1 Corinthians 9.24–10.5 + Matthew 20.1–16
Septuagesima Sunday
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to find workers for his vineyard. The vineyard is his possession. The fruit of the vine belongs to him. The labor is his as well. But he wants to call men into the vineyard to tend it, water it, and cultivate it. First thing in the morning he calls several workers and agrees to pay them a denarius for a day’s work. The landowner wants to call more men into his vineyard, so he goes out at the third hour, the sixth hour, and the ninth hour of the day. Even at the eleventh hour, with one more hour of work left in the day, he goes out and calls still more men to labor in his vineyard. He doesn’t promise a denarius to any of these men. Rather he tells them, “Whatever is right I will give you.” These men trust the landowner and enter the vineyard, working joyfully at the landowner’s tasks, thankful for what the landowner will give them. At the end of the day they were paid, according to Deuteronomy 24:15, “Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it.” The eleventh-hour works are paid first, and they receive the denarius, receiving a full day’s wages even though they hadn’t worked the whole day! The landowner was gracious to these them, giving them far better than they deserved. I can’t imagine these men not rejoicing in the landowner’s graciousness.
This is a picture of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says. God is the landowner, and the vineyard is His church. He calls men to labor in the vineyard of the church. He calls some early in their life, baptizing them as infants or young children. Others He calls in young adulthood. Others He calls at middle age. Still others He calls at the eleventh hour of their lives. But the labor is the same and reward is the same. No one deserves to be called into the vineyard, but God wants His vineyard full, so He graciously invites men, women, and children into His church. He promises to give them what is right, and He shows His graciousness and mercy by promising everyone the forgiveness of all their sins, free salvation, and everlasting life. He gives all of it by sheer grace, for we deserve none of these things because of our sinful nature which gives birth daily to sinful thoughts and deeds. That’s why He gives it freely, without any merit or worthiness on our part, and He gives the same to those called at the beginning of their life as well as those called at the end of their life. The labor in the vineyard is the same as well. He sows the seed of His word into our hearts. He plants faith in our hearts, and we are then, by His Spirit’s power, to cultivate selfless love toward our neighbor and chastity and self-control toward our bodies and minds. None of that earns the grace of God. We do it simply because it’s the work our gracious landowner has given us to do.
But there are some like the workers hired early in the day who despise the grace of the Lord. These workers see the latecomers receive the denarius and imagine that should receive more on account of their long labor. This is a picture of the Pharisees who balked at tax collectors and sinners entering God’s kingdom late in life while they had long striven to fulfill Moses’ Law. It’s also a picture of the Christian who loses sight of God’s grace and begin to take it for granted. We are all, from time to time, tempted to neglect God’s grace and imagine that we’ve earned the forgiveness of our sins. “I’m contrite enough. I’ve made amends. I’ve done a lot for God’s kingdom, and He should be proud to someone like me working in His vineyard.” We’re tempted at times to think that we deserve more from God that what He promises to give us. This feeling of entitlement is really just self-idolatry, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. When we fall to this thinking, we take God’s grace for granted and rely upon our own imperfect works. If we don’t soon repent of this attitude, we risk disqualifying ourselves from the denarius given purely by grace.
There is another way of taking God’s grace for granted that isn’t pharisaical pride in our own piety. The other way of taking God’s grace for granted is to assume that since we have God’s grace there is nothing, we can do lose it. St. Paul speaks to this in the appointed Epistle lesson. He uses Israel at the time of the Exodus as an example of those who took God’s grace for granted and assumed they could continue in sin. Israel was under the cloud of God’s grace and protection. Israel passed through the sea, being baptized into Moses. Israel at the spiritual food and drank the spiritual that Christ provided through His Word. God fed their bodies with bread from heaven and water from a rock, but He fed them spiritual through the giving of His law. “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Cor. 10:5). Why? Because they complained against God’s servant Moses. They grumbled against God’s gracious provision. They committed idolatry with the golden calf. They fornicated with Moabite women. They feared the people of Canaan more than God and so rejected His gift of the Promised Land. They assumed since God had made them His chosen people, they were allowed to give their passions free reign and so their sinful passions reigned over them and disqualified them from receiving what God had graciously promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
St. Paul warns the Corinthians, and us, that like Israel, we can disqualify ourselves from God’s kingdom. Paul understood that any Christian—include Himself, even though Christ had called Him to be apostle to the gentiles—could disqualify oneself. He gives himself as an example to us all when he writes, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” The sinful flesh in which we live wants to give into sinful passions and desires. Those may be bodily, carnal desires. They may also be mental passions and desires which are contrary to God’s will: worry, lustful thinking, resentment toward God because of the cross He’s laid on us, jealousy toward others because of the good God has given them instead of us. Our flesh is like the same flesh as the Israelites had: it wants to bring forth its own works and if we allow it to bring forth the works of the flesh, the flesh will slowly tear us away from faith in God’s grace. We risk becoming entitled Pharisees who imagine God owes us anything, the like the first workers hired in Jesus’ parable, or hypocrites who praise God’s grace while using it as cover to continue in our favorite sins. If St. Paul admits that he could disqualify himself from God’s kingdom, we shouldn’t imagine that we cannot do the same.
Jesus and Paul offer us the antidote for taking God’s grace in vain. Jesus commends humility and trust in God when the landowner tells those hired throughout the day, “Whatever is right I will give you.” We must humbly trust that God is gracious and gives us what is right. He doesn’t repay us according to our many sins or give us what we deserve. So, we should each day consider our sins and what they deserve from God, but also consider that God, by grace for Christ’s sake, freely forgives all our sins and promises of everlasting life. Humility and trust in God’s grace guards our hearts against imagining that God owes us anything, but it freely receives all that God so graciously offers us in Christ. Paul commends bodily discipline as well, that like athletes we practice temperance in all things and bring our bodies under subjection, and that bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). This prevents the flesh from gaining the upper hand against us, lest sin reign in our bodies and thoughts, so that we don’t take God’s grace for granted and imagine that we can continue in our favorite sins. This is the labor of God’s vineyard: chastity toward self and love toward neighbor. He’s called you into His vineyard by His grace, where He daily and richly forgives all your sins for Christ’s sake. Live in His grace each day, rejoice it His mercy freely offered, and put your hand to the labor to which He’s called you. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds Christ Jesus. Amen.
