The Lord and His Vineyard: A Meditation on Isaiah 5

The image of God and His vineyard is repeated several times between the Old and New Testaments.  In these opening chapters of the prophet Isaiah, the image is presented as an image of judgment against His unfruitful people.

The Lord begins by telling Isaiah how much He loves His people; how He put them in the most fertile of places, nourished them, set a guard over them, and hemmed them in with a stout wall against the attacks of their enemies.  Having given His people everything they needed, and every advantage over the wicked one, He looked upon His people to see the fruit they would bear.  As He looked, rather than producing the good fruit of faith fit for consumption, they produced a wild and bitter fruit of unbelief unfit for anyone.  This people of His, given every advantage of His Word and His mercy, still returned to their evil ways, polluting the good ground He had given them to live in.

And to His unfaithful people, God declares judgment.  He will remove the guard He has set over them, and tear down the wall that protects them; He will usher in the enemy to destroy and enslave them, so that His people no longer pollute the earth with their hypocrisy and wickedness; for “He looked for judgment, but behold, oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry.”  This particular judgment was accomplished in the irresistible onslaught of the Babylonians, who decimated God’s people in their own land, and carried away a remnant into enslaved captivity in Babylon.  God was true to His Word:  what He had spoken, He accomplished.

These are words worth hearing in the Church of our day and place, too:

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I

pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.  What could

have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done

in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth

grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

What more, indeed, beloved of the Lord?  Out of darkness He called you into His marvelous light; out of your death and despair, He grafted you into His life; out of sin, death, hell, and the power of the evil one, He called you to forgiveness, life, salvation and victory; out of a dying and corrupt land, He called you to be citizens of heaven and His own dear children; out of the passing vanities and riches of this world, He called you to an eternal inheritance that cannot be taken from you.  To you, lost in a world of ridiculous opinions and endless sophistries, He gave His steadfast Word that will endure forever.  To you, awash in anxious grief and misery, He gave peace with love and compassion.  What more could He do for you, O House of Israel, than He has already done?  He has forgiven your sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  He has promised you an eternal fellowship with Him, restored through the bloody sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son.  He has given to you His Holy Law that you might know what is truly holy, and given you His Holy Gospel that you might believe and live.

Whether the ground you stand on is silted sand, or rugged mountain—it is fertile and blessed by the Word of God poured over you.  And as the Lord of Hosts looks down from heaven upon His people, what does He see?  Having done everything for His people, including the sacrifice of Jesus His Son, what does He see at work among His Holy Church?

Apostasy.  Heresy.  Wickedness in high and low places.  Parents who have discarded the Word of the Lord, raise their children to despise it as well.  Pious leaders in all their fine religious garb, exchange the truth of God for the lie of their own construction.  People come to churches so that they may be entertained, and go back out to live lives of moral debauchery.  Ancient and historic churches, and churches of the Reformation, deny fundamental confessions of the Word of God, from Creation to Redemption to the Resurrection.  The holiness of marriage is trampled upon by homosexuality, adultery, fornication, and divorce.  The sacredness of family, motherhood and children is perverted by infanticide, abuse, and abandonment.  People begin to think and act like animals, driven by lust, and passion, and desire, while reason and faith are disposed.  Our sour and bitter fruit, unfit for consumption, is murder, oppression, lust, greed, theft, abuse, debauchery, lies, and corruption.  We have befouled our schools, our communities, our nation, and the very Church of God.  We have turned the grace of God into licentiousness, forgetting that God is not mocked… we shall reap what we sow.

Hear and believe, O beloved of the Lord!  Why would you perish in your sins, when the Lord of Life gives all to save you?  Why would you cling to the gaudy baubles of the evil one, when your Savior Jesus Christ offers you the true riches?  Turn from your evil, and return to the saving Word of your God.  Behold, if you will not repent, if you will not turn and be healed by His grace through faith in His Beloved Son, He will remove the guard He has placed over you; He will remove the wall of protection He build around you; He will withdraw His grace and mercy, so that the evil master you have chosen may ride in freely to destroy and enslave you.  And while there is always another Babylon poised to come and destroy in an earthly manner, it is the devil with his legions that lurk at the door, awaiting the moment they may pounce destroy the soul.

