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Grace to Share Text:
Matthew 20:1-16 Our text for today is Jesus' explanation of his oft-quoted saying, “many who are first will be last, and the last first” [Matthew 19:30 (ESV)]. You tend to hear these words quoted humorously mainly near the end of the buffet line at the church potluck. But Jesus wasn't telling a joke. In fact these words would be more appropriately quoted at a congregational voters' meeting that has deteriorated into conflict by offensive comments and complaining. That's why the Old Testament reading was chosen as background for this gospel. For it is about the people of Israel in the wilderness quarreling, grumbling and complaining to Moses, and Moses crying and complaining to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do with this people?” St. Paul in today's Epistle says about them, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” In Jesus' parable it was the complaint of those who were hired first “who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” that endangered their being included in the kingdom at all. “The first” are those who believe they are in the kingdom of heaven purely because of God's grace. “The last” are those who are excluded from the kingdom because they refuse the grace of God by relying on their own works and merits.
This parable contrasts the way things are and work in the world with the way things are and work in the Church. In the work-a-day world “equal pay for equal work” is expected and even demanded. Those who work eight hours in the day get paid more than those who work only an hour. Besides that, some work is considered greater or more important than other work and so the CEO's salary is higher than the production line laborer's, the employer greater than the employee. That's just the way things are in the world. That's why social experiments in communism and socialism in all its forms fail. For even when you try to arrange it politically so that no one has anything more than anyone else, all end up equally poor and oppressed except, of course, for those doing the arranging! That being our experience in the world it is no wonder why, then, people expect things to work that way when it comes to their relationship with God. When bad things happen people complain and ask “why?” as if their troubles are somehow undeserved, the fault of a vengeful God. They expect that to be acceptable to God you have to be good enough, have a bank account of good works to impress God. This is what has infected the whole Roman Catholic theology or system of salvation based on some mixture of God's grace and man's works. We can understand the complaint in the parable that those who were hired first and worked all day certainly deserve to be paid more than those who worked only an hour. But this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven, the God of grace, and how salvation is totally and completely a matter not of our works but of God's grace.
The parable begins with labor negotiations. The master of the house and the laborers made an agreement, a contract that they would be paid a denarius (or a fair day's wage) for their work. Notice, however, that when more laborers were hired at the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour and even the eleventh hour the master agreed with them only to give them “whatever is right.” Maybe those hired later expected to be paid less than the full-timers. When the master gave everyone the same paycheck, however, while the full-timers complained, I'm sure many of the others were very happy about it all. When the first brought their complaint the master says that besides living up to his contractual word with them he is also generous. Why wouldn't the first workers think that he is not only fair but even rejoice for the others good fortune? Answer: because that's not the way things are in the world. But that's precisely the way things are in the kingdom of heaven.
While there will always be differences and distinctions between people and vocations in the eyes of the world, when that Consumers Gas Company executive and that UPS driver, that corporate financial officer and that retiree from Ford Motor Company, that physician and that kindergarten child enter these doors and gather before the altar, the font, the lectern and pulpit of God's Word they are all absolutely equal. For here we must realize and remember that, when it comes to salvation, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” and all are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. And even here, while our various gifts, abilities and talents differ from person to person, these are not the occasion of envy or of favoritism or pride but the occasion of servant hood, God providing the Church with every gift she needs to be about the mission He has given. “I want you to know, brothers,” says St. Paul, “that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
It is because nothing in or about ourselves makes us worthy of God's love and salvation—not our wisdom or ignorance, not our riches or poverty, not our talent or energy or sickness or weakness—but only because of God's undeserved love that we can hope to be saved. That love was displayed in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, when he took on our human nature and lived that perfect, sinless, meritorious life for us, thus becoming the only qualified and powerful sacrifice that could take away all sin and its condemnation, and overthrow Satan from his claim on the world. It was when Christ was struck on the cross and blood and water issued from his side (John 19:34) and he died that satisfaction was made for all sin in God's sight.
Now since forgiveness, salvation and endless, eternal life is purely the gift of God's grace, it is inane and insane for anyone to reject that gift insisting rather to play the old works righteous game. Yet that's what Peter was beginning to do in the chapter previous to this. When Jesus said, “only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 19:23 (ESV)], Peter swung to the opposite extreme bragging, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” [Matthew 19:27 (ESV)]. No, Peter, neither riches nor poverty qualifies you or counts for anything. A person can be just as proud and in love with money whether they be rich or poor. The only thing that counts is the great generosity and grace of God.
Peter learned the lesson. So he writes to us in his first general Epistle, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” [1 Peter 5:5-7 (ESV)]. God cares for you. Christ died for you. God's grace is for you—grace to share. ___________________
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