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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.
Many in our secular society are all about equality, at least when it suits them. For example, since the early 19-60s, federal law has required equal pay for equal work, though of late it has seemed that, contrary to the Bible (2 Thessalonians 3:10), more and more people expect to be paid at least something even without working at all. One might wonder how many people today would react the way those first hired in the parable of today’s Gospel Reading reacted, grumbling about those who worked far less’s being made equal to them, or whether, in our increasingly socialistic society, the majority of people today might consider all the workers’ receiving the same pay to be simply an appropriate redistribution of the master of the house’s wealth.
Of course, while the parable makes use of the economic system of its day, the parable is not about what economic system we should use in our day. And, even for those more acquainted with day labor in a vineyard back then, the owner of the vineyard’s paying the last-hired laborers first and his paying them the same wage as the first-hired laborers must have been unlike any master of houses whom they knew. Yet, Jesus does not say the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house whom they knew’s paying wages, but Jesus does say the Kingdom of Heaven is like the master of a house whom He describes’s paying wages. The parable is less about “the laborers in the vineyard” and more about the good owner of the vineyard, who corresponds to God. So, today we consider the parable under the theme “The Goodness of God”.
Just before today’s Gospel Reading in St. Matthew’s Divinely-inspired account (Matthew 19:16-30; compare Mark 19:17 and Luke 18:18), a rich young man asked Jesus what good deed he must do to have eternal life, and Jesus said both that there is only One Who is good and that, if the man wanted to enter life, he should keep the commandments, which, in his case included selling what he possessed, giving to the poor, and following Jesus. Hearing all Jesus said, Peter both exclaimed about everything he and the other disciples had left to follow Jesus and asked Jesus what they would have, and Jesus told them that in the new world they would sit on thrones and judge (or “lead”) the twelve tribes of Israel and receive a hundredfold what they had left, for many who are first will be last, and the last first. Seemingly extending that thought, the parable we heard today in its original context perhaps primarily warns Peter and the other disciples against boasting or presuming themselves to be among the first.
You and I also need that warning against boasting or presuming ourselves to be among the first. We may think that we are better Christians than others are, or we may think that others are worse sinners than we are. We may grumble about the lack of material things that we receive, or we may grumble about the abundance of material things that others receive. In any number of ways, we may consider ourselves to be first, somehow worthy of material and even spiritual blessings, when, in fact, in so considering ourselves to be first we sin, as we sin in any number of other ways. The English Standard Version read caught the general sense of the master of the house’s statement to one of those first hired, but lost in translation was the master of the house’s asking if the man’s eye was evil (KJV, ASV). Of course, by nature not only our eyes but our whole beings are evil, opposed to God and so warranting both death now in time and punishment eternally in hell. Except, as Jesus with the parable’s final questions called Peter and the other disciples to repentance, so Jesus calls and enables us: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sinful nature and our sin—whatever it might be, He forgives it all for Jesus’s sake.
In its original context, the parable perhaps primarily warns against one’s boasting or presuming to be among the first, but the parable at least secondarily also shows “The Goodness of God”. Again, the English Standard Version read lost in translation the statement of the master of the house, who corresponds to God, that he is good (KJV, ASV). Of course “The Goodness of God” includes generosity, but God is much more than particularly generous: He is generally good—good in contrast to our unholiness apart from faith in Him, and also good in the sense of the graciousness that sent His Son, the God-man Jesus Christ, into human flesh to die on the cross for your sins and mine. As the master of the house graciously hired workers over the course of the day, even at the eleventh hour, and graciously paid them a full day’s wage to put food on their table and otherwise support their families, so God graciously does what He chooses to do: in making the last first and the first last, in exalting the lowly and humbling the proud (Luke 1:52), in forgiving the sins of the repentant but retaining the sins of the unrepentant. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 55:6-9), His thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways, but nevertheless, like the workers hired over the course of the day, we trust Him to give to us whatever is right, in our case, Christ’s righteousness earned for us by His perfectly keeping the law and by His dying for our failure to so keep it.
God not only is generous and good in that He graciously forgives our sins through faith in Jesus Christ, but God also is generous and good in that He gives us that forgiveness in a number of ways: through His Word read and purely preached, through His Word combined with water in Holy Baptism, through His Word spoken by pastors in individual Holy Absolution, and through His Word combined with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar—Christ’s Body and Blood, given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In all these ways we all equally receive God’s greatest gifts—not of our own worthiness but of God’s goodness.
Having equally received God’s greatest gifts in these ways out of His goodness, we, like St. Paul and the Philippians in today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30), honor God in our bodies, whether by life or by death. We let our manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ: standing firm in one Spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel, not being frightened in anything by those who oppose us, but suffering for Christ’s sake, engaged in the same conflict that Paul and the Philippians had been engaged in. When we fail to so live, as we do fail, with daily repentance we live in the forgiveness of sins, both that God gives us and that we in turn extend to one another. And so we show to others “The Goodness of God”.
Participation trophies perhaps aside, in our secular society we should expect greater rewards for greater work—whether in the workplace or at school. I used to tell my New Testament students at Concordia University-Texas that God’s grace for the sake of Christ saves us eternally, but that they were going to have to earn their As that semester. Contrary to what some in society may think, there are times and places for such discrimination. We thank and praise God that Judgment Day in His Church is not one of them! Already here and now He deals with us not as we deserve but as Christ deserves and as we by faith receive. As we asked and answered in today’s Introit (Psalm 116:12-13, 15-16; antiphon v.17): what shall we render to the Lord for all His benefits? We will lift up the cup of salvation, offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call on the Name of the Lord.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +