READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Daniel 9:2-10
1 Corinthians 9:24-10:4
- St. Matthew 20:1-16
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (Phil 1)
Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“Am I not allowed
to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”
So the new Archbishop of Canterbury, that’s England, is a
woman, churches owned by private individuals must accept uninvited trespassers,
and there are gay babies. All of these are fruits of the Church of the Current
Year, as they say. The new confession of faith. Either be a part of the new
sensation or get out of the way. Such has the Lord’s Vineyard been abused.
It is a well-known Lutheran fact, and will now be here also,
that the papal bulletin, issued against Luther in 1520, appealed to the Lord’s
Vineyard. It reads (partly) as follows:
BULLETIN AGAINST THE ERRORS OF MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS
FOLLOWERS
Leo Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God
For the perpetual memory of the event.
Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause; remember thy reproaches,
which are made by fools all the day long; incline thine ear to our prayers, for
foxes have risen up, seeking to destroy the vineyard, whose winepress thou
alone hast trodden, and which, when thou art about to ascend to the Father,
thou hast committed the care, government, and administration thereof to Peter,
as to thy head and vicar, and to his successors, as to the Church triumphant:
the wild boar of the forest striveth to destroy it, and the wild beast alone to
devour it. Rise up, Peter…Rise up also, we beseech you, Paul…[rise up] all the
saints and the rest of the universal Church, whose true interpretation of the
sacred writings has been neglected, some, whose minds the father of lies has
blinded”, etc. etc.
What we get from this is how the Church interpreted
“vineyard” from the Bible. That it represented the Church; a fertile ground of
growth the Lord places all His care and concern upon. Isaiah 5 speaks of this
vineyard, saying, “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his
vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and
cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower
in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield
grapes” (v.1-2).
But what is going on in the vineyard is not good. Isaiah
continues, “He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded thorns”.
Indeed, as Pope Leo noted from Song of Solomon 2:15, there are foxes ruining
the vineyards. Maybe even Samson’s foxes with torches tied to their tails
(Judges 15:4).
On top of the wild boar, referenced from Psalm 80, we can’t
help but maybe think vineyards are cursed. And they were, all the way back in
Genesis 3 where the Lord says, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain
you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall
bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of
your face you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground, for out of it you were
taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).
Maybe this is part of the problem of finding workers in the
parable from the Gospel today. That the promise of work does not outweigh the
despair of overwork for too little pay and suffering for nothing. The workers
know the ground is cursed, thus are reluctant to approach the Master of the
House.
This is also the problem in our workforce today. Its not
that the new generation of workers are lazy, there are lazy people in every
generation, but that the incentive to work is below the reward of work.
Suffering is not incentive. Long hours are not incentive. Abuse and turmoil are
not incentives to return to work day after day.
This is not to excuse, but to illuminate us that we may
begin to understand. Because this exact thinking has infiltrated the Church,
like foxes and boars. Not as the Blessed Dr. Luther, but as fear and offense.
Look at how the workers talk to the Master at the end of the
day. They are offended, because what they feared from the beginning is coming
true. They were overworked and underappreciated, not in a spoiled-brat kind of
way, but in a “now I won’t be able to live off this paycheck” kind of way.
This is your problem with the Lord’s Church, His Vineyard,
today. You logically and reasonably conclude that you are suffering in your
relationship with the Lord. He is the Creator, sure, but when it comes to the
work, He stands far off and makes you do it, with no praise but only a “now
that that’s finished, here’s this” and producing a never-ending list of chores.
Thus we see the Church as not worth it. The pope had to mold
the church into his own image, in order for it to be worth it to him, making
nations bow to him. We, and the world, in our sin cannot stand the Lord’s
vineyard, but neither can we get enough of it on our own terms.
There is another vineyard of great interest to us, in 1
Kings 21. Evil Ahab is king of Israel and Jezebel his wife. There is a man who
owns a vineyard right against the king’s palace, named Naboth. Ahab covets the
vineyard, but Naboth refuses to sell or trade away his ancestor’s vineyard.
Jezebel learns of her husband’s interactions with Naboth. So
“she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal, and she
sent the letters to the elders and the leaders who lived with Naboth in his
city. And she wrote in the letters, ‘Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the
head of the people. And set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring
a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him
out and stone him to death.’”
Ahab, the sinner, was able to acquire the Vineyard, the
Church, through the sacrificing of another man, the owner.
Now that story goes on and Ahab pays for his sin, but I hope
you’ve seen the point. When the Lord plants a Vineyard, it is not something as
sterile as we are used to. All we think of is cost and goods and maintenance.
