Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

Even before Jesus went to the cross, He foresaw a challenge in His Church going forward, a sinful tendency, common to all men, that sometimes showed itself even among His chosen apostles, and would be a recurring problem in His Church, because the members of the Church of Christ are still sinful people. Always have been, always will be, until we’re finally rescued from this sinful world. Jesus tells the parable in today’s Gospel in order to get ahead of the problem, as it were.

The problem would initially center on the Jewish Christian Church as it started to incorporate more and more Gentiles into the Church—non-Jews, who hadn’t grown up under the Law of Moses, as all the Jewish believers had, people who had engaged in every form of idolatry and wickedness for their whole lives. It was really not very different from the problem of the Jewish tax collectors and sinners who had spent much of their lives living very poorly under the Law of Moses, not doing many of the things they were supposed to do under the Law. And it’s a problem that still comes up repeatedly in the Church today. The problem, or the question, is, Is God’s kingdom a meritocracy?

What is a meritocracy? It’s a word that gets tossed around quite a bit these days. It’s what many people rightly want for our country. It means you get ahead, you get rewarded, by merit, by what you’ve earned, by how qualified you are, not by any other factor. The most deserving get the job, or the scholarship, or the prize. Your pay scale should reflect how hard you work, how many hours you work, how good you are at your job, without considering any other factors, like race or gender. Everyone gets treated equally, based on their performance alone. That’s the definition of fairness—in the affairs of the world.

But God’s kingdom is not of this world, and it doesn’t work like the kingdoms of the world. It’s not a meritocracy. There is fairness in it, a certain kind of equality, but it’s a God-centered fairness instead of a man-centered fairness. In other words, it’s a fairness that’s not based on man’s performance or man’s qualifications, but on God’s free choice to give an equal reward to all who are in His kingdom—His “vineyard,” as Jesus describes it in today’s Gospel.

And what is the reward? Forgiveness of all sins. A clean slate that stays clean as long as you’re in the vineyard. Adoption into God’s family. Rescue from this dying world. Eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace with God in Paradise. That’s the promised reward, the “denarius” that’s promised at the end of the day.

And who gets it? All who are “hired” to work in the vineyard, everyone who comes into God’s kingdom, which, again, is His holy Christian Church. How does a person come into it? By hearing God’s call to repent of our sins, and by hearing God’s gracious invitation to come into His kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ, which includes the renouncing of sin and the determination to lead a godly life, a holy life, according to God’s commandments.

So, everyone in the kingdom gets the same reward, no matter what their ancestry is? Yes. No matter the color of their skin? Yes. No matter how long they’ve been a member of the Church? Yes. No matter how wickedly they lived before they came into the Church? Yes.

“But, that’s not fair, not fair to the Jews who spent their whole lives trying to meticulously obey the Law of Moses, not fair to those who have worked hard to lead a holy life, who have dutifully avoided sin, who have suffered much for the name of Christ!” Of course it’s fair! Didn’t God tell you, when He invited you into His kingdom, what the reward would be? Of course He told you! Will He fail to give you that reward? Of course He won’t! You’ll receive exactly what God promised. And so will the one who was only in the kingdom for one hour, for a much shorter stretch of his life than you. God, in His wisdom, God in His generosity, has decided to apply His Son’s sacrifice equally to everyone who is baptized into His Church family, to all who continue to live in repentance and faith.

And, see, that’s why God can give equally to everyone. Because the basis for the reward is not your work at all. It’s the work—the righteous life and the innocent death—of Jesus Christ that earned the reward for everyone, so that all who are attached to Jesus by faith receive everything that He earned.

And that’s also why it’s a terrible, dangerous thing to start thinking that you deserve eternal life, even a little bit, because of all the good you’ve done in your life, or because of how long you’ve been a member of the Church. Equally terrible and dangerous is the notion that creeps into a person’s thinking that he deserves a better reward than what God has promised, something more than just His forgiveness and adoption and eternal life and Paradise. “No, all Christians get that. You’ve worked longer and harder than most. You’ve been such a good person! You deserve extra credit!”

No, no. If you ever find yourself starting to think that way, wake up! Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard! Remember how annoyed the owner was with the first workers, who grumbled that they were receiving the same as the rest, even though they had worked harder and longer. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me on a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?

The early Christian Jews began falling into this sin. They had worked so hard to keep the Law of Moses, being circumcised, eating the right foods, following the right rituals. They were brought into God’s kingdom from infancy. Then the Gospel goes out to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles don’t even need to be circumcised? Don’t need to eat Kosher? Don’t need to follow any of the rituals of the Mosaic Law? It’s not fair! So some of them tried to insist for a time that the Gentiles did need to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses. But God, through Peter, and Paul, and James of Jerusalem, through this parable that Jesus Himself had taught, made it clear that He wanted to give the Gentiles the same reward He gave to the Jews, without requiring them to go back and do more work under the ceremonial Law. And, in the end, the Christian Jews did welcome the Gentiles, and they became one Church under the New Testament of Christ.

On the other hand, Paul, in the Epistle you heard today, would later write to the Corinthian Christians, most of whom were Gentiles, that they shouldn’t become haughty, either, as they watched many of the Jews rejecting the Gospel and being rejected by God because of it. Because just as many of the Jews perished at the time of Moses when they fell away from the faith, so the Gentiles, too, would perish, if they didn’t remain humble and steadfast in the faith.

So, in God’s vineyard, in God’s kingdom, no one gets to boast or take pride in his work. No one ought to look back fondly or proudly at his own works, or compare his works with those of another, except to recognize on a daily basis that our own works, even the good ones, are tainted with sin, and, therefore, they do not make us the least bit deserving of God’s grace, or of the reward He has promised to believers. We are all directed away from our own merit, to the immeasurable grace of God, who prepared this vineyard for us to work in, and who brings each one into it when and where He wills.

Once you’re in it, be diligent at the work God gives you. Hear His Word faithfully, regularly. And don’t just hear it, but ponder it, and learn it. Receive His Sacraments. Live as the saints God has called you to be, avoiding what is evil and pursuing what is good and right. As Paul wrote in the Epistle, run this race of the Christian life in such a way as to win the prize!

But always remember, at the same time, that, unlike a race, you don’t win the prize because of how fast you ran. You don’t win the prize because you earned it or “merited” it. You win the prize in the end because of your connection to Christ Jesus, who has merited every prize and every conceivable good gift for you, that He might share His merit with you, and give you every reason not to eye God’s grace and generosity with disgust but with eternal gratefulness and appreciation, knowing that you have been freely given a place in God’s kingdom, not by your merit, but by God’s grace alone. Treasure God’s free grace! Live in it! And toil away in God’s kingdom, not to gain God’s favor, but because, in Christ Jesus, you already have it. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

You know that Jesus told many parables during His earthly ministry. Each one has a context. Each one has a purpose. The parable you heard today, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, is only recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s recorded in the context of Jesus’ apostles having just pointed out to Him how much they had given up, how much they had sacrificed in order to follow Him. And they asked what they would receive in return. Jesus told them, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. In other words, you will receive great rewards when Christ comes again. But be careful how you think about those rewards, and all the things you did to obtain them! Be careful that you don’t begin to think of your service to God as a matter of earning wages from Him! In other words, be careful not to start thinking that God should give you what you deserve! Because many who are first will be last.

To illustrate that point, Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a household who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. The vineyard is God’s Holy Christian Church. No one starts out in it. Ever since Adam and Eve fell into sin, we all begin life outside of God’s holy Church, outside of His family, outside of His salvation. All people begin life as sinners who don’t know God, don’t trust in God, and don’t obey God. We start out alienated from Him and separated from Him by our sins.

But one by one, God goes out into the “marketplace” of the world and calls people out of that idleness of sin and death, out of that state of condemnation. Through the ministers of His Church He calls people to repent and to believe in Christ crucified. He calls all people to the same vineyard, to the same family of God, to the same inheritance of eternal life. And He’s always serious about that call to repent and believe in Jesus. He wants all people to be called, and He wants all the called to come into His Holy Christin Church.

But the call goes out to people at different points in their lives, some at the beginning of the day, others a little later, others a little later, and some not until the eleventh hour, close to the end. Those who are called early, like the apostles, often have to sacrifice the most, bear the heat of the day, deal with a lifetime of denying themselves and bearing the cross for Jesus’ sake. Those who are called later in life may have to sacrifice relatively little. Think of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, who was promised Paradise after suffering practically nothing for Jesus’ sake.

What happens in the parable? Those who were hired first were promised one denarius at the end of the day. And they were content with that. Those who were hired later, throughout the day, were simply told they would receive what was right at the end. And the landowner, in His goodness, chose to give one denarius to those who worked only one hour, and the same to those who worked three hours and six hours and nine hours. So when those who had worked twelve hours came along, they thought they deserved to receive more and were sorely disappointed and even angry when they were each given one denarius, although it was exactly what they were promised at the beginning of the day.

And the landowner approached one of them in the midst of their grumbling, Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I give you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?

You see, Jesus was warning His apostles here. Because they had a sinful flesh just like everyone’s sinful flesh that ultimately wants to make everything about me, what I deserve, what I’ve suffered, what I’ve given up. And we like to compare ourselves with others and point out where we’ve done more, given up more, sacrificed more, suffered more. And the devil whispers, “That means you deserve more from God!”

But, friends, that is not how God works—not when it comes to eternal life, not when it comes to the basis on which He hands out eternal life. Our sinful flesh spends all day staring in the mirror, so that we focus on ourselves. The Gospel of Christ says, turn away from yourself, you sinner, and look at God! Look at His mercy! His goodness! His generosity! Look at His sacrifice of His own beloved Son, on the cross, for you! And, you fool, stop demanding from God what you deserve! Because if He were to analyze your works and your heart according to the strictness of His holy Law, what you deserve—what all people deserve—is His wrath and punishment. But instead, God, in His grace, wishes to count to you what Christ deserves, and to overlook all your sins and failures and guilt. If you keep focusing on yourself, you will eventually put your faith in yourself, lose faith in God, and slip away from His grace. And, although you were one of the first to be called, you’ll end up last in God’s estimation.

You see, it’s a matter of perspective. But perspective matters! So, instead of viewing your place in God’s Church as a burden you must bear, instead of viewing your service to God and your obedience to His commandments as something for which He should pat you on the back, as something for which He should pay you back, view your place in God’s Church as the most wonderful, generous gift anyone could ever receive! View your place in God’s family, as a baptized believer in Christ, as a gift you could never possibly deserve, but which God in His goodness has been pleased to give you for free. View the good works, and the suffering, and the sacrifices you are called on to make for Christ’s sake as opportunities to live in freedom from sin, as time spent pursuing what is good and right and beautiful, and as opportunities to give thanks to God and to be made into the image of Christ, your Redeemer!

Then, if you’ve suffered more than others or sacrificed more than others during your time in Christ’s Church, you won’t see it as something you’ve lost, or as something God needs to compensate you for, but as something you’ve gained, as a blessing you’ve been given already this side of heaven! Because, which, really, is the greater blessing from God? To be like an apostle who spent years or decades living a hard life of service and sacrifice within the Church, or to be like the thief on the cross who led his whole life as an enemy of God, as a slave of sin, and only got to spend an hour of his earthly life as a child of God in Christ’s kingdom? They all received the same kingdom of heaven in the end, by God’s goodness and grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. But the ones who got to serve longer and harder within Christ’s kingdom actually had the greater benefit than the one who only got to spend an hour there before he died. Instead of expecting more from God for their longer time in His service, they should be praising and thanking God for showing them that kind of grace!

Have that perspective of your time and service in Christ’s kingdom, with your eyes fixed on God’s grace. Then, whether you were called early or late, first or last, you will still be counted among the first in the kingdom of heaven. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Source: Sermons