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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The U-S and Texas unemployment rates have come down some more from their coronavirus‑shutdown highs, but, compared to before the pandemic, more people are still out of work. So, we would expect that people looking for work, such as those at Kilgore’s day-laborer lot over at the corner of Martin and Houston, would take even one hour of work and trust their employer to pay them whatever is right. But, we probably would not expect their employer to pay those who worked only one hour the same amount as those who had worked twelve hours. That unexpected situation of a distribution of wages is to what Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading likens the Kingdom of Heaven. Led by the Holy Spirit in considering that Gospel Reading this morning, we will come to a greater appreciation of “God’s unexpected generosity”.
In order to rightly understand the parable that Jesus tells that illustrates “God’s unexpected generosity”, we first have to back up a little bit in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, to some of that which our series of readings skipped over from the end of last week’s Gospel Reading. A man who had many possessions asked Jesus what good deed the man must do in order to have eternal life, and, after asking the man why he asked Jesus about what is good, for there is only One Who is good, Jesus ultimately told the man to sell his possessions and give to the poor (Matthew 19:16-22). Then Jesus told His disciples that only with difficulty and the omnipotence of God would a rich person or anyone else enter the kingdom of heaven; responding in part to that, Peter both pointed out that the disciples had left everything to follow Jesus and asked what they would have; and Jesus said that in the new world they would sit on twelve thrones judging (or, “leading”) the twelve tribes of Israel; but Jesus added that everyone who had left houses, or family, or lands for His Name’s sake would receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life, and that, unexpectedly, many who are first would be last, and the last first (Matthew 19:23-30). Then, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus told the parable—what is called “The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard” or “The Parable of the Good Employer”—the central truth of which parable Jesus states at the end, like a mirror image of what he said earlier (Asburry, CPR 30:4, p.23), that, unexpectedly, the last would be first, and the first last.
So, Jesus at least seems to be telling the parable to warn the faithful, like St. Peter, against boasting or presuming themselves to be among the first and, as a result, instead wind up being among the last, perhaps those left out altogether. That interpretation likens Jesus’s disciples—and in some ways likens also us—to those hired early in the morning, who worked the full twelve hours for the agreed upon wage, but who expected more, and so grumbled at the lesser work of others and those others’ being made equal to themselves, who had borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. How often our wrong expectations lead us to grumble at God over what we perceive as our being treated unjustly, whether in how His Kingdom works or in other things, such as, when we compare ourselves to others, what we might think is unequal pay. The grumbling of those first-hired but paid-last in Holy Scripture can be a sign of their sinfully not trusting God’s goodness (Asburry, CPR 30:4, p.23), as the people of Israel grumbled in the wilderness both over God’s miraculous provision of food and drink and over those who God had lead them (Exodus 16:1-21; 17:1-7; Numbers 14:1-12).
At the end of the parable, the master of the house, the owner (or, “lord”) of the vineyard, asks the one so grumbling two rhetorical questions, the second of which questions the English Standard Version that we heard read translated, “Do you begrudge my generosity?”, but that question may be more-literally, if not better, translated, “Is your eye evil because I myself am good?” Certainly that judgment of an evil human nature compared to a good Divine nature applies to us, apart from our repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. And, to such repentance and faith God calls us. For example, through the Old Testament Reading, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked person forsake his or her way, and the unrighteous person his or her thoughts; let him or her return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him or her, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV).
Such is “God’s unexpected generosity”! We might wrongly think that we earn our own salvation or better blessings based on what we do, but God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways His ways, but His ways and thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. We, on account of our fallen nature, are evil and deserve death, but He, by nature, is good and unexpectedly generously gives life, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who lived the life that we fail to live and Who died on the cross for our failure to live that life. We have no merit or worth of our own; there is only the generous love of God. On account of God’s love, mercy, and grace, we have faith in God, and He unexpectedly generously gives us Christ’s active and passive righteousness. Like the call to work and the pay from the master of the house, the lord of the vineyard, in the parable of today’s Gospel Reading, God’s call for us to repent and believe itself and what might otherwise appear to be the reward of faith and love in His service, are gifts of pure grace, whether we come to faith sooner or later, when we are younger or older, decades or moments before our earthly deaths. Whenever we so come to repentance and faith, then God forgives us all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, in a sermon on today’s Gospel Reading published in 15-34 (cited by Plass, #4255, pp.1324-1325), rightly said that, no matter the inequalities of the world—houses, family, lands, money—all believers can be comforted, because they all have the same God, the same Christ, and the same Spirit; they all have the same Gospel, the same Holy Baptism, the same individual Absolution, and the same Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and so they all have the same forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. So, everybody can heartily and gladly serve God in his or her station in life! As we prayed in the Collect of the Day, we trust in God’s abiding grace and live according to His Word. Our labor is not for a reward but out of love for God and our neighbor. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 1:12‑14, 19-30), as we are in Christ Jesus, He is honored in our bodies, whether by fruitful labor or by suffering, by life or by death. And, to depart and be with Christ is far better, so we do not fear but look forward to our deliverance from this valley of tears to our eternal home, though we do not hasten it but trust God to bring it about in the time and way that He knows to be best. Until then, with daily contrition and faith, we live in the forgiveness of sins, both that forgiveness of sins which we receive from God and that forgiveness of sins which we, in turn, extend to one another.
Led by the Holy Spirit in considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we have come to a greater appreciation of “God’s unexpected generosity”. Thanks be to God that He does not work according to our expectations of work and wages, or our other standards of what is fair, right, or just, but that, for our sake, He unexpectedly has visited His righteous wrath over our iniquities upon His Son, and instead generously gives us Christ’s righteousness, that we might live with Him forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +