SCRIPTURE READING | Matthew 20:1-16 (NIV)
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
TO BOLDLY GO! – BOUNDLESS GRACE |
Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
We are on our last week of our sermon series on being bold through the parables of Jesus titled, To Boldly Go! Over the last five weeks, we talked about our foundations, listening, shrewdness, courage to try, and letting our light shine. This week we look at the abundance of grace which God has covered us with and which makes us bold to live into our faith. But first, let’s practice our memory verse for the last time:
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7
Have any of you ever been to South Dakota? It’s a beautiful state with rolling plains as far as the eye can see. It’s where I went to college and while I was there, I quickly learned about the land and the people of South Dakota. In the middle of the state is a river, the Missouri River, and it divides the entire state – not just geographically, but also the people, land, and even the weather. On the East side of the state, there are farms as far as the eye can see. Very similar to Wisconsin, you see soybeans and corn growing throughout the summer. But on the west side of the state, the weather is more arid, and the land is full of softly rolling hills. On that side of the state, there are ranches everywhere and there are definitely more cows than people.
Now it’s time for me to add to your anthology of embarrassing stories from the pastor. The other stories I’ve shared actually aren’t that embarrassing for me, but this one still makes me cringe on the inside. One of my closer friends in college was from the west side of the state and her parents owned a bunch of land and had cattle on it. She even had a small herd of her own. Eventually, she was heading home for the weekend and another friend of ours as well as myself decided to go along with her. I honestly thought we would just be hanging out and having a good time at the house, but that’s not what you do when visiting a working family.
I grew up in a city, and that part’s important to remember so that I have some sympathy as the story goes on. We got to her family’s home and I am the only one there who has never worked on a ranch before. Both of my friends who were with me were also ranchers and so I was the only clueless person there. The second day we were there, my friend’s dad took us out to the land and told us we were going to help them give the new calves their medicine and vaccines. Now, before this the closest I’d been to a cow was eating a burger, so I had no clue what to expect. When we arrived at the corral, everyone hopped out and got right to work and I stood there like and idiot doing nothing. Eventually, my friends father came over and gave me the all-important job of driving the truck which would be dropping salt cakes behind it from the pasture to the corral.
Simple enough, just drive across the road and into the right section of the corral. Soon enough, all the cows were gathering around the truck, pushing against it, rocking it back and forth trying to make it drop the salt cakes it was hoarding. It was time, so I drove slowly forward and the cows began to follow. I crossed the road, and drove right into the wrong section of corral – and so did the entire herd of cows. So, everyone else there had to drive the cows into the other side. Then we had to separate the calves from their mothers so we could give them their vaccines – and let’s just say, I was useless. Everyone else seemed to know exactly what to do, and here was this city slicker with his finger up his nose just standing there. Throughout the rest of the day, there was at least four more times I messed up and the very kind, but clearly tired of cleaning up my mess, host family would go to fix my mistakes. Never have I ever been more certain of not wanting to do a job for the rest of my life.
In our parable for the day, we see a similar story take place. There’s a vineyard owner who needs people to work in his fields, so he goes to the town and finds some people standing around and hires them. He does this periodically throughout the day until the last time at five o’clock. Finally, at the end of the day, he calls all of the people who ended up working in the field home to pay them. In the end, both the people who arrived first and the people who arrived last get paid the same amount. Of course, that doesn’t sit well with the people who had been there the whole time, because it clearly isn’t fair. But the owner reminds them that he paid them what he agreed to and that they shouldn’t be jealous of his generosity towards others.
Now, as a person who is always stuck doing the bulk of the work during a group project, I completely understand the upset workers. I hate doing group work. We can never find a time to meet, then we can’t decide on what to do, then we can’t figure out how to divide the work and in the end, I still end up doing almost everything. So, when we all get the same grade, it’s upsetting. But when we read this parable and try to understand it, we make a crucial mistake.
When we read this story, we just assume that we are the workers who have been working since the beginning. We’re good workers and we would definitely be the people who show up first and work hard the whole time. But the reality is, that is just our fantasy. In reality, we are the people who show up at five and only work for a bit and do a poor job. Just like me trying to figure out how to help my host family as they worked the cows, these workers come late. Everyone else knows what they’re supposed to be doing, but we have no clue and we bumble around trying to figure out exactly what to be doing and how to be doing it. In this story, we are the ones who the owner is being generous to.
I remember how happy I was that after the day, the mom of my friend came and brought lunch. I ate with everyone else, got the same food, and even though I was absolutely zero help, everyone treated me as if I had done a great job and had been helpful. It’s hard to accept that we are those people who show up late and have no clue what were doing. Even right now, I know that some of you are thinking, yeah that sounds great pastor, but its not me.
When it comes to living into the faith God is calling us to, there are times that all of us have wandered off of the vineyard. All of us have arrived at different times, and some of us will work tomorrow and some of us will retired today. Some people decide that vineyard work isn’t for them, and some just step foot on the field right before the day is done and pay is collected. The good news of this parable is that no matter how late we are, no matter how incompetent we feel, our pay is the same.
God is calling us to come work in His vineyard and He promises us all the same pay, no matter if we mess up or do everything perfectly. He only asks that we trust Him. With this promise behind us, we can be bold with what we do. We can come up with new ways of tilling the ground and collecting the grapes. We can try new things and attempt to live differently, because we can trust on God’s abundant grace, God’s constant generosity to cover us and to give us our equal pay – even when we make mistakes.
This is our challenge for this week, to try something new to build the kingdom. To be happy living in the generous grace of God and to trust that God is leading us, even when we are messing up and doing everything wrong. The challenge of this series is to be bold. To build strong foundations and listen to God’s leadership, to be careful with what we have, to have courage to try new things, to let our faith shine bright for others, and to trust that through it all, as we grow in our boldness in faith, God’s abundant grace is surrounding us completely.