Sermon: Septuagesima - 2021

31 January 2021

Text: Matt 20:1-16

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard teaches us about the kingdom of God, of course, but it also calls to mind a very bad habit that we have as fallen human beings.

We think that we are entitled based on time in grade.  In other words, we think that just because we have worked at a job longer than someone else, we deserve to be paid more.  But do we?  What if the other employee is better at the job and works harder?  Why do we feel entitled to be paid more?

Years and years ago, some old timers at our congregation expressed to me that this was “their” church, and that they should get special consideration, more than people who joined the church more recently.  Sometimes people will even recount their genealogy to the pastor, as if the fact that their grandfather being an elder should entitle them to live together out of wedlock without the pastor saying anything.  Now, that is not something that happened here, but it does happen.

When church members express such thoughts, it really makes me wonder if they have been paying attention all those years when the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard was read as the Sunday Gospel and preached on.  Could they not see themselves as the grumblers in the story, expecting to get more than those who came later?

Jesus had to deal with this attitude among the scribes and Pharisees, who thought they were better than other people, and expected to be treated as if they outranked those who humbly came to Jesus seeking forgiveness for their sins. 

And if you’ve read the Gospels, you know very well how Jesus reacted to that kind of thing.

For what set off this parable in the first place was our Lord’s teaching that “many who are first will be last, and the last first.”  God’s kingdom doesn’t operate the way the world does.  For God owns everything.  He is the master who owns the vineyard.  He hires whomever He wills, and He pays whatever He decides.  He shows kindness to those whom He chooses – and He can indeed do what He wants with His wealth.

In the story, the master of the vineyard hires workers at various points in the day.  He offers a fair day’s wage (a denarius) for a fair day’s work – in those days, this was 12 hours.  Over the course of the day, he hires more workers.  Even at the eleventh hour, he hires still more workers, who will only be able to work an hour before nightfall.

At the end of the workday, those who worked only one hour were paid a full denarius.  And so the workers who worked twelve hours expected to be paid more.  But they were paid the same denarius.  And so they grumbled.  They were paid a fair wage, but they grumbled.  They were paid exactly what they were promised, but they grumbled.  They grumbled because they felt they deserved more than the Johnny-come-latelies who worked only a single hour, those who showed up late just as the goodies were being handed out, those who converted to the faith rather than having a pedigree, those who haven’t “paid their dues” or “put in their time” – and yet were treated equally.

And in our day and age, grumbling typically works.  Often the grumblers are rewarded because people just don’t want to hear it.  Grumblers can leave bad reviews or make false accusations.  Grumblers can destroy one’s reputation, or even turn mobs of people against you.  Grumblers often get their way because they are bullies, and they instill fear in ordinary people who just want peace. 

But grumbling at God doesn’t work, dear friends.  So don’t even try it!  He knows all things.  He sees into your heart.  He knows what you deserve.  And since He is God, He is entitled to do what He wants with what is His, and woe be to any of us who would begrudge His generosity.

In fact, we should rejoice at His generosity.  He forgives us our sins not based on what we have done, how hard we have worked, or how much we have accomplished.  For if He treated us as we truly deserve, we wouldn’t like it.  For once again, we are far from the perfection that He requires.  We are sinful and selfish and lazy and proud.  And we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to.  There isn’t a single person here that this doesn’t apply to.  And if you think otherwise, you’re in worse shape than you think.  If God were “fair,” He would snatch that denarius right out of our hands and send us to prison. 

But that is the point.  He isn’t fair.  Instead, He is generous.  He is gracious.  He gives to us according to His mercy, not according to the justice that we deserve.  And He is merciful not only to us, but to all who call upon His name – whether they are Pharisees or tax collectors, whether they are from legacy families or are recent converts, whether they have “paid their dues” or have not done so much as lifted a finger or put a dime in the collection plate. 

Our Lord tells the parable to set us all straight about how the kingdom of heaven works, and just how wrong we are to think we deserve anything, dear friends, other than death and hell. 

And so when we see the Lord’s grace and mercy, instead of begrudging Him, instead of grumbling to Him, we should rejoice at His lovingkindness and His charity.  For we too are beneficiaries of this grace by which we are saved. 

The real burden that was borne, the real suffering in the heat of the day was done by Jesus at the cross.  It is out of the treasury of the work of Christ that we are paid – “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.”  He has earned the wage, dear friends, and we are handed the denarius – even though our work counts for nothing compared to what He has done. 

And so lest we think we are something, we are nothing.  We are recipients of charity – God’s charity.  And when we realize this, when we come to grips with the fact that we are not the first, but the last, that Jesus is the first, and we are unworthy – it is then that we rejoice, because we have figured out what this saying really means: “the last will be first and the first last” – and we thank God for that undeserved denarius that we are given at the end of the age. 

And here at the altar, we receive a token of this denarius of salvation.  Not a coin, but a wafer: a small piece of bread that is truly His body, and a taste of wine that is His blood.  We all receive the same token, whether pastor, deacon, elder, one who chairs a committee, one who serves on a board, one who has been in this congregation for generations, or one whom the Holy Spirit drew here recently, whether one is old or one is a child, whether one is wealthy or one is impoverished: one wafer and one sip, whether we are first or last according to the flesh.  It makes no difference.  Instead of the wages of sin, which is death (which is in fact what we have earned), we are all paid the same wages that Christ earned: salvation and eternal life.  And when we realize just how good the Lord is to us, we can never grumble against Him, but can only be driven to “thank, praise, serve, and obey Him” out of love and joy and gratitude for what he has done for us!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.