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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. (Amen.)
The news of the day reports strikes in Hollywood and Detroit. The screenwriters’ and actors’ dispute with the studios may be disrupting our entertainment, and the autoworkers’ walkout from the big three automakers may be affecting our car repairs or purchases. Still, a poll out this past week suggests that a majority of Americans supports the unions’ efforts to win such things as better pay, benefits, and job protection (Reuters). We probably cannot help but let our opinions about labor and management play a role as we hear today’s Gospel Reading with its so-called “Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard”. In the Parable, the laborers hired first agreed to work the day for a denarius, what was a day’s wage for a laborer, and presumably all the rest were hired on the promise to be paid what was right. But, when they were all paid the same, those hired first, as we heard the Lord put it, “begrudged” His “generosity”. Considering primarily the Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “God’s unbegrudgeable generosity”.
To understand today’s Gospel Reading rightly, we really need to set aside all our opinions about labor and management, our understandings of agribusiness and economics (confer Buls, ad loc Matthew 20:1-16, p.64). To understand today’s Gospel Reading rightly, we also need to back up a little in St. Matthew’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account, as our series of appointed Readings has skipped over one whole chapter from the end of last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 18:21-35) to the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading. Right before today’s Gospel Reading, a self-righteous and rich youngman went away sorrowful after Jesus told him to sell what he possessed and to give to the poor, promised that he would have treasure in heaven, and told him to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:16-22). Then, Jesus told His disciples that only with difficulty will a rich person enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and, when His disciples were greatly astonished and asked who then was able to be saved, Jesus told them that, with people such salvation is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:23-26). Next, Peter, comparing the disciples to the young-man who just went away, self-righteously said that they had left everything and followed Jesus and asked what then they would have, and Jesus said that, in the new world, they would sit on thrones judging (or “leading”) the twelve tribes of Israel, and that everyone who had left possessions or people for His Name’s sake would receive onehundredfold and inherit eternal life, but, Jesus warned, many who are first will be last, and the last first (Matthew 19:2730), a statement similar to what Jesus said at the end of today’s Gospel Reading and the “payroll procedure” that was used in the Parable.
That “payroll procedure” used in the Parable made possible those hired first’s seeing that those hired last were paid what those hired first had agreed to, leading those hired first to wrongly think that they would receive more, but they did not. So, they grumbled at the master of the house, accusing him of making the last hired equal to them. Ironically addressing one grumbler as “friend”, the master of the house defended himself and his right to do as he wishes with what belongs to him, and he correctly identified the problem: namely, the problem that they selfrighteously begrudged his generosity, as also we may selfrighteously begrudge God’s generosity. To be sure, no one earns salvation. Yet, we may wrongly think of ourselves as somehow better than other Christians, maybe better than those who convert after us, or those who convert later in life than us. We may wrongly be envious of other Christians, maybe envious of those who in this life are blessed in different ways, such as with more material goods, and so we may wrongly think that we are loved less. We may wrongly compare ourselves to other Christians in any number of ways, any or all of which comparisons can arouse our resentment or anger. Like those who thought that they would be paid more, we think wrongly: there is a way that seems right to us, but its end is the way to death (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). Because of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity.
In the Parable of today’s Gospel Reading, evening brought payment for the laborers, and a sort of banishment for those who grumbled at the master of the house. Our deaths, or the Lord’s coming to judge the living and the dead, whichever happens first, will bring God’s reckoning with us, including His banishing hypocrites from His Kingdom. So, God calls and thereby enables us to repent before then. For example, in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 55:6-9), through Isaiah God calls and thereby enables us to seek Him while He may be found, to call upon Him while He is near, to forsake our wicked ways and our unrighteous thoughts, to return to Him, that He may have compassion on and abundantly pardon us.
Today’s Old Testament Reading goes on to distinguish God’s thoughts and ways from our thoughts and ways: His thoughts and ways are as higher than our thoughts and ways as the sky is higher than the ground. No management or agribusiness that we know might operate the way that Jesus describes in the Parable of today’s Gospel Reading, but the Parable is, Jesus says, what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. The Lord first seeks us out, calling and enabling us to seek Him in repentance. The laborers hired later trusted the lord of the vineyard to do what was right, as he promised to do, but He arguably did better, as God does with us who trust Him to do as He has promised to do. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God does forgive us—God forgives our thinking of ourselves as better than others, God forgives our being envious of others, and God forgives whatever our sin might be. God does not eternally damn us who are unrighteous as our sin deserves, but God generously gives us the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. God in human flesh, Jesus lived the perfect life that we fail to live, and Jesus died on the cross for our failure to live that life, and then He rose from the dead. Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserve. God does no wrong; He does not act unrighteously, whether or not we completely understand “God’s unbegrudgeable generosity”. God is free to do as He wishes, including giving generously to those who do not deserve what He gives them. And, God does give the riches of Christ to all who call on Him (Romans 10:12).
God gives the riches of Christ to all who call on Him through His Word read and preached and His Word connected with things that we can touch and taste. No matter at what age God brings us to faith, we share the one Baptism for the remission of sins (confer Ephesians 4:5), and, among those so baptized into Christ, there is no distinction of such things as ethnicity or social status (Galatians 3:27-28). Any who are so baptized, who are troubled by particular sins, can privately confess them to their pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself (for example, Matthew 9:8). And, those so absolved, are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread that is the Body of Christ given for you and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for you give you forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. At this Altar and its Rail, we, as we sang in the Introit (Psalm 116:12-13, 15-16; antiphon v.17), lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the Lord. Each of us who are so forgiven by God through His Means of Grace is no more or no less than any other person miracles of His grace and beneficiaries of “God’s unbegrudgeable generosity”.
In today’s Collect, we prayed for God to help us trust in His abiding grace and live according to His Word. In today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30), the Divinelyinspired St. Paul describes how God was using even Paul’s imprisonment to advance the Gospel. Paul wanted to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but he knew that to remain in the flesh was more necessary on the Philippians’ account, and he called them likewise to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel, even suffering for its sake. Likewise, we strive to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel, even suffering for its sake. We at least try to keep God’s Commandments according to our various callings in life, and we live in His forgiveness of sins for when we fail, as we do fail. Then, when we do depart and are with Christ, in glorified bodies, freed from our sinful nature and from all the afflictions that come with that sinful nature, we will be reunited in God’s nearer presence for all eternity. And, in that equal bliss, any differences in degrees of glory there, due to differences of work or faithfulness here, will not cause any sort of envy of people but instead cause praise of God (for example, 2 Corinthians 9:6-7; Daniel 12:3; 1 Corinthians 15:35-41; confer Pieper, III:552-553).
Regardless of strikes and other disputes between earthly labor and management, we who are beneficiaries of “God’s unbegrudgeable generosity” do not complain about its distribution here and now but, as we will in heaven, we praise God that through faith He forgives us by grace for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +