Septuagesima + Matthew 20:1-6 + January 28, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A landowner ventures out into the marketplace at the beginning of the workday, 6am. He invites the men standing there to come and work in his vineyard for the day. They agree on a price, a denarius for a day’s work, and the men go to the vineyard to begin their day. But the landowner is not content. He wants to invite more men to work in His vineyard. So again He ventures out into the marketplace at the third hour, 9am. The men he originally found were the early birds, the hard workers. They were men who were out to earn a buck. The men whom the landowner finds at the third hour are “standing idle in the marketplace.” These men are loafers and idlers. But the landowner invites them to labor in his vineyard anyway. “You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.” These men don’t try to haggle for their wages. They know that they don’t deserve a day’s wages. But they trust the landowner’s generosity. They are confident that He will give them what is right. The landowner goes out again at the sixth hour, noon, and then the ninth hour, which would be 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He invites more men to work in His vineyard. Even at the eleventh hour, 5pm, one hour until quitting time, the landowner goes into the marketplace again and still finds idlers and loafers. They try to excuse themselves with the poor defense of “no one has hired us,” but that doesn’t fly because the landowner had been there several times throughout the day and they had not been there. He overlooks their idleness and their poor attempt at an excuse and invites them to work in the vineyard, with the same promise He gave the others, “Whatever is right you will receive.” Such is the generosity of the landowner, that He calls men throughout the entire day and promises to give them what it good and right. He proves true to His word at the end of the day when He pays the eleventh hour workers a denarius, a full day’s wages, even though they only worked one hour! Not only did He graciously call them into His vineyard so late in the day, He rewarded them based on His generosity, not their work, labor, or merit.

When the laborers hired at 6am see this from the back of the line, their hearts change. They had made an agreement with the landowner to work a whole day for a denarius. But when they saw the eleventh hour workers, the one hour workers, receive what they, the 6am workers had agreed upon, they assumed that the landowner had changed the agreement and would reward them according to their works, the time of their labor, and their own merit. When they receive the denarius, which they had agreed upon, they grumble against the landowner. “These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.” These men had entered the landowner’s vineyard by His grace. But they forgot that. When they saw the landowner’s generosity to others, their eyes became evil, that is, they grew to despise the landowner’s goodness. Suddenly, their agreement wasn’t enough. They wanted to be rewarded according to their works and what the burdens they had borne and the trials they had endured. The landowner refuses, however, to reward men according to their work. “Take what is yours and go your way. Is it not lawful for me to give to this last man the same as to you? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” He gives them the agreed upon wage and then sends them out of His vineyard. They began the day by the grace of the landowner, but by the end of the day they wanted nothing to do with His goodness.

This has nothing to do with business of course. Jesus tells the parable to teach us a singular point about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is the church on earth. The landowner is Christ who graciously calls men throughout the day of human history. He calls men from all ages of the world. He also calls men many times throughout their lives, some at the beginning of their life, others in their youth, others in midlife, and others during old age. The call is always the same, “You also go work in my vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.” When Christ calls men to work in His vineyard, the church, He is not calling them to earn their salvation by their works. He graciously gives them His salvation when they enter into the vineyard. The call goes out to all men, at different times of their lives, to repent of sin and enter into a kingdom of grace in which God graciously provides you with everything you need to stand before God the Father in righteousness and purity. Everyone enters the vineyard of Christ’s church with the promise, “Whatever is right I will give you.” No one enters the vineyard because of his works and merits. No one gets into Christ’s vineyard because they are good people. Everyone is called by grace, without regard to their works or merits.

And good thing too! For the only thing that we deserve and merit is condemnation and wrath. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). “There is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin,” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). We sang earlier in the Tract the words of Psalm 130: “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” We do not deserve anything which we have in this life, only wrath and condemnation for our sins. But the Landowner is gracious and His graciousness abounds especially to sinners. This is the reason that the Son of God became Man and was named Jesus, because He came to save people from their sins. The Son of God came to earth in order to destroy the works of the devil, the chief of which are sin and death. He calls men, He calls you, into His vineyard not because of anything you have done, but in spite of what you have done and the good you have left undone. He does not “mark iniquities” or keep records of your sins. The devil does that so he can tempt you to despair of God’s mercy, reminding you of sins long forgotten. The Lord graciously forgives your sins by applying the merits of Christ to you when you believe the gospel. The Lord graciously absolves you of all your sins in this vineyard as often as you confess them.

He calls you into His vineyard to give you all the blessings Christ earned on the cross. He also calls you to work in His vineyard. The call to work in the church does not mean that He calls each of us to the work of the ministry. The call to labor in the vineyard is the call to live the Christian life, to run the race, as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle reading. To labor in Christ’s vineyard means to repent of your sins daily, to trust in the forgiveness of sins daily, and to daily strive to put away your sins with the power the Holy Spirit gives through the Word of God and the Sacraments. To labor in the vineyard is to live a holy life in your callings as citizens and spouses, parents and grandparents, volunteers and members of this congregation. To labor in the vineyard of Christ is to endure suffering and hardship with patience and trust that God will deliver you in His good time in the way that is best for you. St. Paul says that labor means we discipline our bodies and bring our flesh into subjection to God’s will, lest sin gain mastery over us so that we drive out the Holy Spirit and thereby become disqualified from everlasting life.

In this way Jesus’ parable is also a word of warning to us, that we not despise His grace and favor like the workers called first. They entered the vineyard and worked diligently, but when they saw the landowner’s graciousness to others, they suddenly wanted to be in the vineyard because of their works. They entered the vineyard in grace but ended the day trusting in their own works and merits. For this they were given their denarius, which are temporal blessings, and were promptly cast out of the vineyard. They received many temporal and worldly blessings from their work in the vineyard, but they despised the Landowner’s grace and so they were driven from the vineyard. St. Paul says that if we allow sin to gain mastery over us, we will disqualify ourselves from our heavenly reward, the imperishable crown of eternal life. Jesus says something similar in this parable. Just as we are not to let sin gain mastery over us so that we willfully go along with every temptation and look for opportunities to sin, so we are beware lest we fall into the sin of presumption, imaging that we belong here in Christ’s church because of our good works, or that we earn the forgiveness of sins by our good deeds or by tormenting ourselves with the memory of our sins that have been forgiven.

In the kingdom of heaven there is not merit but the merit of Christ. In Christ’s vineyard, there is no goodness except the goodness of the landowner who promises to reward our works in this life and in the life to come, for He says of our work in the vineyard, “Whatever is right I will give you.” But do not work as if working for the reward. Do not labor in Christ’s vineyard with your wages in mind. Work in the vineyard as one who does not deserve to be here, but IS here solely because of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Labor in your callings, knowing that you labor in the grace of God. Rejoice, not not in your own merits and works, but in the merits and work of Christ Jesus, in whom you have the forgiveness of all your sins, the grace of God, and the imperishable crown of everlasting life. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.