Sermon: Septuagesima – 2024

28 January 2024

Text: Matt 20:1-16

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The parables of Jesus are shocking, dear friends.  And they are supposed to be.  The only problem is that we are too familiar with them – unless we’re not familiar enough with them.  But imagine hearing this story of the Workers in the Vineyard for the first time.  Imagine yourself as the first one hired.

Imagine that you were a fast food worker, and you were hired for ten dollars an hour.  It’s hard work, but you were hired first among your co-workers who are all doing the same job.  Maybe you hope that by being hired first, and by working hard, you might get a promotion and a raise at some point.  But then you find out that your coworker – who does the same job right next to you – is making twelve times as much per hour as you do.  Instead of ten dollars an hour, that’s one hundred and twenty dollars an hour.

Would you feel cheated?  Would you feel angry?  What would you think about the franchise owner who just shrugs and says, “Well, you agreed for ten dollars an hour.  I can pay my workers whatever I want”? 

In our world, this would be on the news, all over social media, and Congress would be passing a law against income inequality.  It would probably be called the “Income Fairness Act” or some such.  Labor unions would come in and organize to prevent this horrible situation from ever happening again.  You might join the Socialist Party and rail against “the system.”  If your son or daughter were making a twelfth as much as his or her colleagues, would you side with the boss? 

Now imagine if you were a white collar worker making a hundred thousand dollars a year.  That’s pretty good money.  Most people would consider that a great job.  But how great would it be if you just learned that your co-workers doing the exact same job were making one point two million dollars a year?  You might have been really happy with your job just ten seconds ago, but now, you are probably thinking that you are being exploited, discriminated against, and that your boss is a jerk.  You might be calling your lawyer about now.

Now think about who the Boss is in Jesus’ story, you know, the jerk boss who is taking advantage of you.  That Boss is God.  That is why this parable is shocking.

But, let’s be honest: we do think that God is a jerk, and is unfair.  That’s what it means to be a poor, miserable sinner.  We need to not only rethink what we believe about God, but about ourselves.  For we poor, miserable sinners think we’re entitled to be treated better by God – and especially if we go to church.  How dare God let anything bad happen to me?  What an unfair Boss who allows other people to prosper while I struggle.  How can God allow people in my life to get sick or die?  How can God allow me to suffer from inequality or temptation or not enjoying the American Dream like my friends and colleagues and the people on TV with charmed lives who have the latest cars, take the best vacations, and live in dream homes? 

Why does it seem like it’s always the jerk boss, the lazy worker, the crooked politician, the liar, the cheater, the person born to wealth, the sinner, who gets away with it, and even gets ahead?

Sometimes when people think about God as the jerk Boss who allows such evils in the world, they become angry at God and become atheists.  Of course, that makes no sense, but it is a common argument of atheists: “God isn’t fair.”

Well, dear friends, God isn’t fair, and let us give Him thanks and praise that He isn’t.  And let us also accept the fact that we aren’t entitled.  He is God, and we are not.  He knows everything, and we do not.  He owns everything – including us – and we do not.  And it is what we call “faith” when we put our trust in Him, that He knows what He is doing.  It is also faith when we accept that what we consider “fair” is really just our own sense of self-centered greed and entitlement.

We are not entitled, dear friends.  Our culture and society and government and even our labor laws have conspired to stir us up like the angry worker in Jesus’ story.  Yes, we are the bad guy in the parable – as we always are.  We think we are entitled, but we aren’t.  We are something better: we are privileged.

For when it comes to our salvation and eternal life, we who put our trust in the “very God of very God” who is telling us this parable, who is showing us God’s mercy and generosity, we get the denarius.  We are paid the same whether we have been Christians for one second or one century.  We are given the same reward of eternal life whether we are educated theologians or infants struggling for life in the intensive care unit.  We are paid according to the work of Jesus on the cross whether we are wealthy or poor in this world, and no matter what we have done.  And when we examine ourselves honestly, and when we look in the mirror and see the truth of who we are, that we are not entitled, but we are rather poor, miserable sinners, we can take comfort in our Lord’s words: “So the last will be first, and the first last.”  And instead of being paid as “poor, miserable sinners,” according to our “sins and iniquities” with God’s “temporal and eternal punishment,” instead we hear that we are forgiven in the very same Triune name into which we were baptized, probably when we were too young to be valuable to anyone as a worker, let alone to God.

The inequality of God in how He treats us is seen in “the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of [God’s] beloved Son, Jesus Christ,” who is “gracious and merciful to me, a poor, miserable sinner.”

We don’t deserve a denarius, but we receive one anyway. 

The one who truly suffered for hours, who has “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat,” is Jesus, dear friends.  He labored on the cross, suffering not only physical pain, but mental and spiritual anguish beyond what we can imagine, bearing the weight of the sins of the whole world on the cross, pouring out His blood as a sin offering upon all of us, so that we, the last, might be the first.  And though we deserve to be paid with eternal death and hell, we are instead paid the denarius of salvation that Jesus earned, even though our labor doesn’t deserve any such thing.  This is God’s mercy, dear friends.

This is the unfair God that we worship, and this is the unfair kingdom we live in that has no labor unions or wage laws, no lawyers to sue the boss, and no entitlement that we be treated the same as everyone else.  For we are not entitled, but privileged.  We are indeed paid what we don’t deserve.

In God’s kingdom, we are the fast-food worker making a hundred and twenty dollars an hour.  We are the office worker making one point two million dollars a year.  We do have a God who is merciful upon whom He has mercy, who does what He chooses with what belongs to Him.  He is generous beyond measure, and instead of begrudging His generosity, let us rejoice in it.  Let us rejoice in our Lord’s words: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong… Take what belongs to you and go.  I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.” 

For we labor now, we suffer now, we struggle now – as we live in the world that we ourselves have corrupted.  But “at the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world,” as the ancient bedtime prayer goes – we are paid not for what we have done, but for what Christ has done.  And we will enjoy eternal rest from our labors.  That ancient prayer is in our hymnal, by the way, in a daily prayer office for the close of the day.  It is called “Compline,” and that prayer is found on page 257.  That prayer continues: “Abide with us with your grace and goodness, with Your holy Word and Sacrament, with Your strength and blessing.  Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of fear and despair, the night when death draws near.  Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever.”

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 23, 2023

23 Jan 2023

Text: Rom 11:25-12:13

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

St. Paul explains the “mystery” of the “partial hardening [that] has come upon Israel” as Gentiles are being grafted in.  “In this way,” says the apostle, “all Israel will be saved.”  The “this way” that Paul is referencing is found three verses earlier, when he said, “if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in.”

What Paul calls “election” is indeed a “mystery.”  It is beyond our understanding.  God saves us by grace and through faith (Eph 2:8-9), but exactly how He makes that happen is “above our paygrade,” as the old saying goes.  The tension between the universal nature of sin and of Christ’s sacrifice – combined with the individual necessity that we receive the gift by faith – creates vexation for Christians who want a perfect, rational, and systematic explanation for everything. Some things are simply beyond our human limitations.  Hence the “mystery.”

Indeed, St. Paul reminds us of the divine quality of omniscience: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways?”  Paul paraphrases God’s rhetorical questions to Job (chapters 35, 36, and 41): “Who has known the mind of the Lord?”  Who counsels God?  Who shows grace to God, and then says that God owes him something?  The reality is that God owes us nothing.  He will save whom He chooses to save (Matt 20:1-16), and yet, God is not arbitrary.  He calls us to receive the “Deliverer… from Zion” by faith.  And instead of trying to know the mind of God beyond what He reveals, we should simply pray, “To Him be glory forever.  Amen.”

And as a result of our salvation, and because we are not given to know His mind or His ways, we are called to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship.”  We no more offer the blood of slain animals, but rather receiving the sacrifice of “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23), we offer our flesh with our blood still in it: not death, but our lives to God as a thank-offering.  And this “living sacrifice” consists of our good works based upon our callings: teaching, exhortation, contributions, leadership, mercy.  And all Christians offer “love” to God and to their neighbor.  We are called to “brotherly affection,” honor, zeal, service, hope, patience, and hospitality.

Israel is no longer limited to a single nation, and Israel’s worship is no longer blood sacrifice in the temple.  Spiritual Israel transcends ethnic boundaries, as our spiritual worship is no longer found in the killing of animals.  Instead, we offer our lives in service to the God who saved us, by His offering of blood, and by the mystery of His unsearchable and inscrutable grace!

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 16, 2023

16 Jan 2023

Text: Rom 7:1-20

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

How is the Christian freed from the Law?  St. Paul compares our covenantal obligation to the Law to be like marriage.  And marriage is a legal arrangement that ends when one of the couple dies.  St. Paul had earlier explained that in baptism, we are united to the death of Christ (Rom 6:3-4).  “Likewise, my brothers,” the apostle now explains, “you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead.”

