Generous to Our Fault :: Matthew 20:1-16
I desire to give to this last one as I give to you.
Can you believe that! They all got the same!
Seriously! They all got the same! Equal shares.
I tell you, it’s a scandal.
Is that any way to celebrate human achievement? They all got the same participation trophy??!! It goes against everything we as Americans hold dear. Shouldn’t you be rewarded for a hard day’s work? Shouldn’t you receive the top prize for giving your all?
One of the first rules of both economics and justice is that people get what’s coming to them, you get what you deserve. If you work harder, and longer, and more faithfully than others, you deserve a bigger slice of pie. Everything in our society is based on this principle. If you work overtime, you get time and a half. If it’s not cash in hand at the end of the day, then you get influence, power, and prestige.
Americans even apply this principle in the church, where we talk about living by faith alone. We say things like ... I have faith that “when you start trusting the Lord, and you claim His promises over your life, God will work amazing things for you.” We then like to tell ourselves that “if I have faith that when I give more to the church ... more time, more money, more sweat equity ... God will bless me even more.” We like to leave reminders of this on every article in our sanctuary, our chancel, our fellowship halls.
We have left everything to follow you, Peter told Jesus right before our Gospel reading. So ... what’s in it for us?
Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, at the end of days, when our Master returns ... you will certainly get what’s coming to you as evidenced by today’s Gospel reading from Matthew chapter 20.
1. The God of grace and mercy does what he wants with what is his!
God has been reminding us of his sovereignty in this matter for weeks now. He declared he alone is our helper in time of need. ... that he holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven. ... and that He is the one who will restore you.
As the Psalmists also declare, The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Ps 24:1). For every beast of the forest is mine (Ps 50:10), and that includes you, as Paul reminded us last week. ... For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s (Rm 14:8).
2. As hard as it is for our old Adam to accept, our work counts for nothing.
But we don’t think that way. Most of us labor from dawn to dusk ... we really do bear the heat of the day (vv 1–2). Papers have to be graded. The cows have to come home. The hay and the corn and the beans have to be harvested. If you don’t do it at the right time, you will pay dearly and all your work will count for nothing.
We then take this into our church life, where we ask, what’s in it for us?
So Jesus shares this parable with us, the kingdom of heaven is like a master of the household who went out to hire workers for his vineyard. And having agreed with the workers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
Most of us know what it means to work in the vineyard because we’ve been Christians all of our lives. You’ve been Sunday School teachers, elders, trustees, faithful worshippers, and Bible students. You’ve brought your children up in the Christian faith, teaching them to love the Lord with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and strength. Some of your families are even charter members of Trinity Lutheran Church.
Bearing fruit is what you do. That’s what all workers in the vineyard do.
So you definitely don’t mind when the Master goes out and hires more people to work alongside you at third, sixth, and ninth hours ... that is, nine, noon, and three ... to bring more people into the harvest field (vv 3–7). We delight to look around in the pews this morning and see folks who’ve joined us at the eleventh hour through adult instruction, or at the eleventh minute. ... You do, right?
Therefore, can you imagine a disciple of Jesus grousing, grumbling, complaining because ... the thief on the cross receives a place in heaven right alongside the lifelong, hardworking church member?
That actually happens in our church.
When evening came, the Lord of the vineyard said to his manager, call the workers and pay ’em their wages, beginning with the last, then the first. When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them received a denarius, too. When they received it, they grumbled.
Wait a second, they cried out! That’s not fair!
Can’t you see how much time, talent, and treasure I’ve given to this church?
I sweated and labored all day ... for good causes nonetheless. And these freeloaders who sat in the pew for only an hour and pitch-in only a couple of bucks ... they shouldn’t get the same as me!
A Christian is by definition someone whose heart has been changed to accept and rejoice in God’s way of dealing with sinful human beings, and therefore someone who is delighted whenever anyone receives God’s promises of eternal life through Christ, no matter how long that person gets to live as part of the church.
In the parable the only reason that some of us came last and others came first is that the master chose to call them in that order.
I did you no wrong, the Lord tells us. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? ... Do you begrudge my generosity? (v 13, 15). Are you calling a good thing evil?
Indeed ...
WHETHER YOU ARE FIRST OR LAST: GOD’S GENEROSITY PROVIDES YOU WITH THE RICHES OF HEAVEN.
3. Above all else, God gives generously instead of giving us what we deserve!
Even our best work is soiled with sin.
When we are truthful, we can see how proud we are of our work around here and how we resent how others have treated us. We can recognize how I actually don’t think I need the forgiveness of sins multiple times a day, let alone every week. We say things like, Look at me: I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I don’t watch TV and all those raunchy shows. I have been faithful to my wife for 20, 30, 40 years. See how hard I've worked!
That is nothing more than idolatry of me, myself and I.
Repent, in the name of Jesus. Even if we’ve done everything that God commanded ... (and we don’t) ... we must declare ourselves unworthy servants ... grateful for God’s gifts.
Brothers and sisters, if you don’t recognize that you need the forgiveness of sins every day, you should tremble, and you should not come to the Lord’s Supper today. By denying you need the forgiveness of sins, not only are you deceiving yourselves, you are calling God a liar. You should long for the generous cup of salvation every day. Here, God pours out life and salvation to all who believe his words and promises.
And you need to know ... at this altar, you can receive one of two things: the cup of wrath or the cup of salvation. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body of Christ eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
Even our so-called little sins ... like those harsh words that cut each other down ... are killing you. Death is the wage we deserve for those things we’ve done and those we left undone ... Death is the wage we deserve for those thoughts we had and those thoughts we didn’t have.
Yes, that’s what we deserve.
But you are truly worthy and well-prepared to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation as you keep faith in these words “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
4. And thanks be to God, he is fair ... he is not like us ... he above all is generous!
Even while we struggle with sin, the Lord freely pardons us (Is 55:7). He has come to each of us, searching for us ... at dawn, noon, and even at the eleventh hours. He continues to call us to us through his word and his sacraments, encouraging us, enabling us to respond to his amazing grace and to enter his vineyard where we produce his generous fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. He leads us through the divine service where he enables us to recognize our selfish grumbling and sin, and just as importantly, our need for a savior. Then he declares that you are forgiven on the generous account of Christ, the sinless one who became sin for you, who paid the wages of your sin by suffering horribly so that through his resurrection, he could give you a generous life.
5. So let’s not begrudge his generosity. He is generous to our fault.
Whether you are first or last, Jesus Christ has lived for you, died for you, was buried for you, and was raised from the dead for you, so that all of you who have faith in him will not perish but will receive the generous wage God has promised ... the riches of heaven ... that is, eternal life in his name.
This generosity is certainly shown to all of those who are called through baptism ... into the vineyard, which is nothing less than God’s paradise, where the feast of forgiveness awaits.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when you go back to your work, know and believe that in the end ... your salvation ... your inheritance in heaven ... won’t depend on your efforts or your labors. Your Lord is generous through word and sacrament ... in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and always.
No matter our station in life, we are called to live and serve by our God-given faith in his promises that deliver to us the fruit of his righteousness.