Septuagesima 2020
St. Matthew 20:1-16
February 9, 2020 +++ Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia
“All men are created equal.” This truth so nobly articulated in the Declaration of Independence is no mere political statement. It is connected to creation. It is theological. “They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
This Creator who endowed us all equally with life sees our deplorable state. He still would treat us equally.
Attempts at equality among people often fall far short. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Communist system is summed up in one of the “Seven Commandments”: “All are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
Men treat each other unequally. But the Word of God tells us that we are all equal in this respect: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all equally mortal. And we all stand before God as sinners.
But we prefer inequality. That’s what today’s Gospel reading reveals.
The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard pictures an owner who needs workers. He goes out to hire men looking for work in the marketplace. He agrees to pay them a denarius for the day – the standard daily wage. He goes out again at 9am, and noon, and 3pm, hiring more workers. No mention of the wage is made. Finally, at the 11th hour, which is about 5pm, the lord hires still more workers. “Whatever is right, I will give you.”
Who goes to work without knowing the wage? Only one who trusts the goodness of the master.
When quitting time comes, he lines them up, starting with the men who did practically no work at all. He gives them the full salary! Isn’t that amazing?
It seems amazing, until the laborers who worked the whole day realize they’re getting the same thing. Their complaint is about equality: “You made them equal to us.”
This is no way to run a business – but it’s not about business. The parable is explicit: “The kingdom of heaven is like this.”
This isn’t about working at all. It’s about grace. And grace is free, or it’s not grace. Grace is undeserved.
Once we start saying to the Lord, “I deserve this!”, or, “I don’t deserve that!”, we have lost sight of who we are. We deserve nothing.
What is my work before God? The prophet Isaiah says, “All our righteous works are as filthy rags.” Our English translations are modest; Isaiah uses a term involving a rag soaked in unclean blood that would have been repulsive to his Jewish hearers. Imagine the substance that would most disgust you – vomit, excrement, the foul stench of rotting death; that’s how all our ostensible goodness appears before God. No, we cannot make demands before God. We cannot accuse Him of any injustice.
Which means we cannot despise our fellow human beings. No matter if they root for the wrong team or vote for the wrong party or were born in the wrong country, there is no claim of right we can make for ourselves.
And inside the community of disciples, we cannot make any comparisons. Jesus is the head, and we are all members of His body. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul says that Baptism makes us all equal, because it makes us all equally members of Christ’s body. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
The Apostle explains that each person in the community, each member of the body, is valuable:
The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
Brothers and sisters, we are all one body. We have all equally received the denarius of grace. So there is no place for animosity among Christians. There is no place for rudeness among disciples of Jesus. There is no place for criticism, gossip, or jockeying for position among us. We are one body, with one head: Jesus. Therefore, Paul continues:
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…
Have you ever hurt your toe really bad, maybe breaking it? You don’t think about the toe, but it turns out walking is wretched when a toe is hurting. Every member is important. Every person is valuable. We have all equally received the denarius of grace.
Paul concludes this section:
[ … on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.] But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. [1 Co 12:14–27]
I’ve said before that this parable is about God’s generosity. But that’s not quite right. It’s about grace. We might be generous with someone we think deserves a little extra. But grace gives without any deserving. God gives grace “without any merit or worthiness in us.”
What happens in the parable is that some of the workers object to the master’s goodness. He’s too good to others. This happens to us when we have a hard time forgiving. We deem that person not worthy of God’s grace. But neither are you. Yet God forgives you freely, mercifully, undeservedly. That’s what happens on the cross when Jesus speaks, “Father, forgive them.”
Those words are for you. God forgives you. And those words are for your neighbor – your husband, your wife, the person at work you can’t stand, the person you’ve decided is evil, the person at church you wish would quit, or at least not come to the voters meeting. Grace is for the child making too much noise, or for the person who doesn’t realize he lacks basic etiquette. Grace, little ones, is even for you who feel miserable about yourselves.
The death of Jesus is for you. The resurrection of Jesus is for you. The denarius of grace is for you, no matter how little you’ve worked. Forgiveness is for you. +INJ+