Sermon
for Septuagesima, February 9, 2020
Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places. Amen.
Matthew 20:1-16 “Indeed the kingdom
of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers
for his vineyard. 2 After
agreeing to pay the workers a denarius for the day, he sent them into his
vineyard. 3 He
also went out about the third hour and saw others standing unemployed in the
marketplace. 4 To
these he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is
right.’ So they went. 5 Again he went out
about the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 When he went out
about the eleventh hour, he found others standing unemployed. He said to them, ‘Why have you stood here all
day unemployed?’ 7 “They
said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’
“He told them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When it was evening,
the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them
their wages, starting with the last group and ending with the first.’ 9 “When those who were
hired around the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. 10 When those who were
hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But they each received a denarius too. 11 After they received
it, they began to grumble against the landowner: 12 ‘Those
who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ 13 “But he answered
one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong.
Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours
and go. I want to
give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you. 15 Can’t I do what I
want with my own money? Or are you
envious because I am generous?’ 16 In
the same way, the last will be first, and the first, last.” (EHV)
Dear fellow servants of the Lord,
It doesn’t
sound very fair, does it? Some of those vineyard
workers put in a hard, twelve-hour day, while some worked only an hour—yet,
they all got the same pay. To the
natural mind, it sounds unfair, perhaps even a bit cruel, especially to the
ones who worked the full day. And,
that’s exactly what some of the workers thought. When the men who worked only a short time
received a full day’s wage, those who worked the full twelve hours calculated
that they too should be rewarded with an extra benefit. Consequently, when receiving only the wages
they had agreed upon, they felt slighted and they complained. The question for us to answer is what is
truly fair?
To understand this parable, we need
to know why Jesus told it. Immediately
before He spoke the parable, Jesus had announced to His disciples that “It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24) The disciples were
astonished by this teaching. They
wondered; how could anyone be saved? But
after hearing Jesus assure them that even this was possible, Peter said, "Look, we have left everything and
followed you! What then will we have?" (Matthew 19:27)
We can
understand Peter’s mindset. If a rich
man couldn’t earn a place in heaven, yet could by God’s grace enter His kingdom,
then Peter guessed, perhaps those who gave up worldly things for Jesus would
certainly deserve an especially great reward.
Peter was afflicted by worldly thinking.
Therefore, Jesus told this parable to warn His disciples against imagining
that what we do can earn some greater reward.
On the contrary, We are rewarded because God is good.
Jesus
said, " Indeed the kingdom of
heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers
for his vineyard.”
Here is our point of comparison: the kingdom of heaven is not the
vineyard, nor is it the workers. Instead,
Jesus equated God’s kingdom to a wealthy vineyard owner. In His comparison, Jesus wanted to make it
perfectly clear that God does not operate under the same principles as the
kingdom of the world. God is far more
generous.
So, my question to you is this: “Did
the landowner in the parable have to hire these workers?” The answer is no. He already had his own servants and regular
employees, but out of concern for the wellbeing of these unemployed people, the
landowner hired more workers. He did so
each time he went out into the marketplace and discovered more men standing
idle there.
Now, we might ask, did those men do
anything to cause the owner to hire them?
The answer is nothing at all.
Their employment came about solely because the landowner made the
decision to be generous and to put more men to work so he could be kind.
Dear friends, if this parable were
about life in this world, we might imagine that an injustice had been done, but
it concerns the kingdom of heaven, and the fact is: no one will ever enter the
kingdom of heaven because of merit earned.
Therefore, without God’s gracious invitation, we would not only miss out
on working in His kingdom, we would never receive a reward. The Bible declares, “There is no difference, because all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.” (Romans
3:22-23)
The
kingdom of heaven demands perfect holiness before we can enter it. This is the warning Jesus is giving His
disciples. When we expect to earn any
part of our salvation, we put ourselves in danger of someday hearing our Lord
tell us in the Judgment, “Take what is yours
and go.”
Relying on personal merit, when we so often fall short of perfection, leaves
us in danger of being thrown out of God’s kingdom, as St. Paul warned when he
wrote, “You who are trying to be declared
righteous by the law are completely separated from Christ. You have fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4)
In this parable, God’s grace is on
full display. It is only by God’s
grace—His undeserved love for us—that we are invited to enter His vineyard to
help gather His harvest. Furthermore, it
is by God’s grace, alone, that we receive our reward at the end of the day, for
we have certainly not “endured the burden of
the day and the scorching heat.” No matter how hard we think we have worked for our Lord, we
fall short of the holiness needed to enter His kingdom. No matter what trials we think we have
endured for Jesus, it will never come close to the unimaginable burden and the scorching
fire He endured for us. Even those who
suffer martyrdom on Christ’s behalf do not earn God’s grace, but rather, by His
grace they are rewarded with a home in His heaven.
Dear Christian friends, notice what
the landowner says, “I want to give to the
last one hired the same as I also gave to you.
Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” Though we cannot
earn the wages of the kingdom of heaven, God freely gives that reward to those
whom He chooses. The riches God gives
are the forgiveness, life, and salvation that Jesus earned for us by His
perfect life and innocent death on the cross.
By the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Indeed,
it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) We couldn’t have decided to work for God,
because before He called us to faith in Jesus, we didn’t even know His kingdom
existed. Yet, in His love and mercy, God
came looking, found us, and called for us to enter His service in the vineyard
of His kingdom.
As we look
to the front of our church, we see a font through which sinners enter the
kingdom of heaven. Through God’s
gracious invitation, at this font or another similar one, we each entered God’s
kingdom. Through the water and Gospel
Word of Baptism, sins were washed away as faith in Jesus was given, and by that
Spirit-given faith, we are credited as holy before God, and likewise, we have
been given the opportunity to serve our Lord and Savior throughout this life
and are rewarded with the riches of life in heaven above. By water and the Word, God called us into His
workforce, so that at the end of the day, We are rewarded because God is
good.
Apart from
faith in Jesus, we could do nothing. Any
work we might, on our own, decide to do would be for naught. Still, Jesus told His disciples, “Open your eyes
and look at the fields, because they are already ripe for harvest. The reaper is getting paid and is gathering
grain for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.” (John 4:35-36) Because He is good, “God our Savior… wants all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4)
It is to our
great joy that God has honored us with the opportunity to work in His
kingdom. Because God is good, He calls
humble laborers like you and me into His harvest field. Because God is good, the wages He pays to us
far exceed anything we could ever merit.
You see, God gives us eternal life in heaven, not because we asked for
the job or deserved it, but rather, because He is good, and for the sake of the
life and death of His Son, Jesus Christ, He calls us into His kingdom.
If we tried
to make every little detail of this parable mean something, we might get
ourselves in trouble. What Jesus wants
us to take home is understanding of our heavenly Father’s gracious invitation
to work in His kingdom, but more so even than that, Jesus wants us to take home
the gift of heaven. It is the most
valuable reward any of us could ever receive, and because He is good, God hands
that gift through faith to those whom He chooses to bless. You see, “God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
Be assured
also, dear friends, that our reward can never be taken away from us, because God
calls us to enter His kingdom and blesses us with His gifts, not because we
asked for the job, or because He needed us, or because we do such great work; rather,
We are rewarded because God is good, and
that will never change. Amen.
The LORD
is good. His mercy endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all
generations. Amen.
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