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INJ
St Matthew 20:1-16
'It's Just Not Fair, Thank the Lord'
Divine Service
Septuigesima | February 4th, 2007
Dear Saints,
It's not fair at all, how these workers in the vineyard are treated. It's so unfair that it's shocking, ridiculous, absurd, and it's supposed to be. Jesus is telling this parable about the kingdom of God so that we can't miss it.
There was a landowner who had a vineyard, an he needed workers. So early in the morning he goes do to the temp agency and finds a group of men ready to work. He contracts with then to work for twelve hours for on denarius, that's a fair days wages, and these men set to work. Three hours later he finds more men, and sets them to work. After another three hours, around lunch time, he hires a third group of men to work through the afternoon, six hours of labor, but still this is not enough workers in the vineyard. He hires more men to work for three hours, and then, when the sun is beginning to go down, he hires even more, who simply work for an hour.
When the day's work is over all the hired men line up for their wages. The first come expecting a few bucks, and look, the land owner gives them a denarius. This guy has to be ecstatic, he worked an hour and gets paid for twelve. But if you think the first men are excited, think about everyone else in the line. “If they got paid a days wages for an hour's work,” they are thinking, “we'll get three, or six, or nine, or twelve denarii.” The guys at the end of the line are on their cell phones calling their wives telling them to pick up a bottle of nice champagne and a few choice steaks for dinner.
But then something odd happens, the second group of men, the ones who worked three hours, they also are paid a denarius. “Oh well,” they must have thought, and when their way. But then things get worse, at least for the men at the end of the line. Those who worked six hours are paid a denarius, and those who worked nine hours: a denarius, and then those who had been working all day, a full twelve hours: one denarius. They are fuming. You know the way you fume when something happens to you that isn't right, that isn't fair. This landowner isn't fair, and he's putting it in these guys face.
What this landowner does isn't the right way to run a vineyard, to pay your workers, but look, dear saints, Jesus isn't teaching us vineyard management, He's teaching us about the kingdom of God, about heaven, about the church, about what it means to be a hearer of the Gospel. His kingdom is run entirely different from the kingdom of the world, from businesses and governments. The border of the kingdom of heaven in the end of fairness.
But look how our sinful flesh want God to be fair, to be just, to give us what we've earned. It is the religion that clings to each one of us, we are all like the workers in the vineyard, we all think that we should get what we've worked for, that salvation is a matter of wages, and heaven is like our eternal payday.
But the kingdom of heaven is not about payment, the kingdom of Jesus is not about earning. The idea that you deserve eternal life, the thought that you have merited forgiveness, the inclination that you've been good so God owes you one, all of these thoughts are idolatry, worship of self, a denial of Jesus. For if you are good enough, or have worked hard enough, or at least tried your best, and for that you will gain eternal life, then Jesus died for no reason, His blood is unnecessary, His life and death and resurrection offer no benefit.
If you come to Jesus demanding fairness and justice and wages, you'll get it. The wages of sin is death. You and I have earned nothing but God's wrath and judgment and hell.
But look, this is the kingdom of God, His church. We come here not for justice, not to collect our paycheck. We leave all that at the door. We we ray together, “I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities, with which I have ever offended Thee and justly deserved Thy temporal and eternal punishment...” then we are announcing to God and to each other and to the entire world that we are not gathered together to demand what we deserve. We are, in fact, putting all of our deserving behind us, we leave it at the door when we come in here, for this, the Lord's house, the Lord's church, the Lord's kingdom is a place not or earning but of grace; not of deserving but of giving gifts.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.
Free gifts are never fair. Salvation is not fair, thank the Lord that it's not fair.
The free gift. Grace. This is how Jesus runs His kingdom. The wrath that we deserve He takes it. The death that we've earned, now it's His, deposited in His account. The hell which we've built through all our hard labor of sin and godlessness, He knows it, He suffers it, He takes it.
And this is good news, great news for us. That Jesus is not dishing out paychecks, but bonuses, gifts, Good Friday presents, determined not by our effort but by His goodness, His goodness which is beyond our comprehension.
Dear saints, this ought to bring you great comfort. For each one of us it has been appointed once to die, and then the judgment. We are surrounded on every hand by death and sorrow, but what is on the other side, what will that judgment hold for us? When we fall asleep in death do we wake find a Jesus waiting to give us what we deserve? What a terrible thought. No, for all of us who are baptized in His name, who trust in His death and the promise of His forgiveness, for all of us who have confessed that we deserve nothing good but cling instead and alone to the mercy and grace and goodness of Jesus, we will wake up and find life, eternal life in the face of our beloved Jesus. He will be giving us what He won for us on the cross, and we will rest with Him in a rest that we have not earned or deserved, but which He has earned for us.
We will be with the Lord, yes, we sinners will be with the Lord, forgiven, holy, washed clean by His blood and clothed in His righteousness, and waiting in perfect peace for the wonderful and blessed last day when we will be resurrected into perfect life.
May the Lord Jesus bring us all there together, and while we wait continue to give us what we don't deserve. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO