The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the twentieth chapter.
1[Jesus said:] “The kingdom of
heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire
laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with
the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others
standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them
he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’
5So they went. Going out again about the sixth
hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And
about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to
them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7They
said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the
vineyard too.’ 8And when evening came, the owner
of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their
wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9And
when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a
denarius. 10Now when those hired first came,
they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a
denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at
the master of the house, 12saying, ‘These last
worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the
burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But
he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree
with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to
you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16So
the last will be first, and the first last.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All of us need to learn. All of us need to be
taught by our Lord – whether young or old, whether you’ve learned lessons from
books or from life, or if you’re just starting out -- we all need to hear from
our Lord, learn from him and believe him. And many of his lessons, we need to
learn again and again, like this one he’s teaching today, about our work for
him and the wages we expect. We need to learn from him because our sinful human
nature always gets things wrong when it comes to good works and faith.
In this parable that Jesus told, some of those
workers in the vineyard made a fuss about the pay they were getting. It wasn’t
fair. Those of us with a human nature, can sympathize with them. It hurts our
pride when we see someone else get more than we did, and we, by our own
reckoning, deserve more than they. It’s human nature to expect to get credit.
We share in the grumbling of the vineyard workers when we don’t get the credit
we think we should.
The boss had to chide these workers. A denarius
was a fair day’s wage. It was agreed upon beforehand. It was awarded
appropriately. The boss was faithful and just to the workers. It was his
choice, and his business alone, to be generous toward those who came late and
worked little.
By means of this story, the Lord teaches us about
our human nature. We are slow to be thankful for what God has given us. We
don’t count our blessings as we should. It’s only when they are diminished or
gone, that we seem to notice the blessings. And then we gripe and complain. We
sinful, self-centered human beings tend to think we deserve only good from God.
“We’ve got it coming”, so we assume. Thinking this way we take credit in our
own abilities and strength and goodness. We fail to give God the credit for our
blessings and for our life. We’d rather trust ourselves than trust God.
Faith and Good Works
Faith
–believing in God and what God has done for you. It is He who has made us and
not we ourselves. It is He who has saved us from our sinful condition by
sending His Son to die for us on the cross. It is He who has given us faith,
and is bringing us into eternal life. Salvation unto us has come by God’s free
grace and favor; Good works cannot avert our doom. They help and save us never.
The sinful human nature within us gets this wrong.
Arrogance
We are
tempted to make too much of our own good works and inherent abilities. It is
arrogant to take credit for what is not ours. The master of the vineyard was
disappointed with the arrogance of those workers who thought they deserved more
pay and more credit. So we are tempted to look around at what others are doing
and say, “Well at least I’m not as bad as so and so. God and everybody else
ought to recognize that.” No, there is no one righteous. No one good except
God.
Ephesians 2 says, “8 For by
grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result
of works, so that no one may boast.” Your good works don’t count up
to your credit. Your good works give you nothing good for yourself and your
standing, but they are for the good of your neighbor. It is arrogant to boast
about your goodness and your good works. Arrogance is the exact opposite of
faith. The arrogant need to repent.
Despair
Despair on the other hand comes with great
frustration when you realize that no matter how hard you try, God doesn’t
notice you or award you. In despair, the sinner says, “I can’t do this.” and so
gives up, gives up on God, gives up on heaven. Despair is the exact opposite of
faith in the other direction.
License
You can be
tempted too think to much of good works. You can also be tempted to think too
little of good works. When you get a license, you have the privilege to drive. Some
think that the Gospel is a license to do whatever you want in this life. The
thinking goes like this, if God forgives me all my sins, it doesn’t matter what
I do.
Here’s the next verse in Ephesians 2, “10 For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
You can’t just skip good works and carelessly, lazily go
through your day without even trying. Faith without works is dead. Those guys
in the parable who were just standing around all day, weren’t even trying to
help out with the vineyard. They showed by their lack of work that they didn’t care
about the Master and didn’t expect him to care about them. In the same way, a
person who does nothing good for God or neighbor is showing that he cares
little about God and doesn’t expect God to care about him.
Believers want to do good works. But they don’t
put the cart before the horse by saying that their good works are what make
them good Christian people. No, It’s by grace you have been saved. Believers
trust in their salvation from God and then love him and love their neighbors
with words and actions that show their love for God.
What
are good works?
There’s this mistaken idea that the best works
are great and extravagant, like giving a sum of money to fund a hospital,
giving years of your life to serve the church or the poor. As if certain super
good works make one a super Christian. The master of the vineyard paid all the
workers the same. The Lord above gives the same salvation to all who believe.
The works God has for you to do are taught in the 10 commandments. Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your
mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
These are the good works God has prepared for you
to do:
The 1st commandment, You shall have no other
gods: Love the Lord God by believing in him.
The 2nd Commandment, You shall not
misuse the name of the Lord. This is God’s command to call on his name and pray. By the way, Lent
starts next month. I’m going to ask, to challenge each of you to keep up and
improve your daily prayers through Lent. Your prayers are the good works God
has for you.
As is coming to house to hear His word, the 3rd
commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.
The 4th commandment, honor your father
and mother and other authorities.
The 5th commandment, You shall not
murder. Good works are most often simple. Care about others, their health and
life and well-being.
The 6th commandment You shall not
commit adultery. But love your spouse, treat others decently.
The 7th commandment You shall not
steal. Be kind and considerate to others and care about what’s important to
them.
The 8th
Commandment – You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor, but by
speaking kind words, be a good neighbor.
The 9th
Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. Be happy with others
for their good fortune, mourn with others when they have loss.
The 10th
Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, people or animals, be
content with what you get from God and don’t get all arrogant and upset because
he gives others good things.
What is
faith?
The hymn says
it well: “Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone and rests in Him unceasing; and by
its fruits true faith is known with love and hope increasing. For faith alone
can justify; Works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is
living” (LSB #555). Amen.
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