Temptation

 Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.  And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  But He answered and said, "It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"

Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU'; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'"  Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, "All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan!  For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

Sermon for Invocavit Sunday                                                                                   02/22/26

Temptation

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel this morning is the familiar account to the temptation of Jesus.  These temptations echo the temptation of Eve.   Jesus was recapitulating the testing of mankind, taking a second run at it if you will, only Jesus didn't fail – He faced the same fundamental temptations as Adam and Eve, only His were in a far more dramatic and urgent setting – and He resisted.  When Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil that day, He passed the test that Eve, and Adam, had failed.  He resisted precisely the temptations that mankind had failed, and so became, as it were, the second Adam.

As Jesus faced the tempter, the playing field is not quite level.  On the one hand, Jesus is God.  That gives Him an advantage.  On the other hand, He is living in humility, clothed in human flesh and blood and human nature, not taking advantage of all of the powers and prerogatives of God.  That gives the devil an advantage.  Jesus has just spent forty days and forty nights without food.  Matthew highlights this disadvantage for Jesus in saying, seemingly without any real need to, that Jesus was now hungry.  Matthew says it, however, so that we don't get some fancy philosophical notion that Jesus was immune to hunger, and that this wasn't a real test.

The playing field of temptation is never level.  You should learn that here and now, if you didn't understand it before.  Everything was pretty much stacked in favor of the devil, when he confronted Jesus.  Things are usually that way when he tempts us.  He cannot grow tired, while we can and do.  He knows our every weakness, while we rarely understand them ourselves.  He is perfectly deceitful, while we are not perfectly anything, and not always looking to be deceived, or capable of discerning when we are.  He has power and we simply do not. 

The next lesson we should draw from this is simple:  Temptation happens – it will happen.  This law is irrevocable for us while we live in the flesh.  We will face temptations - although we may not always recognize that we are being tempted when it happens.  

We can also note that temptation always hits you where it hurts.  Jesus was hungry, and so it was food.  He tempter also knows where you are sensitive and where you are weak.  Temptation never comes where you are strong and unconcerned.  If it does, it doesn't seem much like a temptation.  It always hits where you are vulnerable.  That is why this lesson is so important for us.  We need to learn from Jesus about the best defense against temptation.

First Jesus faced the temptation of food – physical need.  Eve faced it too, when the devil said, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"  He was challenging the goodness of God and the confidence she had in God's providence.  She answered, and in answering she added to the command of God, indicating that just maybe she thought God was unjust, or extreme, or something. 

How did Jesus confront this temptation?  He responded with the Word of God.  Jesus never went on offense.  I image that He could have, but He did not.  He showed us we can do it when we are tempted.  Instead of claiming power, He claimed the fortress of God's Word.  Jesus expressed His confidence in God:   "It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'" He resisted the temptation to doubt God's provision.  When Eve sinned, she failed that test.  Genesis tells us that one of the reasons that she took from the tree was that the fruit was good to eat.

The second temptation of Jesus listed in Matthew was the one in which the devil took Jesus to a high pinnacle of the temple and tempted Him to jump down, quoting Scriptures and saying, It is written.  That was actually a temptation to doubt the Word of God.  You might say, Jesus was tempted with bad exegesis.  The devil took the Word of God right out of Jesus' hands and attempted to tempt Him with it.  He set before Him an impossible situation, and then said, "Don't you trust God?  Here is His Word saying that He will catch you and take care of you and protect you!"  The devil was suggesting that the only way to demonstrate faith is take the most extreme action and dare God to prove His promises true.  If you cannot ask, you must not believe.

The temptation also came once again with the "If you are the Son of God," clause.  It was as much as saying, "Surely God will do all of this for you, since you are His Son!"  The temptation was to doubt God's Word, and so test Him, to see if He would keep His promise.  It looked like faith, and it sounded like a legitimate promise, but neither was true.

We face disbelief in God's Word disguised as bad exegesis all of the time.  Nearly every debate about doctrine with another confession is a debate about a misunderstanding of the Word.  Some swear that alcohol is forbidden, so they cannot see using it in church, as we do in communion.  Some cannot comprehend how a child can believe, so they reject baptism for infants.  Others cannot imagine how water can work forgiveness of sins, so they deny baptism's power altogether.  Some demand that we worship on the Sabbath because the Jews had to, some insist on keeping the Law - as though we could, some think that the Jewish people are the chosen people and the true Israel of God.  Every one of them marshals Scripture to their cause.  They all have their passages.  And they are all wrong.  They apply half-verses and half-truths just as Satan did, that day against Jesus.

Eve faced the same sort of temptation, when the Devil said,  "You surely shall not die!  For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  The devil was tempting her to doubt the Word and promise of God.  God had spoken the truth about sin and death, and His will was not to restrict her or deny her anything, but to protect her.  The devil invited her to doubt God's Word about the result of sin - and God's goodness and honesty as well.  Sadly, Eve doubted God.  Happily, Jesus trusted God, and refused to be deceived into a test which would actually show that he did not trust God's Word, but trusted His own judgment more.  Jesus answered with the Word of God – sound doctrine.  He answered a temptation clothed in a Bible passage with the Scripture which answered the real temptation, "On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

Finally, the devil stopped hiding and simply offered Jesus the easy way.  He knew what Jesus had come to do.  He knew that Jesus could see the cross and all the pain and torment.  He knew that Jesus had years of difficult work ahead, and he offered Jesus the easy route.  Just bow down to me, worship me once, and I will let you off the hook.  You can have the whole kit and kaboodle.  Genuflect to me and recognize me as your superior, worship me as your God and I will spare you the cross and give you the whole creation as your prize.

This also teaches us that temptation is never convenient.  It never seems to come when you are ready for it.  It always comes at inconvenient times and when you are least prepared to face it.

Like every temptation, this final temptation was filled with lies.  First, the world does not belong to Satan.  It is not his to give.  The price that Jesus was going to pay for our redemption was not going to be paid to the devil.  It was to be paid to satisfy the justice of God.  If Jesus had given in to the temptation, He would have become just like us, only more so.  That would have been Satan's victory over God and our absolute ruin.  There would have been no glory to give to Jesus, nor would the devil have given it, if there had been.  He is a liar, and the father of it, as Jesus once pointed out.

Eve faced the same temptation.  The devil told her that the fruit would make her just like God.  This was a good thing that Eve expected God could give her.  The devil wanted her to doubt God's goodness, and take matters into her own hand, and grasp the imagined good for herself, rather than wait for God to give her every good thing.  – and she yielded to the temptation.  Genesis tells us that one of the reasons she ate of the fruit was that it was desirable to make one wise.  She became like God only in that she suddenly understood both good and evil.  She understood good (having once been holy) and evil (having become evil).  God understood both without ever becoming evil, so, although she became like God in some respects, she wasn't much like God.

Jesus answered with the Word.  "It is written, YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY."  He answered with the Word of God, and faith. The thing that Eve forgot, which Jesus kept in mind, was that God is first, and we come second. That is the only position that a Christian can take.  The constant theme of humanistic unbelief is that we are of such significance that we cannot set our own desires and felt-needs aside for anything else.  God cannot ask us to suffer, or do without, or wait patiently.  What kind of God could do that!?  The answer, of course, is the God who suffered for us, and waits with patience and earnest desire for our faithfulness and trust in Him.  He is the God who has our true blessing and welfare at heart, and only asks us to trust Him for a moment, so that we may share eternal bliss.

It does not matter what the stakes are in any temptation, or what is offered to us, or how appealing the temptation may be made to appear.  When we know who God is and trust Him and place Him in the proper place in our lives and consideration, then we wait on God, and we accept from God what He gives to us with thanksgiving and faith.  We are called to be faithful, and we must first be faithful to God. If we fail in that, there is no genuine faithfulness left for us to assume. 

Of course, we face temptations similar to Jesus' – similar in kind if not in scope or power.  First is the temptation of physical need – or physical desire.  Many times we are not able clearly to distinguish between the two.  We just know what we want or need, and it seems more important – more urgent – to us to meet that need or fill that desire than anything else.  The temptation is always to take care of Number One first.  The temptation is that we cannot let some theology, some bit of religious stuff – we cannot let some mere rule stand in the way of our need.  That is how the temptation often presents itself.

Like Jesus we want to answer this first temptation with the Word of God and place God first, trusting Him in all our needs.  We want to take Him at His Word that He will not forsake us, that He will always provide – as Jesus said, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

The second temptation was the temptation to doubt God's Word.  Funny thing is that it doesn't usually look like a temptation to doubt the Word of God.  Jesus' temptation looked like a challenge to Him as to whether He really trusted God.  The faithful and sincere thing seemed to be to jump off the temple and trust God to do what He had said that He would do.  But that would have been a species of unbelief.  That would have proven that Jesus didn't trust God, because He would have foolishly put God to the test for nothing more than proof.  Faith is not seeing, not having the proof in front of it, but still trusting.

We are tempted in this way by false doctrine.  False doctrine always does what Satan did on that mountain – it presumes to challenge our faith something that sounds Biblical, but actually it challenge us to doubt God's Word or to act or speak on the basis of false doctrine and confused interpretations of Scripture which place God at odds with Himself.

This sort of temptation is often little more than an appeal to ignore God's Word for the sake of feelings.  To do that is to deny the truth of God's Word, and count something or someone as more important than God.  Jesus answered with faith, and clear doctrine – you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.  We need to do the same; put the truth first, and trust God's Word no matter what.

The final temptation Jesus faced is the most common sort today.  We face this temptation each and every time we are offered the faster way, the easier way, the more effective way than what God teaches us to do.  Jesus said, you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only!  We need to remember whose is God, and who we are.  We worship God by being faithful, and trusting God, and doing the things He has given us to do.  We can even win by losing — when we are faithful.

We can trust God, after all.  We serve Him not by what we do, so much, as by trusting Him.  Jesus once said to the Pharisees, Learn what this means, I desire compassion not sacrifice.  And His will, summarized in the First Commandment is that we hold Him first in all things, and trust in Him alone, and love Him more than life itself.  And love for God is a love that is seen in love for one another.  This is the same will as what we see on the cross, where He died for your sins so that you might be forgiven and come to know Him as He is, gracious and merciful, full of love and compassion, and desiring your salvation first and last.

When we confront temptations, we can have no better pattern than that which Jesus provided.  Hold fast to His Word, and trust in God.  That is how to deal with temptation.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Parable of the Sower

  Luke 8:4-15

And when a great multitude were coming together, and those from the various cities were journeying to Him, He spoke by way of a parable: ""The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road; and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the air ate it up.  And other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.  And other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out.  And other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great."  As He said these things, He would call out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

And His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable might be.  And He said, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, in order that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.  Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.  And those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they may not believe and be saved.  And those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.  And the seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.  And the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.

Sermon for Sexagesima Sunday                               2/08/26

The Parable of the Sower

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel lesson has always been one of my favorite lessons; The Parable of the Sower.  It is a picture of the Church, and more specifically, of the Gospel as it is proclaimed.  Our theme this morning is the Parable of the Sower.

I grew up hearing that a parable was an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  I guess that is as good a description as any.  I think of a parable as a picture, drawn with words, to help us understand the reality of something – or to keep us from understanding, if we are not God's people.  Jesus said it in our text, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, in order that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND."

That's hard to believe, isn't it?  Jesus taught in parables so that only those who were chosen by Him to be His people would understand.  He intended that others would not understand.  That doesn't fit our popular picture of Jesus, but it is the truth.  Those who believe are not believers by their own choice, but by the will of God.  It is to those who believe that God chooses to reveal the secrets of life and of the truth.  Those who refuse to believe, He leaves in darkness - deliberately.

But to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom.  And the mystery we are given this morning is the parable of the Sower.  In the parable, the Sower goes out to sow.  The Sower is Jesus.  He doesn't tell us that.  That has been the judgement of the Church.

The seed the Sower is spreading is the Word of God -- more specifically, the Gospel.  Jesus tells us that.  It is useful to remember that the method of sowing in those days was "broadcast sowing".  They cast the seed everywhere in the field, rather than planting it in specific spots as we do with our planters today.  After they cast the seed about, they would plow the field and thereby work the seed into the soil.  That is how the seed ended up on the path and in the rocks and among the thorns.

Naturally, the paths were not plowed, so the seed would lay on the ground like bird-food.  They would not work in the really rocky areas because the going was just too rough.  The seeds among the weeds were at the edges of the fields, or where things just got too overgrown.  They did not have the equipment or the technology to cultivate or apply a herbicide.  Some of the seed was simply wasted.

