Morning Message Text: Matthew 20: 1-16
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
1 “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.”
Morning Message:
These scriptures remind me so much of the cries we hear today from the world. It seems that everyone is so caught up in receiving what they deserve, that they have lost all concern for what the effect might be to others for them getting what they think they have coming to them. We live in a society today where everyone thinks they are entitled. We hear words like reparations. On the news I hear that states are considering paying billions of dollars to descendants of slaves as reparation for what their ancestors suffered at the hands of slave owners. Now I had to look up the word reparation in order to understand what was being demanded. Reparation is the making of amends for wrong or injury. Compensation payable by a defeated nation for damages or loss caused during a war. The only war that I can think of that has anything to do with slavery is the one that was fought to free people from it and rightfully so.
But that is only one example of the attitude of today. There is this other word that I constantly hear. Equity, what is equity? When I first heard it I thought of equality and I thought, I agree with that. Equity is the quality of being fair or impartial, fairness. In and of itself it doesn’t sound too bad. But leave it to society to take a word and make something out of it that was never meant to be. For example, the mindset of today is that everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, so in the name of equity and fairness, the standards in school should be lowered so that everyone can feel good about their grades. Where was that when I went to school?
In our text in Jonah, we see that this attitude of wanting people to get what we think they deserve is nothing new. We all know the story of Jonah and the whale, but we tend to pay more attention to the fact that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish than what his mission was in the first place. He was sent to Nineveh to pronounce God’s coming judgment upon them for their many atrocities. Jonah hated Nineveh, and for good reason. They treated the Israelites terribly. Jonah didn’t want to tell them God’s judgment upon them because he was afraid that they would listen and repent. And sure enough that’s exactly what happened. Jonah is upset. Why? Because from his human point of view they didn’t deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness. God attempts to show Jonah why he is slow to anger and willing to forgive. Jonah grows attached to a plant that gives him shade and comfort from the sun, and when God takes it away, he is so upset that he wants to die. Upset over the death of a plant, but no compassion for one hundred and twenty thousand Ninevites. Jonah’s mistake was thinking that God had changed his mind, but God knew all along that Nineveh would repent and God judges deserving based on eternity. Think about that the next time you think about what someone deserves.
When we read the parable of the workers in the vineyard, we learn a little bit about how God views things. Our human thinking is based on reward according to how much time and effort that is put into things. We must look beyond what we think it should take to earn salvation. Salvation can’t be earned because it is freely given. It doesn’t matter how long you have been saved; it doesn’t matter if you came to Jesus 60 years ago or yesterday; you will receive the same salvation and enter into the same heaven. Jesus is making a statement here to the Israelites who may be thinking that they are more deserving of heaven than the Gentiles because they have been serving God longer. Through this parable Jesus is clearly stating that Jews and Gentiles alike will both be rewarded for their belief in Jesus.
More importantly today, for us, the church, we need to refrain from an attitude of deserving salvation. None of us deserve anything but death for our sins. This sounds simple, but we take for granted the cost of salvation. Salvation is free for the asking, but we don’t deserve it because we did not pay the price for it. Jesus paid that price and without that payment we would be eternally dead in our sins. This attitude of entitlement eats away at our society and yes, the church as well. We must be on guard against thinking that we deserve God’s grace and mercy.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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