These are normal things and can be gained, lost, and regained. No big deal.
When the Lord plants a vineyard, not only does He create it
out of nothing, but He puts His life on the line to supply it with life and to
defend it. When the Lord gives a gift, it is Himself, no matter the form it
takes. And the Vineyard is no different.
The saying goes, “if you want to make a million dollars off
a vineyard, start with 2”. It is a losing venture from the start. Thus God does
not only bring two million to His vineyard, He brings Himself.
Now, if God has a vineyard, then it is self-sustaining,
completely. He can just command the watering, command the growth, command the
harvest and it will be finished perfectly. In other words, there is no logical
reason for God to open up His vineyard to Adam, Ahab, Jezebel, Naboth, or any
of the workers from today’s Gospel.
Jesus reveals this in the words, “Am I not allowed to do
what I choose with what belongs to me?” But Jesus is not the stingy workers
who will not take reward or even another vineyard for their troubles. He is
allowed to do what He wants with His stuff. And He chooses to give it away.
For through the false condemnation of two witnesses on
either side of Him and His crucifixion, Jesus opens His vineyard to sinners. He
brings His 2 million-dollar natures, God and man, and works in His own
vineyard. He endures thirsting, hungering, anguishing. In His humanity, He
feels the full weight of the Holy Law which forbids Him grapes and hands Him a
crown of thorns.
Found guilty of our sin, falsely accused, and tortured Jesus
demands better pay for His workers from the Father. He was made our ransom, our
bargaining chip on God’s own table. In His suffering, death, and resurrection,
Jesus is our payment to God.
With bloodless blood, sin entered the world. For though Adam
and Eve’s struggle with the devil shed no blood, what they lost was greater:
the Image of God in their blood. Death now reigned. No wonder only thorns and
tears come out of the cursed ground.
With bloodied blood, sin is removed from this world. For
Jesus strove with God and man and prevailed. He strove with God, bargaining His
Body and Blood as payment for sin, death, and the power of the devil and He
strove with man, proving that His Vineyard is not a trap, but an invitation.
For this is not some movie set vineyard, or a spare God has
lying around. It is His own Vineyard. How do we know? Because the Vine is there
and there is only one. The Vine that Lord planted, back in Psalm 80 has taken
root and begun to fruit. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Listen to Psalm 80:
“You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the
nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and
filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty
cedars with its branches.
It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the
River.” (v.8-11)
Jesus came out of Egypt upon His return to Nazareth, in His
Youth. And it is now in His Gospel, that growth happens beyond the normal. For
the spreading of the Vine is happening, and being the Son of God Himself, all
fall under His dominion.
Jesus is the Vine. He is the fruitful soil and the Creator.
The Vineyard is His beloved. The place where He chooses to lose everything in
order to win everything for His Bride. He causes His Name to dwell there. He
appoints His servants, the prophets to speak there. He declares His
Justification there, in His Blood, daring any to say He has not kept His Word.
So yes, to the sinner, the vineyard is a waste, because it
is filled with Christ Crucified. He is not investing in their 401ks, neither is
He treating them fairly. Indeed, we thank God that Jesus is not fair. If He
were fair, we’d get nothing. If He were fair, we’d be on the cross. If He were
fair, we would logically and reasonably be cut off and left to the thorns.
But Jesus unfairly offers His Vineyard to you. He invites
you to work in it, yes, but He first invites you in. He calls out to you with
His Gospel, enlightening you with His gifts, in order that you see the true
wonder of the Vineyard. Like St. Paul, He removes the scales of sin from your
eyes and you see.
You see the wonder, you see the Grace, you see the working
of the forgiveness of sins, the granting of faith, and the bestowing of eternal
life. That is the work of the Vineyard, that is the fruit of the Vineyard, and
that is the Master of the Vineyard. The payment is the same, because Jesus can
only give you all of Himself and no more than that. If that is not enough,
well…
So what is so great about grapes and the Vineyard? It is
where Jesus has promised to do His work and there are no substitutions,
exchanges, or refunds. It is His and we have no say in the matter. He loves us
and continues to offer Himself daily, for our sins, that we might arise as a
new man, to live in Him and His vineyard.
And we find the Lord here, as He promised. We hear His words
as from the song of Songs, “My beloved speaks and says to me, ‘Arise my
love, my beautiful one…for the fig tree ripens and the vines are in blossom”
(2:10, 13), we are washed in His righteousness, and are fed from the Vine
as branches.
The Lord is ours and we are the Lord’s and what He chooses
for us is life, in His Word and Sacrament.
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