19th Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Matthew 21:23

by Vicar Michael Monterastelli

And even when you saw it, you did not afterward have a change of heart and believe him.
Dear friends in Christ, Our Gospel text today takes us to the Temple in Jerusalem. We see Jesus in His Father’s house on Tuesday of what would come to be known as Holy Week. Jesus had recently cleansed His Father’s house and rebuked the greedy money-changers. He had made a fearless and bold confession. The chief priests and elders of the people were indignant. How dare some man come into their Temple and disrupt their way of serving the people! But being nice priests and elders, they gave Jesus a chance to either explain Himself or change His mind about what He was teaching. They asked him to name the authority by which he did these things.

But Jesus didn’t change His mind. He told them a story.

He asked them a question to try and change their minds. His question was so important that He made it an easy one — multiple choice with only two options. His question took them back to where Jesus’ public ministry began — by the Baptism of John which was to fulfill all righteousness. So, “Jesus answered them … The Baptism of John, where did it come from? From heaven or from man?” These noble Jewish leaders were unwilling and afraid to answer His question. They were unwilling to heed the Word of God preached by John. And they were afraid of the crowd who held John to be a prophet. John was the Elijah-like prophet who had said, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Knowing their fear, and being the sensitive teacher, Jesus asked the chief priests and elders of the people:
"What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, 'I will not,' but afterward his heart was changed and he went. And the man went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, 'I go, sir,' but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first."

The first son was openly defiant. He said, ‘no’. Not even ‘maybe later, dad’. Or, ‘after a little while’. Just, ‘No’. Even after all his father had done for and given to him, the first son would not bring himself to submit to this common request. The first son refused to do the work which a son of a vine-grower does. The family business was to grow wine. The livelihood of the family depended on the fruit of these vines.

Without grapes there would be no new wine or fresh bread for the supper table.

But then, after he had time to consider all the implications of his father’s loving request, like a miracle, the rebellious heart of the first son was changed and to the vineyard he went. Repentance, the changing of a rebellious heart, is truly a miracle from God. Our heavenly Father does a mighty act when he softens a hard heart through His loving Word. With His incarnate Word, He can take a greedy and treacherous tax collector and cause him to give half his wealth to the poor and to return four-times the amount he’s ever squeezed out his tax payers (Lk 19). Through the incarnate Word, God can woo an angry mob to put down their stones and forgive a professional adulteress and then command her to give up her dark ways and live in the light of Christ (Jn 8).

The watchman Ezekiel warns us: “When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die.” But he also promises us: “Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.
Here we hear what the chief priests and elders of the people knew from the Scriptures. And the Lord through Ezekiel continues:

Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

So Jesus told these members of the house of Israel, “…"Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward have a change of heart and believe him.”

We see that Jesus compares the other son, the one who said, “‘I go, sir,’ but did not go” to the chief priests and elders of the people. The other son made his lips speak nice words, but he was unwilling to follow through. The will of this other son was contrary to the will of his father, too. He brought just as much shame on himself and his family as the first son. Neither son was truly good. The goodness was only in the miracle of repentance that God gave the first son.

It is a tragic truth that our mouths say ‘yes’ to God’s will but our hearts do not follow through. Whether it is the ‘yes’ of confirmation – “I’ll suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from this confession and Church.” Or the ‘yes’ of marriage, “I’ll love you no matter what till death parts us.” Or the ‘yes’ of forgiving or trusting or caring or serving or loving or obeying or picking up and carrying our cross. When we say ‘yes’ to God’s will, the pressure is on for our hearts to fulfill it.It is the truth of God’s grace that He changes selfish hearts set on evil or unrighteousness so that they desire His good will, His righteousness, and life in His kingdom. He seizes the hearts of greedy tax collectors and unfaithful prostitutes, the hearts of husbands and wives, children and students; pastors, vicars, and pre-seminarians; and changes them.

