we're co-workers, too. This being the case, Walker suggests we might want to take out the trash, or help straighten up next time we visit.
Not that he's always happy with his co-workers. Sometimes he's annoyed, especially when he visits outlets in unfamiliar cities. He has a few suggestions for improving the way they do business, including the observation that when he gets in line to be waited on, there's usually only one person working the counter while five or six of his coworkers are milling around in the background ostensibly working on big fancy machines and pretending he - the one who's fifth in a row of nine people deep - is totally invisible. If his coworkers insist on functioning this way, they could at least put up a screen, so Walker and the rest of us coworkers don't know how many of our coworkers are back there doing nothing but changing toner.
In a world of homicide/suicide bombers, global warming and bioterrorism, perhaps this isn't such a big deal. We're inclined to tell Walker to chill and smell the coffee.
It's what we feel like telling the coworkers in the gospel lesson before us. Here we have some kingdom coworkers. The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, is like a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He rounds up a group, agrees to pay them the usual daily wage and then puts them into action.
At nine o'clock, he rounds up another group. At noon, he recruits a third team, and then at three o'clock, a fourth. Finally, at five o'clock, he finds still more laborers who are willing and able to work. He sends them into the vineyard to do what they can before sundown.
As the day ends, the landowner instructs his manager to pay the workers, beginning with those who started at five in the afternoon. Their pay: one denarius, the usual daily wage. Then the three o'clock team is paid - one denarius. The nooners, one denarius. The nine o'clock crowd, one denarius.
Finally, the all-day workers get their pay, and it is the same: one denarius. This final group of coworkers are torqued, believing that they deserve more than the workers who began their work at the end of day. "These last worked only one hour," the sunrise crowd grumbles, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (20:12).
But these people are thinking like Kinko's, not Kingdom coworkers. "Friend, I am doing you no wrong," explains the landowner to one of the all-day workers; "did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?" (v. 13).
"Well, yes, in fact I did," admits the laborer.
"Take what belongs to you and go," advises the owner; "I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you" (v. 14). As unfair as it may seem to pay a one-hour worker the same wage as a 12-hour worker, we have to admit that the landowner is perfectly free to do what he chooses with what belongs to him. If he wants to be generous, he is certainly entitled to be generous.
Call it the next New Economy. The economy of the kingdom of God. God's grace is unmerited. God pays a full day's wages - regardless.
We intuitively understand the complaint. After all, we're used to multinational corporations laying off thousands of workers, while handing out million-dollar bonuses and stock options to the CEOs. For example:
Jesus understood the value of all people regardless of what the culture thought of them. He gave all people value. Even the last one to arrive at the table is given a full-course meal.
In one penetrating parable, Jesus leaves us with a lot to think about. We know that we can't work our way into heaven. We can never do enough good in this life to earn everlasting retirement, whether we start our Christian service at six in the morning or at five in the evening. Our Individual Righteousness Accounts will simply never be fat enough to fully fund a future in God's eternal kingdom.
We also learn that we're all in need of God's grace and forgiveness, every single one of us. In the kingdom economy, we can be grateful that God chooses to be generous.
We learn, too, that in God's service, we do not all have the same work to do. Some of us can teach, others sing, others cook, others organize, others visit the sick, others evangelize, others serve the poor, others care for children, others repair the church roof. Like the workers in the vineyard, we have different tasks to perform, with different time frames, energy levels and abilities.
But the really cool thing is the egalitarian nature of the rewards. No matter how menial or glorious the task, we all get paid the same. In God's eyes, you see, we are all equal. At the end of the day, we are all paid the same, and are paid what is right.
New Testament professor Darrell Doughty puts it this way: "In the kingdom of God all people are already equal - because all people are loved by God." In the kingdom, every person should receive "what is right" - regardless of the work they do. In the kingdom, all people are equal - rich and poor, wealthy and destitute, righteous and sinners, powerful and powerless - all people are equal because all people are loved by God. And since this is true in the kingdom, it should also be true in the life of the church, whether we are leaders or helpers, teachers or students, administrators or nursery attendants.
In the church, as in Kinko's, we're all co-workers. And we all receive exactly what is right, from a God who's notoriously generous and lavish.