The Law accuses.  The Law kills.  The Law condemns.

But in His life, death, and resurrection, and in our baptism and faith (Mark 16:16), we are no longer “married” to the Law, but to our Lord Jesus Christ.  “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”  And though we have been freed from the Law’s tyranny, dear friends, the old Adam is stubborn. For as St. Paul points out, “[We] do not understand [our] own actions.  For [we] do not do what [we] want, but [we] do the very thing [we] hate.”  It is as though we have been released from a dungeon, but are afraid to walk through the open door of the cell to freedom, remaining prisoners of our own making.  And as St. Paul reasons: “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”

This is the great dilemma of the Christian life.  We know that Jesus died for us.  We believe that we have received His righteousness.  We even see glimpses of the new man come through in our sanctification. But we are far from perfect – and will not be perfected in this life.  So how do we live, dear friends?

We must neither be driven to despair, like Judas, and lose our salvation.  Nor must we be lured by pride, like the Pharisees, and falsely place our trust in ourselves, our works, and the Law, and thus not benefit from our Lord’s work on the cross.  We must be realists, like St. Paul: informed by the Law as an unbending reminder of God’s iron-clad expectations of us, as well as an unforgiving tape measure that shows us our sin in all its ugliness.  And like the apostle, we must allow the Law to drive us to Christ and to His cross, where we do indeed find freedom from the Law – not in permission to ignore it nor license to break it, but in forgiveness that comes only by means of the blood of our Savior.

So, instead of despair, we find hope.  Instead of hypocrisy, we find the truth.  Instead of looking toward ourselves and seeing sin, we look to Christ and see perfect obedience.  For in the atoning death of Jesus, we find life.  And in Christ, instead of seeing the Law as our bitter foe and accuser, we can look upon it as does the Psalmist, who sees the beauty of God’s Law in that it leads us to the Christ, and thus to life: “Oh how I love Your law!  It is my meditation all the day.”  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 9, 2023

9 Jan 2023

Text: Rom 2:1-16

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Having established the existence of natural law in the first chapter of Romans, St. Paul explores the implications in chapter two.  In other words, Paul takes the objective reality of a moral absolute and brings it down to our subjective experience of it.  Or to simplify things even further: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man.” 

St. Paul writes to each one of us, to “everyman,” to every person who makes any kind of moral judgment.  And we all do, especially when we are wronged.  We complain about being wronged, because we know right from wrong.  And in spite of our sinful flesh trying to justify our own wrongs, in spite of our culture’s constant message that morality is an individual matter, deep down inside we all know better.  For even those who have never read the Scriptures – the Gentiles of the Old Testament, and the unbelievers in our own day – nevertheless cannot claim ignorance of right and wrong.  For even without being able to recite the Ten Commandments, “they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.” 

There is no society, no matter how much people living in it may claim that morality is subjective, that denies objective morality.  Even the most hostile atheist on the left is convinced that racism, sexism, and homophobia are evil, and the most hostile identitarian neo-Pagan on the right is convinced that capitalism and race-mixing are evil.  Unbelievers across the spectrum hold some kind of objective morality, whether it is correct or not.  And they do judge others by an objective standard.

“Therefore you are without excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.”

And lest we forget, dear friends, we Christians are the main recipients of this letter from Paul, who is writing to those “who are loved by God and called to be saints.” So, we too are without excuse, we who judge others while overlooking our own sins.  We too deserve “wrath for [ourselves] on the day of wrath.”  God is indeed judging our works.  For “there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek.” 

Like the unbelievers, we have no excuse.  In fact, as our Lord teaches us, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).  So it follows that we who have the Ten Commandments and break them anyway, we who are clear, both about natural law and God’s revealed Word, have no excuse.  And indeed, we do not.

Jesus did not die merely for those who “know not what they do,” but He also died for those of us who do, and who sin anyway.  St. Paul teaches us that we are indeed “without excuse,” O men, all of us, “everyman.”  We are universally in need of a Savior, and not one of us can judge ourselves objectively by God’s Law and conclude that we are without sin.  St. Paul is clear: we are sinners in need of a Savior.  That Savior is our Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified one, who rescues us by His grace, by His atoning blood, by His sure promise.  We are without excuse, but we are not without hope, O men.  We plead the blood of Christ, for ourselves, and even for those who are hostile to us and to Jesus.  We are without excuse.  So pray earnestly for all, O man: “the Jew first, and also the Greek.”

Amen.

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