Day 1742 - Hiring Now! Boss pays a worthy wage

A sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, Sept. 24, 2017

Philippians 1:20-30

Matthew 20:1-16

Like all parables, this one sounds outwardly simple but gets puzzling the deeper you look into it.  The manager of a vineyard went out to hire workers at different times of the day, some early in the morning, others at almost quitting time.  Then at the end of the day, the owner tells the manager to pay them all the same daily wage. The people who worked all day are put out that those who barely worked at all get the same wage. This offends the owner who says he has the right to pay his workers what he desires.

There seems to be at least two, if not three ways to look at it. The first way takes this parable as a response to the complaint of Jewish believers against “Johnny-come-lately” Gentile believers. After all, the Hebrews are God’s chosen people since Abraham and ought to have an inside track.  Even his Jewish disciples might resent the attention to the Gentiles because they were the first believers, working with Jesus since his ministry began.

 This view relies on the Greek words Matthew uses.  In verse 1 many translations use the English word "landowner ” (The man who went out and hired the workers) for the Greek Anthropos, but the word is actually man/human. In verse 8, many translations say the owner of the vineyard told the manager to call the laborers for their pay. But the biblical Greek word, kurios, does not mean owner but usually signifies the Lord. 

Vineyard is often a symbol of Jerusalem or the Jews.  In these chapters of Matthew, Jesus has entered Judah on his way to Jerusalem, or Zion, the “capital” city of Judah. It is entirely possible this parable has in mind the constant criticism of Jesus by the Jewish leaders for associating with the outcasts, the poor, the tax collectors and Gentiles, while ignoring them as the chosen people.

Prophets speaking of the Messiah of the Jewish people are more evidence that the Jew/Gentile conflict could be the theme of the parable (if we overlook passages such as Isaiah 56 that say salvation goes beyond the Jews.  In Matthew 15:21-28, and Mark 7:24-30, Jesus tells a Gentile woman who asked Jesus to heal her child that he came first to deliver the Jews, not the Gentiles. But the Gentile woman has a quality of persistence about her that revealed her faith in Jesus and he healed her child.

This interpretation means that one’s faith, not genetic origin, gives one favor before God. Following this line of thinking, we can safely conclude this parable describes the breadth of God’s compassion for his children flows from God’s universal grace.

A Jew or disciple of the time of Jesus might very well hear this parable by this first interpretation, but if we accept that a parable is an oral story whose meaning is shaped by the experience of the listener, we see a second interpretation.

We might hear the parable as a treatment of another old human tendency to equate accomplishment or degree of success to the size of the reward. Listen to these complaints:

 “If I get the best grades I should get in the best college, or get the best job.”

 “When I go out of my way to ensure a job gets done properly, and my buddy just cruises doing barely enough to get by, I should get a better reward than my buddy.”

“I’ve worked for this guy for years, showing up on time every day, going beyond the call of duty and I don’t get any better reward than the person who showed up today.”

 “If I am going to get the same reward as the other guy, why should I work harder or longer to get the job done?”

The last few weeks we have talked a lot about the danger of being focused on self and having too much pride.  These four remarks reflect attitudes that are not very admirable. They show a sense of entitlement, or privilege. They have the form, “If I worked this hard…then I should get more…” Paul would say these comments put pride and ego ahead of humility and promoting the good of our fellow Christians.

These four complaints suggest a long-time Christian deserves some extra reward compared to the newcomer. This thinking has a big problem. It ignores faith alone is the only criterion for salvation. Our reaction to the reward of eternal life to others ought to be “when we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be.” The joy is for all our brothers and sisters who have seen the light, not that “I saw it first.”

I can think of a third problem mixed up in the two examples, the priority of the Jews and a reward that befits our time or quality as Christians. These two perspectives question of the motivation or judgment of the boss, or even betray trust in the boss.

The story of Jonah illustrates this point about questioning the judgment of the Boss.  It relies on the fact that the boss and owner of the vineyard is God.

Jonah, as you may know, was a Hebrew whom God called to go to a great city called Nineveh and proclaim its destruction unless its people turned from evil ways. Jonah did not want this job and fled from God, ending up on a boat in a fierce storm on the sea (the storm is symbolic of God’s anger). Jonah admitted to the sailors that he was the cause of the storm and they threw him overboard and a large fish swallowed him. He remained in the fish for three days. After praying for forgiveness and promising to do as the Lord instructed, the fish spit him out and Jonah took the message of God to Ninevah.  Surprising Jonah, the king and all the people repented and God spared the city.

Jonah was fiercely angry with God. Jonah went through all this grief running from God when God could have left him alone since God knew he was going to spare Ninevah anyway. Jonah built a shelter to sit and sulk, watching what would happen to Ninevah. The Lord caused a bush to grow to give Jonah shade during this day. The next day, God caused the bush to wilt and die putting Jonah in the hot sun until he swooned and was faint.  Jonah was so miserable and angry at the bush, and God, he said “I should just die to get out of this misery.” God asked Jonah if it was right for Jonah to be angry about the bush.  When Jonah said, “yes,” God said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and cause to grow. It came into being in a night and perished in a night. God continued with this question, “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” How can you argue about compassion?

The emperor Constantine is another example. Constantine was the emperor of the Roman Empire and lived in Constantinople, the largest city in the world at the time. He unified the Church leaders to compose the Nicene Creed that tries to explain the Trinity. Yet, he remained an unbeliever his whole life, only to repent on his deathbed (Some say he did so to reduce his chance of polluting his soul). Some, like the workers in the vineyard who labored the longest wondering about the ones who barely worked at all, doubted his sincerity, or faith, and his reward in Heaven.

Let’s make this question of doubt really difficult. Consider this “what if” question: “What if Hitler after he took that cyanide pill repented to God out of grief and guilt over what he had done?” Would he get into Heaven? Do we doubt or believe it?

All three of these explanations of the parable make sense, at least to me. First, certainly the life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus represents a reconciliation of all humanity with God, not just the Jewish people. No one is excluded from accepting the gift of grace.  God loves humanity and grace is a universal gift.

Second, no one can doubt that Christians are all equal in faith. We believe. We are not measured by how long we have been a Christian. It may be that we are measured by the strength on our faith, because Jesus does say those who are “first” may end up last, and some of us who are last will be “first,” but the strength of our faith does not open or close the door to Heaven. This is exactly what Paul was saying with his talk about the strong and the weak. Paul said we are equal in the eyes of God.

Finally, remember grace is a gift - not only a gift, but an invaluable gift of love from God for God’s own reason. It can’t be earned, regardless of how long we work at trying to earn it. The time we work at it pales in significance to its real value…

When we look at the story of the good news, do not be too nearsighted and lose sight of the big picture.  God’s ways are not our ways. The way he works salvation and reconciliation are his ways.  As with Jonah, we are called to proclaim the good news of that reconciliation to everyone, regardless of how God choses to cause that reconciliation with all of humanity. Let’s just keep our minds on the job and enjoy the worthy wage.

And, by the way, the job requirements are found in the Philippians passage:

live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, … standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, in no way be intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

I’ll leave you with one thought, if a job is worth doing, the worthy reward is doing it as well as you can.  

Day 1735 - We are all accountable

A sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, September 17, 2017

Matthew 18:21-35

Romans 14:1-12

Over the last three posts, we have explored Paul’s guidance in his letter to the Romans the meaning of living the life of the gospel. Paul’s primary concerns are like the Farmers Insurance commercial that says, “We’ve seen almost everything.” Paul has seen over and over in the congregations that he helped established in cities that ring the Mediterranean Sea the stumbling blocks that limit our effectiveness at living and proclaiming the good news.

The gospel in its essence poses a high bar for behavior. For example we should treat even our enemies with compassion and forgiveness; however, both you and Paul know that we seldom treat our enemies, opponents or adversaries better than we treat our fellow Christians, in fact on occasion we can treat our fellow Christians as if they were opponents.

Paul walks through an orderly process to describe “Christian behavior.” First, he describes the some requirement for salvation. It belongs to those who proclaim the Lordship of Jesus (Romans 10:5-15) and are committed to perfecting living it. Paul rightly assumes we understand that voicing the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord,” means that we are expected to proclaim that good news in word and deed.

Then, he turns to the shape of our Christian life. If we believe the gospel and the unjustified gift of grace, that is, that we do not earn salvation but it is given to us freely as a gift, we are humbled. We are humbled, not just by this unearned gift, but that God has granted it to everyone of faith. We are humbled because this means we and our particular gifts are all equal in God’s eyes. Each of us has a part, together we form the strength and only purpose of the Church (Rom. 12:1-8).

Accepting this truth, that we are equal parts of the body of Christ (the Church) through this undeserved, invaluable blessing of grace, empowers us freely to extend Christian hospitality even to those who criticize or persecute us or are our opponents (Romans 12:9-21). Our compassion leaves a mark on them.

Last week, Paul made the third point. If Jesus is Lord and we are equal in the eyes of God sharing the same unmerited gift of grace called to live that life of the gospel in the world as Christ’s representative, then we are living in a new time that is displacing the old ways of judgment and death.

This time not only calls us to offer the love of Christ to people as we await the fulfillment of God’s promise to gather us all together as his children and bring us home, it calls us to become the new watchmen of the emergence of this new world of glory and love of God on earth and heaven

Rather than proclaiming judgment as was required of Ezekiel, we are called as watchmen to this new world of grace that embraces the two great commandments, to love God and love others as God loves us.