To give us this very necessary change of heart, God, the heavenly Father, sent His Son. His Son has done what the Son of God does. The Son of God submits His will to His Father’s. He goes even further and submits to Jews and Gentiles as He was staked to a cross. The Son of God took on our shame and guilt. He took on our sin. He took on death. Without the fruit of His death, there is no life-sustaining body or life-giving blood for the Lord’s Supper-table. This third Son, the Son of God, who came into His Father’s vineyard by becoming the Son of Man, worked Himself to death. Obedient unto death, he defeated death and was raised from the dead. He was lifted up by His Father who was pleased with Him. Now God speaks His ‘yes’ to you through the crucified and risen Christ!

By dying with your sin, He destroyed your sin. Your adulterous, greedy, sanctimonious sin is now (like the chaff) burning with unquenchable fire. The new life He’s poured over you in Baptism has both quenched the fire of God’s wrath against you and completely refreshed you. His Name is now above every name and your name, O Christian, is like His.

The Lord understands what you’re going through. He knows your struggles with saying ‘yes’ and sticking with it. He knows the eternal consequence of our foolish ‘no.’ Therefore, He lifts you up, you His humbled ones. He builds up the walls of His holy city for you. He binds up your wounds. He heals your broken heart by giving you a new one. The strong, purifying blood of Christ cleanses you from all those failed “YES’s” and gives you strength to turn from all those fatal “NO’s”. In Christ, you are healed! In Christ your heart is changed. He said ‘YES!’ Yes, even now — for you.

18th Sunday After Pentecost

Sept 18, 2005 Text: Matthew 20:1-16

What Do You Think of God's Work Ethic?
Rev. Dr. Kenneth Wieting

To All the saints in Christ Jesus at Luther Memorial Chapel and University Student Center, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;

Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, “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.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Dear Christians, God isn’t like us! In the Greek, Jesus’ question “do you begrudge my generosity?” literally reads, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of heaven. In His kingdom, God’s method is to reward a one-hour worker and a 12-hour worker equally. That doesn’t fit with our idea of fairness. It can give us an evil eye. In the workplaces of this world such an approach would lead to bankruptcy and dissatisfied workers. In the university such an approach would lead to loss of incentive and meaningless grades and credits. In the worldly realm even Scripture says, “If a man does not work, neither should he eat” (II Thess 3:10). But when it comes to the kingdom of heaven, God isn’t like us!

The immediate context of this parable indicates that Jesus was first of all speaking to His disciples as He sent them out to proclaim His Word. They questioned what their reward would be (Mt. 19:27-30). The term that Jesus used for “workers” is also the term He used when He said, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to throw out workers into His harvest” (Mt. 9:38) and the worker is worthy of His hire (Mt. 10:10) as he preaches the Word. Jesus’ parable of the generous landowner should not be abruptly generalized at the expense of overlooking its immediate framework.

First and foremost Jesus’ parable is the great leveler of vineyard workers. Pre-Seminary students and vicars take special note! First and foremost Jesus’ parable is for the Apostles who laid the foundation for the Church but who were prone to compare and jockey for position as workers (Mt. 20:20-28). First and foremost, Jesus’ parable is for the laborers (pastors) who like Timothy followed the apostles by accurately handling the word of truth (II Tim. 2:15). Sideway glances of envy and dissatisfaction are not foreign in the office of the ministry. But they are deadly to those serving in it.

What they are to remember is that their call as laborers in the vineyard is solely a gift of God’s grace. The man who worked 12 hours and bore the heat of the day had nothing over the men who worked only one hour. For the worker to judge the housemaster is nonsensical. The message and the office of the Holy Ministry is totally a gift of the landowner. As Jesus said, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

All of the work depended on the initiative of the owner of the vineyard. None of the workers in the parable applied for the position. Rather, God, the owner, went out and chose them. The one attribute these workers had in common was being idle or unoccupied. Therefore James and John had no right to expect positions of honor over Matthew, the hated tax collector and a latecomer to labor in the vineyard. None of the apostles had a right to expect grander treatment than St. Paul who for a time persecuted the Church. He also was a worker in God’s vineyard, chosen by Christ.

