Septuagesima
12 February, Anno Domini 2017
St. Matthew 20:1-16
Pr. Kurt Ulmer
In the Name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The parable of the workers and the vineyards, as we have heard each year, is a parable that holds before us very clearly the gracious nature of our salvation. It teaches us that we do not contribute to our redemption in any way. Our hearts don’t have to look anywhere else but God’s work and gifts for comfort and assurance. It is only and completely a gift of God. The workers who were only in the vineyard for an hour, who did little or nothing, still received the denarius. They certainly didn’t earn it. They weren’t more deserving than those who were hired early. Jesus even described them as standing around in the marketplace being lazy, doing nothing. And yet, when the time came to settle accounts, the master gave them a full denarius.
This is so contrary to our nature and all human reason and highlights something very interesting about the master, the real subject of the parable. The master doesn’t really seem interested in how many workers he needs. He isn’t interested in maximizing efficiency or only finding the best reviewed or strongest workers with the best resumes. He wants people in the vineyard – as many as he can get, industrious or lazy, strong or weak. Their works and their abilities are irrelevant. He wants them not because He needs them but because He wants to share the fruits of His vineyard with them. He wants to give it all away. He wants them to enjoy it and each time he goes out looking He is bothered by the fact that there are still some who are not in His vineyard to be blessed by Him.
This is utterly profound! The Lord Jesus gives us this parable because He wants every timid heart, every battered conscience, every despairing sinner to know that He wants to give away His mercy and the blessings of His kingdom to you. God wants you in His vineyard. The vineyard that He has prepared isn’t for Himself or His own pleasure. He has prepared it for you. He has done the planting, the tending, and the pruning. He has born the terrible and backbreaking work to till under the rocky soil. He has literally poured out blood, sweat, and tears in order to prepare the vineyard for you. And now He wants you to have it…for nothing. He is giving it away. He forgives your sins out of love and mercy rather than duty or justice. He rescues you from eternal damnation because He takes absolutely no pleasure in the death of the sinner. How marvelously true it is when we sing “By grace I’m saved, grace free and boundless…” as we will today feasting on the fruits of our Lord’s labor in the Holy Communion.
And yet, not all those who entered the vineyard were allowed to stay, even as not all those in the wilderness who drank from the same spiritual Rock that was Christ entered the Promised Land. Those who fell in the wilderness under God’s wrath had rejected the gift of God’s mercy and deliverance. They had placed their trust in other gods and rejected the true God who had saved them. And so they received the desires of their heart – they died. God isn’t in the business of forcing salvation upon you. He deeply desires for you to have it, but if you will not receive it freely as a gift, completely apart from works, then it won’t be foisted on you.
The very nature of a gift demands that it can be rejected, otherwise it is an obligation. Those who were brought into the vineyard first thing in the morning, who labored longer and harder ended up condemned, cast out of the vineyard, not because of their work per say, but because all they wanted was what they had earned by their work. There is nothing any of us should want less from God than what our work has earned us. Any work that we do, any keeping of the Law, is nothing more than what we ought to do. To live according to the Law is to be human, to live as you were created to live in God’s image. It’s nothing special that deserves reward. How laughable it is when we keep merely the letter of the Law and we want to throw a parade as though we’ve done something extraordinary. We’ve done nothing more than our duty. The Law says give to the person who cheats you, bless the one who curses you, speak kindly of the one who slanders you, set aside your own desires and aspirations so that you can care for and provide for your neighbor. Not to mention that you are never to worry about anything because your heavenly Father has promised to care for your every need, that there should be nothing more precious or important to you than the Word of God and the Sacraments whereby God declares you righteous, raises you from the dead, washes away the guilt of your sin, and makes you an heir of His kingdom. And the moment we want some kind of credit for even coming close to any of the Law’s demands, whatever ounce of good we have done becomes sin because we are elevating it as a higher good than the mercy and gift of God that come through the suffering and death of His beloved Son.
It’s a terrible thing to hear God say “Take what belongs to you and go.” It’s as if Jesus said “Take your works that you are so proud of, leave my kingdom, and march yourself right over to the devil’s kingdom where everything is done fairly and everyone gets exactly what they deserve.” What rightly belongs to us is the eternal punishments of hell. When we consider the great mercy of the master who wants to give away his kingdom to those who least deserve it and then stop and consider how merciless we have been to our neighbor – publicly slandering him, withholding help from him, turning a blind eye to his suffering, holding his sins against him, refusing to give him the benefit of the doubt – we should be rightly terrified because we know exactly what our evil, loveless works have earned us. Repent.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus has given this parable as a warning to us, His dear children, so that we do not grow callous to our need for God’s grace and the precious means by which He gives us that grace. The Lord gives gifts that no amount of work, no matter how difficult or wonderful it is, could ever merit. Will we trade the glorious Baptismal robe of Christ’s righteousness for the filthy rags that are the best of our works? Will we try to satisfy our souls with the bread of vanity and pleasure rather than the Body and Blood that bore the whole weight of our sin?
Cast aside any hope or confidence you have put in your own goodness and righteousness because they are nothing compared to the work of Jesus who labored under the scorching heat of God’s wrath against your sin and whose death has set you free from the demonic vineyard of fairness and just desserts. Give God the glory for whatever good He has done through you and come stand before the master of heaven’s vineyard who loves nothing more than to give you everything you don’t deserve – forgiveness, life, peace, and salvation.
In the Name of +Jesus. Amen.