Love doesn’t mean to common idea of passionate attraction, it means the glue that holds us all together as Christians. Love means that we promote actively the good of others (Romans 13:8-10).

 Today our passage essentially consists of an exclamation point to the messages of the previous three posts that preaches the message itself.  Paul uses strong imagery. If we are suitably clothed by Christ, that is, we have the mindset of love (actively promoting the good of others), then we will beware the one danger we all face if we let go of humility, gaining a self-righteous attitude that judge other Christians by our own standards rather than leaving that judgment to the Lord. Such judgment serves only one purpose: it drives people away from the good news and scandalizes the gospel.

Paul illustrates this guidance using an argument over what food is beneficial to eat. Obviously, the advice applies broadly to all arguments over the interpretation and requirements of scripture that go beyond the essential and necessary act of the faith: the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord” and living a life that reveals it.

So many preachers and denominations take the Law of the Old Testament with all its interpreted rules is a form of judgment as the basis to judge another person’s righteousness. They may even use comments in the New Testament about judgment that is clearly stated to be in the realm of God’s prerogative to define for us “rules of faith.” We have all heard or been subject to criticism by another Christian about something we do that they believe means we are violating some passage of scripture that bars one from grace.

In the best case when someone does that faithfully and with humility after much prayer, they are interpreting scripture to reveal what they think is God’s will. The word for that kind of interpretation is called dogma.  Dogma just to be sure we are on the same page, means the interpretation or teaching of scripture as truth. We should also never forget that Dogma is a human interpretation of scripture, not God’s.

The sad thing is when someone uses that interpretation to add more conditions to receiving grace or using it to judge another Christian’s behavior as good, moral or even Christian.

Someone came to me this past week with this exact problem.  They are a Presbyterian attending another denomination. The preacher has been telling the person they were not saved because they were not born-again or baptized in their denomination. (I spent an hour explaining Paul’s famous words about One Lord, one baptism in Ephesians 4:1-6.)  

We can certainly find many examples in words of Jesus and Paul that describe the behavior desired of Christians, but they are not go/no-go rules. Jesus said one thing connects you to life, believe in me and you have eternal life.

I challenge you to go through the gospel and find any criterion for faith in the New Testament that goes beyond what John’s quote of Jesus above, or Paul’s statement, “I believe Jesus is Lord and I will do everything in my power to live the good news as Christ lived it.” Paul reminds us that when we say that, it means we are not free to interpret or add other conditions to what Jesus said. To do so relies on human judgment, not God’s judgment. To assume we can decide that another’s form of worship or Christian behavior is right or wrong is an act of self-idolatry, and as I said before, it scandalizes the gospel.

We call it scandalous because we have turned the good news upside down taking judgment from God and God alone.

Does that mean anything a Christian decides fits within God’s plan of salvation is ok? Does it mean we have a license to stretch the definition of good and bad to allow us to do anything? Does it mean we can sin magnificently because we are saved? Paul says, “By no means!”

What it does mean is we live to the Lord. It means we do not have the authority to argue with or provoke our Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Pentecostal and Presbyterian friends about how we express our faith that Jesus is Lord. Paul says, “God will decide if one has erred in his time, not our time.

What it does mean is that every Christian has a burden of responsibility to exercise prayerful, discerning thought (not flippant judgment) to decide proper and Christian action in a peculiar circumstance.

In fact, it goes beyond that. Do you know what the word “forbearance” means? It means having tolerance and restraint, leniency, forgiveness. If God has forbearance of our faults, surely our responsibility demands forbearance of our fellow Christians over matters of dogma.

The reason for forbearance is that God alone knows what is in a person’s heart. We cannot make our own convictions about Christian conduct the measure of faith of another without disrespecting God. We cannot make our own convictions about Christian conduct because: 

è we are all servants of God.

è we all are to honor God.

è God, not us, is the judge and he alone decides what is in another person’s heart.

Self-righteousness is spiritually dangerous because it excludes humility and blinds us to our accountability for a responsible, thankful response to the grace of God by giving grace ourselves.

Forbearance in matters of interpretation means we shouldn’t abuse those who take a different path about the food they eat, the day of worship, when to serve communion, how to baptize, whether we use wine or grape juice in communion, whether dancing and music are forbidden and all the other things we fight about.

If we distill it all down into a single sentence it means that we are all accountable for our own actions.

We are accountable as to whether our actions uphold and promote fellow believers or tear them down. We are accountable for quality of our own Christian life because improving the quality of our life improves the lives of Christians around us.

That, as Paul advised the Philippians, we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in us, enabling us all to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13).

We are all accountable to the same God.