Septuagesima Matthew 20:1-16 (2022)

“God Is Not Fair!”

Matthew 20:1-16

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the holy Spirit.

St. Matthew 20:8-10 ⁸ “So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ ⁹ And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. ¹⁰ But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. 

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…  This morning we enter into three Sundays called the Gesima Sundays.  This refers to the title of the Sunday.  Septuagesima, today, means roughly 70 days until Easter.  Next Sunday is closer, about sixty days, and the Sunday after that is about fifty days.  These three Sundays for Lutherans give us the opportunity to reflect for a bit on God’s gifts and mercy in coming to earth and redeeming us.  They act as a sort of boot camp and preparation for Lent.  This morning we are focusing on God’s grace, His undeserved love.

At first glance, reading the parable of the workers in the vineyard kind of raises your hackles, doesn’t it?  What kind of union rep did these workers have?  One person works eleven hours, one nine, one six, one three, and one simply an hour.  In our day, each of these persons would have received their wages commensurate to the amount of time they worked.  But in this parable all of them receive the exact same paycheck.  What kind of a system is that?  Well, it’s not fair one, that’s for sure.  That is not how things are supposed to work.

And in the world, they don’t work that way at all.  In the world, you are paid what you are worth, or at least what you should be worth.  Even our Lord Jesus recognized this when he said that “the laborer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7).  According to the world, we operate under a simple system.  You do this, and this is the consequence.  You work this hard or this long, and you get paid so much.  Maybe this is why everyone can understand how wrong it is to pay someone less than they’re worth.  After all, they have to feed their families.  How can they be paid so poorly?  It’s not fair, we might say.  Organize!  Make something happen!  Fight the injustice!  Make it right.  And this is good, for in the world we have an obligation to care for our families and ourselves.  I need to be able to eat, and so do you.

So the question is this: what does this have to do with the kingdom of heaven?  Here we are about 70 days before Easter, and so we reflect on wages and how God pays them out.  So what have we worked for?  What do we deserve from God for all our good deeds and works?  That is the question Peter the disciple wanted Jesus to answer. “Lord, we have left all and followed you” (Mt 19:27). What do I get in return?  So Jesus is going to tell him.

The answer, of course, is that what you deserve is death.  Saint Paul writes in Romans 3 that “the wages of sin is death.”  All of us like to think that we are good people.  I am moral, I am upright.  I haven’t killed anyone or stolen from anyone.  And yet what is abundantly clear from God’s perspective is that because of our sinfulness, because we are riddled with evil and full of impurity from top to bottom and from start to finish, what we deserve is death, eternal death. 

That is fair.  That is the Law, and the Law makes no exceptions.  The Law doesn’t care about extenuating circumstances or what kind of childhood we had or who our parents are or what we do at church.  We are defined by our sinfulness.  So if things were indeed “fair,” we would all die eternally.  For remember, James 2:10 says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”

It’s not a pretty picture, is it?  In hymn 377 written by Paul Speratus, we sang these words in stanzas 3-4: “It was a false, misleading dream that God His Law had given that sinners could themselves redeem and by their works heaven. The Law is but a mirror bright to bring the inbred sin to light, that lurks within our nature.  From sin our flesh could not abstain, sin held its sway unceasing, The task was useless and in vain, our guilt was e’er increasing; None can remove sin’s poisoned dart or purify our guileful heart, so deep was our corruption.”  Those are hard – but accurate – words to sing and pray.  We do well never to forget this truth.

But, dear fellow redeemed, thank God that He is not fair!  If God were fair, we would all die eternally.  To speak of God being either “fair” or “unfair” is to speak of Him in terms that simply do not apply.  God isn’t fair; He is merciful.  God operates by grace, not by Law.  So what does this word, grace, actually mean?  It means God’s undeserved love toward us sinners.  It means that even though you deserve eternal punishment, God doesn’t give you what you deserve.  Instead, He gives you love and mercy and forgiveness.

Our Old Testament lesson for today is a perfect example of God’s grace.  The people of Israel had been wandering in the wilderness for some time.  They came to Rephidim, and lo and behold, there was no water for them to drink.  Now God had provided them with everything they needed since He took them up out of Egypt and delivered them from Pharaoh.  He had been with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and every step of the way.  But still they did not trust Him, so they tempted the Lord by complaining to Moses, saying, “Give us something to drink!” 

Did God blast away at them?  No, but He would have been justified if He did.  Did he punish them for their unbelief?  No, but we would have. God did not blast away or punish them; He had mercy on them.  He gave them something to drink.  And that is how God works; God’s Law is always followed by His Gospel of mercy and grace. As the prophet Hosea wrote, “Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds” (Hosea 6:1).

That is how God works, my friends.  He works by destroying and killing with the Law so that He may bring life and healing with the Gospel.  He gives wages not according to what we deserve – thankfully! – but according to His mercy.  He washes us with holy waters and presents us new and spotless with His righteousness.

Now, back to our parable.  The point of the parable of the workers in the vineyard is that the wages we receive from God are not based on our works; they are based on His grace.  God gives abundantly from His mercy and grace.  He saves you and holds you together when you know that you do not deserve His mercy.  But that is the whole point.  You do not deserve it, but He gives it to you anyway, just because He can, just because He loves you.  That is God’s true character and nature.

So where do we see this grace of God?  We see it most clearly in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We see it in the suffering and agony and death of Jesus which He endured in order to pay for our sins.  Jesus is the only One who paid the wages for our sins.  The wages of sin is death, and that death was paid for in Jesus Christ.  But He rose again from the dead, so that we, too, might rise from the dead with Him forever.  So your wage, your undeserved payment, is not death but eternal life.  You did not earn it, but it is yours because of God’s great mercy and love.

This is why we run and work and strive in the Church.  This is why we do battle with our bodies and our own flesh to suppress the sin that is within us.  Saint Paul speaks of this in the Epistle reading, where he says, “²⁴ Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. ²⁵ And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. ²⁶ Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. ²⁷ “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 

The prize we strive for is not simply money to buy more stuff that we don’t need.  Rather the prize that God gives is eternal life.  It is an inheritance that cannot be shaken or brought down.  So we strive, not to earn the wage and the prize, but because God has already given us the prize.

Now, this may be a little hard to understand, but this is the wonderful, seemingly backwards way of the Gospel.  God gives and we receive.  He makes things happen.  With His own suffering and death on the cross, Jesus bought forgiveness for all your sins.  He recreates you in His image, and gives you the gift of eternal life.  God doesn’t pay you what you have earned, He pays you with what Jesus earned for you on the cross.  That wage of death is paid in full so that you receive the gift of eternal life.

And where does He give this gift?  Where does He deliver to you the forgiveness He won for you on His cross?  He gives it in His Gospel preached.  He gives it in Holy Baptism.  He gives it in Holy Absolution.  And He gives it in His holy meal, the Sacrament of the Altar.  Especially in his Supper God gives you a foretaste of the eternal feast to come.  And like the Israelites many years before, He feeds you with manna from heaven.  But this bread from heaven does not decay or fade away.  No, dear friends, this bread from heaven is eternal; it is the Rock and foundation upon which our faith is built.

So remember your Baptism daily.  Receive Holy Absolution regularly.  Come frequently to the of the Lord and receive the gift of eternal life, which God gave in His son Jesus Christ.   For here we receive not what we deserve, not what we have worked for, but what God lovingly and willingly lavishes upon us.  Grace upon grace!

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the holy Spirit.