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Proper 20 Trinity Lutheran Church
21 September 2008 Murdock, NE
+ Jesu Juva +
Matthew 20:1-16
“The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” That’s the tip off. The clue. The 411. No Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bad loan stories with Jesus. No colossal buyout strategies or screeds against the greed of Wall Street today from Jesus. He’s not running for political office. He’s the Savior. And He’s in the savioring business.
“The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” Did you catch that? Jesus has another thing on His mind. A matter of life or death. A salvation story. He tells the parable to show you how He deals with sinners. Every kind of sinner. In every stage of life. And it is a kingdom where the first are last and the last are first.
Check it out. It’s quite scandalous for some, the first. Quite delicious for others, the last. Here goes. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner. He’s got a vineyard. Wants workers to have the joy of the harvest. Been quite a growing season. The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who goes out . . .”
The landowner does the verbs. He goes out. He searches. He finds. He hires. Or to put it another way: He saves. He goes after lost and dead sinners who have nothing but their lostness and deadness going for them.
So off the landowner goes. At dawn. Hires workers for a day’s wage. A denarius. Let’s say a smooth $120. Then again at 9:00 a.m. And again at Noon. And again at 3:00 p.m. Keeps on hiring workers for His vineyard. Loading them up in his buses and putting them to work. Chop chop. “Whatever is right,” the landowner promises, “I’ll pay you.” Then at 5:00 p.m. he finds some more deadbeat sinners just standing around in their lost and dead condition. You know the greasy long hair critter types with their pants hanging . . . hanging . . . well, you know. And their girlfriends too – more lipstick and hairspray than brains. More tattoos than freckles and moles. Empty six packs everywhere. “I’ll put you to work too,” the landowner says. “There’s plenty of room for you in my vineyard.”
Then comes the very end of a very long day. Time to belly up to the pay table. You can just imagine the workers figuring out what they deserve.
The workers hired last are paid first. One of the shirt open to the waist body and face pierced studs shows his girlfriend his pay. He’s been in the vineyard one hour. $120 bucks! $120 bucks!
Everyone else’s mental calculators go to work. $120 per hour? Let’s see the 3:00 crowd figures they deserve: $360! The Noon crew does the math: $720! The 9:00 a.m. bunch does their bookkeeping: $1,080! And then the dawn crew puts the mental math keeping pedal to the metal: $1,440!!!!!
But surprise, surprise, surprise! Each group, when they open their envelopes, they discover six crisp twenties. $120 bucks for everyone. No matter when they were hired (or to put it another way – saved).
That goes over like ice cold Budweiser to the 5:00 p.m. group, dirty dishwater to the 3:00 p.m. crew, swamp water to the Noon crowd, vinegar to the 9:00 a.m. bunch, and sulfuric acid to the dawn squad!
The first are really hacked. “Hey Landowner! Those punks worked only for one hour. We knocked ourselves out all day for you. How dare you give them the same! They don’t deserve it! You can’t cook the books like that! We’ll contact our congressman and boy will you be in trouble.”
But that’s precisely what the first were promised. $120 bucks. He told the rest He’d pay them what was fair. And the Landowner is not about rewarding the rewardable but graciously giving what He wants. He treats the last like the first. All the same. No insiders. No outsiders.
He hires / “saves” them all the same. His pay / “grace” is the same for all.
“Look here Buddy, if you first folks don’t want that,” says the Landowner, “and you want to insist on your bookkeeping, then you can be the last. I’ll call security and they’ll escort you right out of here. Is that what you want?”
Landowner Jesus isn’t in any mood for our scorekeeping. He’s simply a gracious giver. A raiser of the dead. A Savior of the lost. Giving sinners want they don’t deserve: forgiveness. Salvation. Making the last first.
That’s what He’s done for you. Gone out to find you. To rescue you. Or to use the language of the parable: hire you to work in his vineyard.
He gives you what you don’t deserve: full and free salvation. The complete forgiveness of all your sins.
Some may call such a Landowner crazy. That’s all right. He’s a gracious the last will be first kind of Savior. Call Him crazy if you want. He doesn’t mind. What counts is that He’s hired you, that is, saved you.
In the Name of Jesus.
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