Dear saints, to help us make a little more sense of Jesus’ parable today in which workers who worked a different amount of hours – some 12 hours, some 9, some 6, some three, and some only 1 hour- but all end up with a full days wages, I’d like us also to consider something from Romans 4.
Romans 4:3-5- For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was counted to Him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and who sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
Dear saints, I have seen you do good works. I know a little bit about the works of love you do, and there are so many different ways to love, and I know that I only know a very little bit. God knows them all.
God has blessed others through your works of love. Your good works are not in vain. You are serving others and you are doing God-pleasing things.
And, because you do good, as your pastor and as a fellow Christian, I need to warn you and you need to warn me again and again:
Don’t trust in your goodness. You aren’t good enough.
Do not think God is not pleased with you because of the good you do. You don’t do enough.
Do not hope that God will reward you because of what you have done, because then you will begin to trust in yourself and you may in fact get what you deserve,
and that is hell, that is temporal and eternal punishment, punishment now, punishment later,
because of what you have done and what you have left undone, because of the things that you have done that offend God and hurt your neighbor and the pile of good that you haven’t done.
Christ gives us this parable today about workers who worked one hour and received a full days wages to help stay sensitive to this most wonderful truth: we are saved by grace. God’s love now and the promise we will be in God’s love forever is a gift – salvation is a gift, lest we boast.
This isn’t new news for the Christian, but it always good news.
We ungodly sinners are counted righteous because of Christ’s work, not because of our works. And to the one who does not work, but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
The workers who worked one hour did not work hardly at all.
They did not receive what they deserved, but were given a gift from a generous master of the field who first sought them out to go and work in the field in the first place and then rewarded them handsomely not because of the work they did or the good they did but because He is good and He is generous.
God makes the first move. That is always the Christian confession.
You work because you are already saved and being saved by Him.
You love because He first loved you and are being loved by Him.
You seek Him because He first sought you and continues to seek you.
You do good because God is good.
You are true because God is true.
You are beautiful and do beautiful things because God is beautiful.
You are and always will be the workers who only worked a little bit, whose work and love was only beginning, but are rewarded as if you bore the heat of the day because Christ bore the heat for you and God is good to you.
Stay sensitive to this lest you become proud.
Lest you think you are better than others.
Lest you give up hope.
Lest you grumble like the people of Israel did in the Old Testament reading.
Lest you grumble the first workers who worked the longest in our parable.
Staying sensitive to the truth of everything as a gift protects against grumbling.
Everything you in have that is temporal, you have as a gift you don’t deserve – mercifully delivered by God’s goodness to the glory of His name. (Collect)
And everything you have that is eternal: God’s Word, Baptism, The Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit, Christ, faith, and hope, is all gift – mercifully delivered by God’s goodness to the glory of His name. (Collect)
Not because you work, but because you believe Christ has finished the work and is still working for you and the ones you love, for all the world, Christ is still working.
Trust that.
Righteousness is counted, not to the one who works, but the One who trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
All your ungodliness is forgiven and all Christ’s righteousness is counted upon you. You are righteous.
You get credit for the work of Another and that other is Christ Himself.
Workers get paid for work they did not do in our parable today. And the work that you have not done is keep the Law. We have not done what God said to do. But we get treated by God as though we had.
That is because the work has been done by Christ Himself. He bore the burden and the heat of the day and we get His wages free.
And not only has He done our work for us but so He also has taken our punishments. He is punished for us on the cross. And there He satisfies and ends His own wrath against us.
The work of your peace, the work of your salvation, had all been done and it was all done by the eleventh hour where come in only to receive the reward and benefits for which He worked for us.
So now, with full confidence that you are pleasing to God, continue to do God-pleasing things.
He sends you out in His vineyard, His world again to love.
And it’s wonderful to begin to consider how that love looks, because it looks so different because He sends us out to different homes, different families, different communities, different places of work. God has made and equipped us in the Spirit as diverse individuals with diverse gifts and diverse talents and diverse callings.
I could go on and on about how you are to continue in the good that you are doing because there are so many different ways and different people you are to keep doing good –
as the young, as the old, to the young, to the old,
as workers, as employers,
as men, as women, as husbands, as wives,
as mothers, as fathers, as sons, as daughters,
as citizens, as members of this church –
so many different ways you can love.
But today, rejoice in the one way in which we are all loved – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope, one Lord’s Supper, one Holy Spirit, one righteousness of Christ covering us all, one heaven and resurrection waiting us, one forgiveness for the many different ways we sin.
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and who sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”