It is a wonderful image for the preaching of the Gospel.  I am the Sower's hands.  Preachers and pastors are the equipment, if you will, which is used to scatter the seed.  We preach it everywhere.  We proclaim the goodness of God and the salvation He has purchased for us wherever and whenever we have the opportunity.  Even here on Sunday morning, anyone who walks in the door is welcome to join us and listen and hear about the marvelous grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Of course, not everyone who hears believes.  Some people are like those seeds that land on the path.  The ground - their heart - is too hard.  The Word doesn't penetrate.  The devil comes and snatches away before they have opportunity to really think about it and come to faith.  For them the Word of God is utterly fruitless.

Others are like the seed on the rock.  You have probably all known someone who came to faith and was so happy that they were a Christian and their joy burned so bright and loud.  Then, one day or another, they seemed to slip away.  Maybe they lost interest all at once, and maybe they just grew less and less regular, and less and less enthusiastic, and finally simply stopped coming.  Before long, they didn't want to come.  They found other priorities.  They are the temporary Christians.  Typically, they think they are still Christian, just not so "on fire for the Lord".  Sometimes they know that they don't believe anymore.  It is all too sad, and all too common.  Some of these people chase from church to church looking for the experience – that fire of the first faith.  What they lack is depth and substance and root in the truth, and sadly, they will not believe that it is true when we try to help them see it.  Like a seed growing in very shallow soil, they whither and die, spiritually.

Then there are those who hear and believe, but whose faith is choked out by the cares and worries of life, just like the seed that fell among the thorns.  Some of these people wind up leaving the church, and some of them remain members of the local church for the rest of their lives.  Notice that Jesus did not say that they lost their faith, just that they "bring no fruit to maturity".  These are the people who get lost in life, and for them the Christian faith and the church is just one thing among many.  Maybe it is family that distracts them.  Perhaps it is their money.  Sometimes it is sports - playing or spectating.  There are those who are always going to games, or going hunting, or going to races, or playing in some sort of tournament, and so they miss church regularly.  At first it bothers them, and after a while it is the normal state of things.  For some it is camping, or traveling, or visiting family – or having company, which just naturally keeps one away from church.

Such people may never leave the church rolls, but they leave the faith.  Our congregation's average attendance is around 50%, which indicates that for everyone of you who comes faithfully, there are two or three who are absent more often than they are present.  Does that mean that those who are here less often are not Christians?  Not necessarily, but it suggests that something else is more important than forgiveness of sins, more real to them than resurrection from the grave and eternal life, and more worthy of their time and attention than Jesus Christ Himself.  Usually, those who are here only infrequently do not serve the congregation, and rarely bring others to the Gospel that they themselves grant such a low priority in their lives.  God commands that you shall have no other gods before Him.  Imagine how He must view it when virtually everything comes before Him.

Then there are those Jesus likens to the seed that falls in good ground.  They are the ones who hear the Word of God and believe it.  They not only believe it is true, they live in that truth.  You see, saving faith is not merely ‘accepting propositions of low probability,' it is accepting the Word of God as true, and living in it.  Luther called it "Fiducia Cordis", a trust in the heart that causes one to risk everything on the faithfulness of God.  It means living your life as though you cannot die, except physically, and that only for a time.  It means living as though you cannot lose, and all that you need is certain and sure, so you can think more about others than yourself.  Living in faith means that you take God at His Word and live in it.

His Word says that He has rescued you out of sin and death and hell.  If you understand and believe that, it would difficult to ignore Him, or to resist coming to His house and hearing this wonderful news, participate in the fellowship of the saints with your brothers and sister in Christ, and receiving the refreshment of both Word and Sacrament.  Jesus thought it was so important that your sins be forgiven and that you have eternal life that He died for you on the cross – dying in your place for your sins.  Just before He died, He instituted the Sacrament of the Altar, taking care to guarantee to us the gift of His true body and true blood, hidden beneath the elements of bread and wine for our blessing and strengthening and comforting.

If Jesus believed it was worth all of that, and He did, how could anyone that believed it was true count our weekly gathering for Word and Sacrament as not worth their time?  How could they value it as something to attend to only if there is nothing better going on that week?  How could such a one count the fellowship Christ died to create for their support and encouragement in the faith as less important to their lives than, say, football or company visiting or sleeping in another hour?  How could anyone who believed that in the Supper was forgiveness, life, and salvation grumble about how the celebration of Holy Communion "makes the service go too long"?

Those in whom the Word grows, in what Jesus calls "good and honest hearts" and who "hold it fast" will "bear fruit with perseverance."  That means that those who genuinely believe it will add patience and perseverance to their hearing.  They will listen and live in it with tenacity, and as a result, will bear fruit to the glory of God.  They don't come and go, but stand firm and steadfast.  They find their treasure in the Word and they do what they must to keep that treasure uppermost in their lives and in their hearts.

It is interesting that Jesus ended the parable of the Sower with the words, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."  This isn't for everyone.  God's people will recognize it, and live in it, but those who are not God's will find it hard to hear.  They will not agree, or  they will see themselves in the parable and be insulted.  But Jesus presents the parable as though to say, be careful how you listen!  The Sower is always Christ, even though He may use my hands to scatter the seed.  The seed is always the same, the powerful and life-giving Word of God.  It is the power of the seed to create faith in those that hear it.  The only difference is the listener.

Some don't pay any attention, their hearts are too hard.  Some love what they hear, but they never allow it to take root in them, and so their faith comes and goes.  Some allow life to distract them, and the troubles, or the joys, strangle their faith, and choke out all the fruits that they might present to the Lord.  In the end, they end up unbelievers, too.  The difference is in the listener.  The difference is in your response.  So what are you going to do with this Word?  How are you going to treat the seed of the Parable of the Sower?

I hope and pray that you plant it deep in the rich soil of a heart humble before God.  Cultivate it regularly by hearing often, and studying the Word so that it takes root in you and doesn't just lie on the surface.  Fertilize that plant of faith by receiving the body and blood given and shed for you with great regularity.  And walk in your faith.  Live as though all the precious promises of God are absolutely true and trustworthy – because they are!  Walk in the truth, and live out what forgiveness of sins means -- because your sins have been paid for and forgiven!  Live as though God will not desert your or forsake you, because He will not.  Act as though you are reconciled to everyone around you, because when you partake in the reconciliation of Christ, you are!  Live as though you have a written guarantee that you will go to heaven, because you do!  Here it is!

He who has ears to hear, let him hear the parable of the Sower!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Grace Vs. Works

 Matthew 20:1-16 

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, ‘You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.'  And so they went.  Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.  And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?'  They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.' He said to them, ‘You too go into the vineyard.'

"And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said  to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.'  And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.  And when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; and they also received each one a denarius.  And when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.'

"But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what is yours and go your way, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.  Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?'

"Thus the last shall be first, and the first last."

Sermon for Septuagesima Sunday                                                       2/01/26

Grace Vs.  Works

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

As hard as it may be for you to imagine, some people would rather have God demand works of them than simply give them eternal life and salvation.  Maybe that isn't so difficult for some of you to imagine.  I don't know.  We were all raised by Depression-Era parents, or perhaps some of you grew up in the Depression.  Self-sufficiency was a virtue and strongly stressed, so that understanding the welfare mentality, the "give-me" mentality that some people have is just alien to you.  Well, this grace vs. works thing is the point of the parable in our Gospel lesson this morning.  So, let us consider the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard under the theme, Grace Vs. Works.

The Kingdom of heaven is something like this parable.  Jesus says so.  But what Jesus is describing is not what the experience of heaven is about as much as what getting there is all about.  Jesus is addressing this particularly to the Jews of His day.  They were historically the "Chosen People."  They had been chosen of God in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and so on through the ages.  They were the laborers in the parable who had been hired right away in the morning.  The others, hired later, were the proselytes – Gentile converts to Judaism.  Jesus was picturing in the parable the attitude of the Jews that they were something different, something special by virtue of their long association with God.  They were sure that they were better and deserved more than the "Johnny-come-lately's" of the proselytes.

Jesus was explaining to them that the relationship with Almighty God didn't work the way they thought it did.  To them it was all about earning and deserving.  With God it is about His generosity and giving.  They were thinking "works", and Jesus was saying "Grace."  They believed that the length of time in their relationship to God – which was pure purely legal for many of them – meant that they deserved something more than others.  It is an attitude which is still prevalent among Jews today.  They have done more, they have suffered more, they have earned more.  

