In the Name of Jesus
Matthew 20,1-16
Septuagesima Sunday
Tyrannion, Bishop of Tyre, Martyr 310.
Rasmus Jensen, First Lutheran pastor in North America (Canada), † 1620
20. February 2011
1. O Heavenly Father, gracious in mercy and justice, You sent Your only begotten Son to redeem us from sin and the curse of sin. We are prideful. We are demanding. We fail to fully comprehend Your good will. Pour out upon us the Holy Spirit and give us the same mind as Your beloved Son, Christ Jesus. Help us to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors who may feel unworthy of God’s calling and gifts. As Jesus teaches us in today’s parable, all are equal in Your sight for You give eternal life to all people regardless of who they are. Help us to spread the joy of this parable to our borough and neighbors for in doing so we are pointing them to Jesus who brings the good gift of life everlasting. Amen.
2. Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to St. Matthew where the holy evangelist writes: 1Then Jesus said to His disciples, „For the reign of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first last.“ This is our text.
3. Before we delve into the parable itself, we need to examine the previous context and discussion between Jesus and His disciples. Matthew 19 concludes with a discussion where Jesus points out that the rich and powerful do not necessarily make it into heaven. The apostles then wonder, well, what about us who have left our jobs and families to be Jesus’ disciples? What is our fate? Jesus replies, »When the Son of Man is seated on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also be seated on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for My Name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first« (19,28-30). Jesus challenges the popular first century Jewish understanding of salvation: the wealthy must surely enter heaven ahead of the poor because the wealthy are blessed by Yahweh as is seen in their wealth and riches. Jesus counters: not so fast; the poor will make it into heaven before the rich. The first will be last, and the last will be first.
4. Jesus, as He so often does in the Holy Gospels, teaches that the conventional wisdom of this temporal world does not apply to the Divine wisdom of the heavenly world. The gospel that Jesus teaches in the Holy Gospels is: „human beings with their prestige and their perceived blessedness play no part whatsoever in achieving entrance into eternal salvation on the Last Day“ (Gibbs 988). Whether you are rich or poor, well-educated or a fool, eternal life and salvation are received purely by God’s grace and mercy as His gift to us, and this gift is found in His Son Jesus Christ, whom we receive through faith.
5. Thus Jesus narrates the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. At the beginning of the work day, the owner goes out and hires day laborers to work the field for a day’s standard pay. Throughout the day the owner continues to go out and hire more day laborers and promises to pay them „what is right“. Finally, with only an hour left in the day for work, the owner hires more day laborers who have waited by idly all day. When the time comes for payment, the owner pays the workers who labored for only one hour, and he gives them the same payment that he promised to those hired first and had worked nearly twelve hours. So too with each group the owner hired, they also receive a full day’s wage. Finally, the first group, who had worked the longest, receives their agreed upon wage.
6. Every single one of us is thinking: „That is not fair! Those who worked the longest should receive some sort of extra bonus or reward for their work in the field.“ The owner almost appears to be a communist: paying everyone the same wage regardless of the work done. Commercially and economically, the owner in this parable is a fool (Gibbs 898). Jesus teaches in this parable that some, namely the first group of hired day laborers, find the graciousness and liberality of the vineyard owner to be unfair. In reality, the owner is very, very gracious with His wealth. Thus, the parable’s theme is: „God treats all those who are in the reign of heaven the same; owning to God’s grace, there is no distinction on the Last Day“ (Gibbs 988). „Everything is in the hands of the Lord and from the hands of the Lord. Here are no reservations, qualifications, or demands but discipleship, faith, being given happy generous gifts beyond calculation“ (Nagel 64).
7. As so often happens in the Holy Gospels, sinful humanity’s perspective clashes with Yahweh’s way of doing things. On this temporal earth, no one is truly equal. Some have more talent than others. Some are brighter or wealthier than others. Some are well compensated for their vocation, while others are not. There is a vast disparity between salaries and time spent working in every vocation. In the business world of vocations, this is the way it is and it is usually beneficial for the economy to have different levels of wage compensation based on experience, education, promotion, and competition. But as Jesus cautions with today’s parable, the way things work in this temporal world is not the way they work in the heavenly world. „God operates backward of the way we calculate“ (Nagel 63).
8. From Adam until the present, all who believe in Jesus Christ and are in His Church will receive the same wage. Whether one became a Christian as a baptized infant or was converted on his or her deathbed, all who believe in Jesus Christ will receive the same wage. Whether one is a prince or a pauper, a pope or a parishioner, all who believe in Jesus Christ will receive the same wage. All disciples are equal in the present and future reign of God in Jesus (Gibbs 988). With this good owner, all will ultimately be treated the same at the end of the day (Gibbs 991). The last will be first, and the first will be last; everyone is equal in Yahweh’s reign of heaven.
9. The problem is with sinful human beings. We try to force our way of doing things into God’s way of doing things. It is like taking a square part and trying to force it into a triangle-shaped opening. The square is not meant to go into the triangle opening, only the triangle shape is meant to go into the triangle opening. You’ve seen children do this with that toy: they try to force one shape into a different opening. This children’s toy is meant to teach them how to place the appropriate shapes into the appropriate openings. When we try to force our shape into God’s opening, it does not work, and it will not work until we line ourselves up with God’s way of doing things.
10. Yahweh’s way of doing salvation is that all are treated equally and receive the same wage, namely eternal life. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day did not appreciate this because, they argued, we Jews have been the chosen people for thousands of years and therefore we should receive something extra in the heavenly reign compared to these late-believing Gentiles. The apostles also had this same mindset: we were the first of the disciples, therefore we should be afforded greater rewards in the heavenly reign than the rank and file disciples. Even in their own apostolic band, the apostles repeated ranked themselves in positions of importance, every one of them desiring the coveted seats next to Jesus when He took up His throne. We are even tempted today to entice Jesus that when a person believes in Jesus upon his or her deathbed they are ushered into heavenly paradise is all well and good, because it is about faith after all, but we certainly deserve something extra for we have borne the brunt of a lifelong discipleship to Jesus from our infant Baptism. Life-long believers certainly deserve a little more gratuity, don’t they Jesus?
11. Christ our Lord, however, remains steadfast, for from Adam until the present, all who believe in Jesus Christ and are in His Church will receive the same wage. Whether one became a Christian as a baptized infant or was converted on his or her deathbed, all who believe in Jesus Christ will receive the same wage. Whether one is a prince or a pauper, a pope or a parishioner, all who believe in Jesus Christ will receive the same wage. The last will be first, and the first will be last; everyone is equal in the reign of heaven. Thus Jesus teaches in today’s parable.
12. The pericope that immediately follows today’s parable is that Jesus tells His apostles for the third time in Matthew’s Gospel: I am going to be crucified, but then resurrected. Such is life in the Church and the heavenly reign: it is a life of hardship and tribulation for Christians. And yet, Jesus Himself reveals that He, the Son of God, who is the First, had arrived on this earth to become Last, so that in Him we all are moved to the front of the line and made first. Christ Jesus who is the Almighty Son of God, descended to this earth, became a man, and humbled Himself to suffer and die on the cross so that we now have forgiveness and salvation in His Name. Furthermore, Christ is the firstborn from the dead, so that we who now die later will on the last day share in His firstborn resurrection from the dead when He Himself will resurrect our physical bodies from the grave.
13. „Remarkably, all those who have left anything behind for the sake of Jesus’ name will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. In light of this promise, all comparing now must be put aside. For this is how it is in the reign of God. The last will be first, and the first will be last“ (Gibbs 993). Everyone is equal in the heavenly reign; everyone receives the same gracious gift of eternal life. And yet, even more, for Jesus promises that in His heavenly reign we will recoup one hundredfold what we suffered as loss in this temporal life. The gift of eternal life and the rich blessings that await us in Yahweh’s presence are incomparable to all the wealth on this terrestrial earth. Do not despair. Be of good cheer. Remain steadfast in the faith that clings to Jesus alone for salvation and forgiveness. For the gift of eternal life by God’s grace is a treasure that surpasses all others. „God has His own way with each one of us. He is the Lord; we are given to by Him who is bountiful beyond deserving or calculation“ (Nagel 66). Amen.
14. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, the First who became Last, help us to understand the way of Your heavenly reign so that we do not present our pleas before You because of our righteousness but because of Your great mercy, for in You alone do we find the heart of our Heavenly Father who is loving, giving, and gracious, in abundance, to us His dear children. Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Matthew © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Gibbs, Jeffrey A. Matthew 11:2 – 20:34. Copyright © 2010 Concordia Publishing House.
Giertz, Bo. Preaching from the Whole Bible. Clifford A. Nelson, Tr. Copyright © 1967 Augsburg Publishing House.
Giertz, Bo. To Live with Christ. Richard Wood with Bror Erickson, Tr. Copyright © 2008 Concordia Publishing House.
Nagel, Norman. Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis. Frederick W. Baue, Ed. Copyright © 2004 Concordia Publishing House.
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