In God’s kingdom, the pay scale is based upon grace, not merit. It is an arena in which God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor God’s ways our ways. When Dr. Luther was about my age he spoke of someone who had been a Christian for only half a year and then died. He then reflected on his own thirty years of labor and trouble with preaching and other matters. He said, and I quote, “yet I get exactly what those have received who died a timely death and were in the vineyard only one hour.” (WLS, Vol III, #4020) Luther spoke of our temptation to be envious in such cases. He concluded, “Shall we, then, not be ashamed, we poor mud sacks who promptly want to exalt ourselves when we have done a little more than another…the pesky devil strengthens us in our evil way which wants to be seen…it will hardly resist the impulse to argue with God.” That’s what Jesus pictured so clearly in this parable. The first workers had not been wronged. God gave them exactly what He promised. Yet they presumed to argue with God. Their complaint was that God had been too generous with those who came later. They compared their works with others in the vineyard and they grumbled against the landowner for His generosity.

What do you think of God’s work ethic? The firsts became lasts not because they failed to do good works. Jesus does not deny that they bore the burden and the scorching heat of the day. Rather, the firsts became lasts because they made earthly comparisons in heavenly matters. The firsts became lasts because they convinced themselves they had been wronged by God.

Beloved in Christ, our Lord was warning the men gifted with the apostolic office and those called as workers in the harvest field not to think in this way. But the kingdom truth that Jesus taught here applies to every vocation in which His saints serve Him. The Christian wife and mother who has labored for decades in faithful commitment to husband and children has a personal record in Christ identical to the mother who shirked responsibilities for years but in whom God’s Word worked repentance later in life. The Christian father who took heat for decades for speaking God’s truth in love in the home and in the world, receives the identical reward in Christ as the man who denied the faith for decades but in whom God’s Word worked repentance later in life. In God’s kingdom, there is not one bit of difference in their standing. There are no second class citizens in the kingdom of heaven. There are no second class citizens in this congregation. If any such thoughts enter your mind, repent, or you will be last. It is God who began a good work in us and it is He who will carry it on to completion (Phil 1:6).

What do you think of God’s work ethic? In the deepest sense, it is not a work ethic at all. In the deepest sense it is a gift ethic. It is a gift of grace based upon the work of one man, Jesus Christ. God makes us equal with the one man who has borne the heat of the day, the day named Black Friday. The heat of that day included the damming heat of God’s wrath against our sin.
When the Father went looking for a worker for this vineyard task, there was only one who qualified. As Scripture says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). There was only one who stood idle to sin, who was unoccupied with iniquity. And by the work of that one man, Jesus Christ, God justified this whole world of lost sinners, this whole world of those who were lasts.

What do you think of God’s work ethic? God grant us all to marvel at the generosity of the landowner! Striking down all comparisons with others, God grant us to marvel anew each day at the Grace of God! For not only does God forbid us to exalt ourselves by means of this parable, He also thereby guards us against despair. He shows us that in His kingdom all merits are abolished except the merits of Jesus Christ. In this parable God shows us that it is His will to give us the kingdom. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

What do you think of God’s work ethic? Thank God it isn’t fair! In Christ, God works on the principle of Grace, by which we sinners get what we don’t deserve. In Christ, God has moved us from the last place of rebels separated from God to the first place of those baptized into His Name and receiving His forgiveness. None of us have a different baptism, different gospel, different faith or different Sacrament than another. All of us are so wonderfully equal in Christ – in fact, by a blessed exchange, we are equal to Christ Himself! Those who think they have done great things for God are here humbled to trust nothing but God’s grace in Christ. Those who think they have blown it, that they are too late to work in the kingdom are here uplifted to trust nothing but God’s grace in Christ.

Within His grace you are now called to work for Him in your vocation. Whatever hour of the day, youth, middle years, senior years, you are free to go about your daily work with joy. You are to bear the heat of the day, the ridicule, the cross that He gives you. As you live you are to conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the Gospel. But even if you are in the last minute of the twelfth hour, even if your life should end this week, you are free to go about your daily work with joy. As St. Paul says, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. As we sang in the Introit, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”.

Thank God His work ethic is unfair! The one who has done all the work of our salvation gives us infinitely more than we deserve. The crucified and risen Christ is among us now not to complain, but to bring us all that His work has secured. “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps 116). Thank God that His ways are higher than our ways as far as the heavens are higher than the earth. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: AMEN.