“SEPTUAGESIMA 2024”
Saint Matthew 20: 1-16
Septuagesima: 28 January Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
“For the kingdom of heaven,” i.e., The King of heaven—Jesus, is like unto a man that is an householder.” Your ESV’s say ‘like a master of a house.’ Same thing. Both good translations because the Greek which Saint Matthew uses is oiko-des-potays. We get our English word economics from this—most appropriately used in the old Jr. High school class from times past: “home-economics.” How to take care of the things that really matter—hearth and home, spouse and children, the family of nuclear, extended, and ecclesial groupings. A lesson for today in our individual parishes and the larger communions of Church bodies. Is the congregation more like a family or like a corporation? Is the parish more like weekly family reunion called by Jesus in our midst, or like a lecture hall or worse, a performance venue?
Another beautiful parable from our Lord. He told it to them and to you for a purpose. This is not an entertaining story but a comforting truth reality. Parables, the experts tell us, are either about the Kingdom or about Jesus. Yes.
The Law of this text, that which knocks you flat, and flays you open with the filet-knife of conviction leading to contrition, is that you oft times are like the grumbling, evil, and unbelieving workers hired at the first—“early in the morning.”
This Sunday, unlike past Septuagesima’s, we will not focus on the various mid-hire others—and the various “hours” they were hired upon, and how it all ties in with Christ’s time on The Cross on Good Friday.
There are those hired at the beginning. And then there are those (all of you) hired “about the eleventh hour,” i.e., the last to be hired. For these are the “last times” are they not?
It is not that Jesus hates or damns the workers hired at the beginning of the long hot day. Rather those workers hate Jesus and damn themselves.
This parable is about Grace and how one is saved.
Grace is the mercy, love, forgiveness, and being made a part of the “household”—the family—the Body of Jesus—without any work, or merit, or acts whatsoever. The only movement is the movement of the heart which Jesus gives, and places into the corpse of your old nature. Your new beating heart, your life now in Christ and hereafter IN CHRIST, is His life lived in you, His Holy Spirit in You, your sonship (and daughter-ship) in The Father. It is all gift. This is what St. Paul builds upon in his epistles.
Wages, something earned by working, are…deserved by the work. If one wants to rely upon oneself and merit, what one deserves, fine. But always remember that God’s Word says if you wish to live by The Law then DO The Law. If one wants to be saved from eternal death and hell one must DO The Law perfectly. That is a ticket to the lake of fire.
Grace is simply being saved by the Salvation of another—a Savior. It is being given a gift, favor Dei, the favor/Grace of God.
The workers hired first show their hatred and unbelief. “You have made them ‘them’ equal unto us.” Sounds like Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, and Lawyers, hurling damning invective against publicans, cripples, prostitutes, and other “undesirables.” That is the attitude of an evil heart—a rejecting will—borne from an evil eye. These workers live by sight and they did not like what they saw. They beheld Grace and recoiled at it. It “wasn’t fair!” No! Grace is not fair. Grace is mercy…undeserved. A true believer takes incredible joy when a sinner is saved.
Every man hired in this parable is—Hired. No one was busting his feet going door to door to all the businesses with their resume seeking employment. All the men were unemployed and idle. Dead in their trespasses. It is Jesus the Good Householder Who goes out (comes from Heaven, incarnate of The Virgin Mary, made man) and hires them. All of them were initially hire, “many called,” for God “so loved the world.”
You are here this morning not because you chose to be a Christian—a little Christ. Although, to be sure, you did choose to get out of bed and make the drive. But even that, was Christ in you, Holy Spirit movement in your tent to draw you to the source of your being—your Creator, + Redeemer, and Sustainer.
So yes, once saved, you do in fact do good works. Those saved at the very end, in fact were busy in the vineyard. Sure. But that is what children do…they honor their father and mother. That is what our family does, work for the good of our neighbor—especially the household of faith.
So, the grumbling, evil-eyed, haters of Grace will get what they got “coming to them.” They receive their wages. Paul: “the wages of sin is death.” They thought they had “borne the burden and heat of the day” but now their eternal reward will be a hellish, sulfur-ish burden and heat.
Only The Christ bore the true weight, burden, and heat of work. The work of obeying, and then on The Cross, the work of suffering and dying for your “idle” standing about.
Jesus bore the heat. And now, for you, Jesus has made you equal, not unto anyone hired/saved before you, (St. Paul, Matthew, Moses, John the Baptist) but equal to Himself in the eyes of The Father. This “goodman,” this God/Man has placed you not just into His vineyard but into Himself. As He will soon place Himself (again) into you. You are chosen. Amazing Grace how sweet the sound—The Word—The Christ.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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