Sermon: Septuagesima – 2023

5 February 2023

Text: Matt 20:1-16

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Our Lord Jesus has to tell parables to describe the kingdom of God.  The kingdom doesn’t work like our sinful, fallen world that we take for granted.  So in order to get the message across, Jesus has to tell stories that compare the way the world works over and against how God’s kingdom works.

This parable is called “The Laborers in the Vineyard.”  It’s a story that most people can relate to.  Almost everybody has a job, or had one at some point.  Even our children in the congregation have likely done chores or some kind of work, and have gotten paid.

Well, what if you are working for someone who is unfair?  Would you get angry?  What if parents paid their children to do some work around the house, and the hardest working child, and the lazy one that didn’t do any work, both got paid the same?  What if you are working for a company, and your coworker gets paid more than you do for doing the same job?   Would you bring it up to the boss?  If you had a union, would you file a complaint?  Would you complain to the Labor Relations Board?

It is not a bad thing that we have a sense of fairness.  But in God’s kingdom, fairness is the last thing that we should want.  For God created us, gave us life, and made us to be perfect and eternal – but our ancestors ruined it – and we also continue to ruin it by means of our sins.  So if God is going to treat us fairly, if he is going to rule us with justice and equity – we would be cast into hell.  For according to the rules and regulations, according to the Law of God and the natural law of morality, we deserve to be paid accordingly, as St. Paul says: “For the wages of sin is death.”

And so when a man is on death row, his lawyer doesn’t file paperwork asking for justice.  Rather, he petitions the judge for clemency, for mercy, for justice to be overlooked in this case.  The lawyer writes a request for a pardon from the governor.  Because in a just world, the guilty man dies. 

Well, we are all guilty.

And so in order to explain all of this in a way that people can understand, Jesus spins a magnificent tale.  He tells a story.  And it can be summed up like this:

A boss hires workers early in the morning and promises to pay them a denarius – the standard wage for a day’s work.  He hires other groups later in the day and promises to pay them “whatever is right.”  The last group only works one hour before the sun goes down and the workday is done.  The boss pays the workers in reverse order, the last first.  And they receive a denarius: a full day’s pay for one hour’s work.  The men who worked all day under a contract for a denarius thought it only fair that they receive more.  But the boss pays them the same amount of pay for twelve hours as he does for those who worked one hour.

These men who worked all day “grumbled at the master of the house,” because they saw it as unfair.  But the master replied, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong.  Did you not agree for a denarius?  Take what belongs to you and go.  I choose to give to this worker as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

In God’s kingdom, we work.  But we do not work for a payment.  Rather, we receive from the Master based on grace and mercy.  We are not paid what we deserve, but we are paid according to His generosity.  If we had to earn our way into the kingdom, if we had to work off the debt of our sins, our situation would be hopeless.  And so God does something unfair: He gives us that which we don’t deserve.

And so none of us can boast about our “riches” based on the belief that we have earned our salvation, whether by buying it or by earning it with good works.  God chooses to give more to some and less to others – and it is unrelated with how hard you work.  St. Paul put it in a way that sounds shocking to our ears: “And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”  Or as in Jesus’ story, the ones who worked only one hour have been made the equal of those who bore the burden of the day and the scorching heat. 

God’s kingdom is unfair, and there is no Labor Relations Board or union rep to complain to.  Why would we?  We are given  much more than we deserve: “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  And when one “believes in Him who justifies the ungodly,” it is his faith, not his labor, that brings in the denarius – the symbolic amount of a ticket to heaven.

We do not work to earn the denarius, but rather Jesus has performed the labor.  Jesus has “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” on the cross.  We do not deserve the denarius, but we receive it anyway.  Even we who are last, who are the least worthy, we who maybe even received the free gift of salvation on our deathbeds, or in the execution chamber, we who believe are permitted to go to the front of the line and be first.

And nobody has the right to begrudge the Master’s generosity, or to grumble that we deserve more – when all the while it is Jesus who has done all the work.

Indeed, instead of grumbling, we ought to be grateful.  Instead of complaining, we ought to be rejoicing.  Instead of bemoaning the unfairness of the world, we should praise God for His own unfairness – the unfairness that brings us to the table of honor  as if we were a member of the royal family! 

For that is exactly what is happening, dear friends!  We, who are unworthy, we who have rebelled against our King, are being invited to dine with the King at the table.  And there is no-one who has a right to complain about our presence.  For the King has spoken!

The King has spoken, and bespeaks you righteous, forgiven, and one of the household of the King’s beloved – by means of His Word and promise.  And He has given this same undeserved gift, this denarius, to me and to countless others across time and space, men and women of every tribe and tongue, the good and the bad, the ones whose labor we admire, and the ones who did not labor at all.  All of us walk away with a shiny denarius, a token that bears not the image of Caesar, but rather of Christ. 

For indeed, the kingdom does not work like the fallen world, marred by sin, turning us all into jealous grumblers who are always looking for something to be offended about.  Instead, the kingdom is comprised of people bearing coins that they did not earn and do not deserve, whose response to the generosity of the Master is gratitude and joy. 

“So the last will be first, and the first last.”  And thanks be to God for it!  Praise be to Him for His generosity, and with what He has chosen to do with what belongs to Him!”

Amen.

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