But the truth which Jesus was trying to illustrate by means of this parable is that it is by grace, and if God chooses to include others in His goodness and generosity, He can and will.  With God, it is all gift.  Life is a gift.  His Word is a gift.  Our faith is a gift.  We were all standing about in the marketplace until He came and got us, and put us to work.  We have the agreed wage – we have the promises of God of forgiveness and life and salvation.  These are the same promises the Jews had, although they tended to interpret them in terms of worldly comfort and pomp and power.  The problem that Jesus confronted with the Jews was that they thought that God owed them something, that they deserved more, that they had God over a barrel, so to speak.

Christians often think the same way.  You've heard the slogans – Name it and claim it, Expect a Miracle, the Abundant Life for God's People.  Those slogans reflect a theology of glory which says that we deserve something more and something better because we are God's people, because we have done something, because of our time of service.  Jesus says that it is gift, not deserving – that it is grace, not works.

The Jews were in for a surprise.  The Christian Church was that surprise.  Suddenly, the all of those centuries of history did not count for much.  Those who had been there and had been faithful received what they had been promised.  The faithful were saved by faith.  God forgave them their sins in view of the coming sacrifice for sins, just as He now forgives us in view of the sacrifice once made for us by Jesus.  Those who thought that they had something more and better coming because of their national heritage have been disappointed.  God spoke through St.  Paul, saying, they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants.

That is why we preach the Law.  The Law shows us our sins and teaches us that whatever we receive from God is not because we are such good people.  The Law tells us that we are sinners – and we do well to keep that clearly in mind.  God gives to us out of His generosity and love – grace.  We don't get what we deserve – nor should we want to.  We receive so much more and better than what we earn.  We earn death and hell.  We get life and salvation instead.

Part of this attitude to which the parable speaks is reflected in the idea that our religion is about us.  We want it to be fun.  We want it to be entertaining.  We want it to make us feel good, and we want it to fit neatly into a sixty-minute package.  But when we say those things, we are revealing that we think church is about US!  But it is not about us.  It is about Jesus and His great love, and His great gift to us.

It is actually good for us to have our flesh disappointed in the worship service, as long as it is disappointed by the Word of God and the faithful worship of God.  Then we are forced to place God and His will and His Word first, and humble ourselves before Him.  When we grumble about this or that in the face of God's Word, we are like those laborers in the vineyard who grumbled because they just naturally thought that they were going to get more, somehow.  We need to discipline our flesh to serve God and to hear His Word.

But we do not need to leave the service feeling good.  It would be nice, but it is not always possible, and to expect it is to have an unrealistic expectation.  We are sinners.  We should feel guilty.  We should be ashamed of our sins.  We need to repent.  Only when we genuinely repent can we actually understand, believe, or receive forgiveness.  Only in true sorrow over sin can we appreciate how much God does for us when he forgives us our sins.  Only in the shadow the mountain of our own sinfulness can we estimate how deep and great the suffering of Jesus was – how great it had to have been – for our sins.  Only the one who is forgiven much can love much.

And if we know our sins, it is impossible to always feel good.  When we then have faith in our Lord and believe that our sins are forgiven, we will usually feel thankful, and the knowledge of His goodness will bring us joy – but it is always a joy tempered by the humiliation of facing our corruption and sin.  Some days the sin part is overwhelming the joy part, and then we rest in a quiet joy in faith, knowing that Jesus died for us and took our punishment, guilt and death, even when we are not "feeling good" or bright and chipper.  The gospel is true no matter how I feel today.

If we require a certain feeling, we have a "work" which we have imposed on ourselves or others before we can have salvation.  If we demand that worship be entertaining, or that it meet some other criterion than faithfulness to the Word of God, we have made it about us.  The Gospel is for us, but it is not about us.  Our salvation is God's gift to us, but it is about His love, and Christ's substitution for us, and about the grace of God, freely given to all who believe.  It is about grace, not works.  It is about what God has done and give to us, not about us, except as the grateful recipients of His abundant generosity.

In the parable, the issue was deserving versus generosity.  For us, this morning, it is grace vs. works.  We want to keep grace clearly in our minds, for it is by grace that we have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves.  It is the gift of God, not at all on the basis of works, so that no one may boast – save in Jesus Christ alone!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)