“GRACE TO YOU”
Saint Matthew 20: 1-16
Septuagesima: 31 January Anno Domini 2021
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Up until recent times, say the 1960’s, or maybe the 1940’s with forced Social Security, the secular government has been taking care of more and more people—giving money to targeted “victims,” wards, house slaves, indigent malingers, and bums, whether they attempted to work or not. That is not what The Lord is teaching in his Kingdom Parable this morning. The “government” only takes, steals, from group a (producers) to re-distribute to group b (non-producers); the “government” does not create wealth. It’s easy to appear generous with other people’s stuff. The man of the parable, the “householder” is using his own wealth, his own gifts, to pay others—he has “skin in the game.”
He’s not a fat-cat monopolist, Mr. Moneybags, sitting in his penthouse suite, he’s a hands-on vigneron/vine dresser (a wine farmer) who goes out himself to seek and (save?) labourers for his vineyard.
Not needing to get bogged down in the details of our Lord’s story, the point is about Grace—love, peace, gifts of life, all given freely without merit, work, effort, or “fairness.” Grace is receiving something that is better than everything when it’s not deserved…even a little.
In addition to living your life in a criminal welfare state, for taxation is theft—please re-read the Seventh Commandment. What you are not allowed to do (take your neighbors wallet or bank account at the point of a gun) neither is a group of people, even if they are 51% and say it’s for the “public good.” But, in addition to this present reality, we’ve also all been fed the national myth of self-sufficiency, hard-work Horatio Alger/John Wayne rugged individualism, Protestant work-ethic, and pull yourself up by your boot-straps ethos. And, actually that should be the way it is. Those who work harder, longer, and smarter, those who model the ant and not the grasshopper, should live better. But that’s not reality. That quickly turns into jealousy and covetousness for those who do work hard but who, for whatever natural sinful reasons, do not profit as they believe they should.
That’s the first group of labourers who toil from “early in the morning” to the even(ing). They in fact did work harder and longer than those hired at the eleventh hour. They did bear the “burden and heat of the day.”
But a parent’s love is not based on which child was born first. God’s love for you is not based on your chronological age, your “time” as a believer, and certainly not your own natural gifts: your ability and doing theology, praying in public loquaciously, or time spent in daily Bible reading. Jesus’s Redemption of His little lost lambs is free Grace for all of them—all of you. It’s not based on what you do, for you can do nothing, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; there is not one that does good, no not one. Jesus’ glory is to save you from sin, death, and Satan. Jesus’ glory is to do the work in the vineyard that you refused and refuse to do—to love The Father perfectly and to love all the others—especially the unlovable ones—as Himself. Jesus’ glory is to suffer the punishments you deserve for trying to kill Him and His Father, for trying to overthrow the “householder” and establish the wild democracy of “me, myself, and I.” Jesus’ glory is His Grace—gushing out from His beaten Body and gaping wounds—the fountain of His Blood from Calvary.
Being loved freely, Grace, being given salvation without earning it, Grace, being made brothers and sisters with all those that God chooses, Grace, is what Christ is saying—is giving.
Though we do, all the time, the Law is clear: never “murmur” against the goodman of the house, restrain “thine eye” from becoming evil. And though that was Eve’s sin; Adam’s sin; our original sin; pray the Holy Ghost for deliverance. The Spirit gives The Son who is deliverance.
Did Adam work or decide to be given life? The Word created him by Grace—forgave him and protected him after the “Fall” by Grace. Did Abram choose to be a follower of The Lord and to travel by decision to Canaan? The Lord chose Abram and made him Abraham—Father of Nations. Did Moses, or Jeremias, select and decide to go into ministry? (indeed, they both did everything they could to avoid being prophets)? God called and ordained them, even as He would, In The Flesh, select the “12” to be His Apostles. Grace. Was it fair that Jairus’ dead daughter, the Widow of Nain’s dead son, and dead Lazarus, were resurrected (without asking for it or working hard in the heat of the day for it) and not others? Are you resentful that your life is not better than those you think are pagans; or that you are not more rewarded as life-long Lutherans than those who come into the church at the last moment? Friends, Jesus has done you no wrong. In fact, He has decided that you are not the workers hired early in the morning, but rather He views you all as those He has rescued at the 11th hour. Did you work to be conceived or born of your parent? Did you decide to have your infant-self brought to the Holy + Font? Grace.
The goodman is Christ The God/Man. The Householder is He Who left His “house” the heavenly abode of the Triune Godhead to come to earth so early in the morning—in the womb of a young virgin maiden. He worked obediently during the early hour keeping the Commandments. He bore the heat of the day already in the 3rd hour, when He was nailed to the tree, the wood, the winepress. At the 6th hour when darkness covered Jerusalem, the fruit of this Vine, this Victim/Victor was pouring out. And, at the 9th hour His work was done and Grace was made manifest: you have been made equal in “His righteousness” to Himself, and thus call His Father, your Father. The even has come but the morning is still coming. Forgiveness is yours but life-everlasting is on the morrow. You “last” are first! You have been chosen. Grace.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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