Do not be fooled, O beloved of the Lord:  He has crossed all eternity to save you, but He will not force you into His embrace.  He calls to you as the lover of your soul, your Creator and Redeemer, to leave the ways of death and destruction, and cling to Him alone.  Hear the pleas for mercy that cry out for you from the Cross of Jesus Christ, that you may be forgiven your innumerable sins, and the bitter fruit of your past be put away.  Believe the Word of the Lord, and the Spirit who comes to give you life from above, that your fellowship may be with all the faithful of every time and place, with the blessed Prophets and Apostles—whose fellowship is with the Most Holy Trinity, now and forevermore.  Believe, repent, and live.  Amen.

By What Authority? A Meditation on Matthew 21

In the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus finds Himself nose to nose with the Pharisees.  He has already had his triumphal entry, and cast out the moneychangers from the Temple.  He has come back the next day to teach and to heal, and the poor of the city have thronged Him.  Prostitutes, crooked tax collectors, and all the rough and unlovely people have come to Jesus, and He has received them willingly.  The Pharisees, however, have come to Him with their condescending questions, “By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?”

Remembering who the Pharisees are, this question makes a lot of sense.  These were the teachers of Israel, and together with the Sadducees and lawyers, they formed the ruling religious body called the Sanhedrin.  As far as the people were concerned, they were the religious authority in Israel—they were the ones who controlled who received education, and who could teach.  They set the rules, and changed them at their own discretion.  They set themselves up as the authority over the people, and then perpetuated their power by keeping anyone they didn’t approve of out of the schools, and out of the club.  Jesus had not applied to study in the Pharisees’ school, nor had He received an endorsement from the Sanhedrin.  Jesus was preaching and teaching with authority, but it was not the recognized authority of the religious leaders.

No matter how many centuries pass on this globe, mankind really doesn’t change much.  Throughout the history of the Church, particular people have tried to establish ruling classes who have “authority,” and then govern closely who will be let into the club (usually by ensuring that new aspirants agree with the currently ruling class.)  And of course, there has been resistance to such human establishments when they run amok.  In the early centuries of the Church, when the Arian heresy had taken root in a majority of Christian churches, and even among a majority of pastors and bishops, a faithful remnant fought their blasphemy against the Son of God.  It was said that St. Athanasius stood against the world, when he resisted emperors and royalty, as well as other bishops, by standing on the Word of God against their convoluted human philosophy.  St. Chrysostom resisted the same heresy, standing against rulers and fellow pastors, and died in exile.  St. Augustine stood against the Pelagian heresy, again on the authority of the Word of God.   Several centuries later, when Rome had run amok and tried to rule the world, Luther stood alone on the Word of God to refute error, and draw the people back to Christ.

Every age has seen this drama.  When wicked men ascend to positions of power, they tend to glorify themselves, and fight to retain it.  They guard the paths to power closely, and only allow passage to those who support them.  They govern the schools and the graduation requirements, so that all may be formed to yield to the Magisterium of men, and then grant the funny hats and mantles of recognition only to those they approve.  It is a wickedness of men, perpetuating itself, and traveling across land and sea to make proselytes who are as much children of hell as they themselves are.  When men rule the roost according to their own word and authority, it becomes a foul roost, indeed.

But the question posed to Jesus is a legitimate one.  Where is your funny hat and mantle?  Where is your diploma, earned from our school?  Where is your imprimatur from the ruling authority?  Where is the authority we have granted you to teach?  The answer, they already knew, is that Jesus didn’t possess their approval.  To their minds, Jesus was out of order, disrupting the established fellowship of God, by disregarding their human authority.

But Jesus strikes to the root of their problem.  The authority of men is meaningless, when it contends against the authority of God.  Jesus reveals that He, like John the Baptist, speaks under the authority of The King of the Universe.  In fact, Jesus does not need endorsement from the humanly established authority in the Synagogue, because He is the very Word of God Made Flesh.  Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth, because everything in heaven and earth were made through Him, and for Him.  What meaning is there in a funny hat and mantle, in degrees and associations, when one stands before the Living God?  All marks of human authority and prestige melt away in the presence of God’s unchanging and eternal Authority.

What Jesus teaches the Pharisees of His time, and the religious leaders of our own time, is that nothing man concocts can trump the Word of God.  There is no authority in our human associations, in our schools, our synods, our conventions, our Magisteriums, that can survive rebellion against the Word of the Living God.  Though we may like our peacockery and plumage, to strut about in our symbols of power, to adorn our names with endless certifications and honors, it is all a dream of man’s selfish pride.  Who are you, theologian, who will hold up your diploma before God, and hope to be excused of your heresy?  Who are you, bishop or cardinal, who will hold up your funny hat to defend your abuse of the people?  Who are you, pastor or preacher, who will hold up the glossy cover of your published works, to excuse your fleecing of the children of God?  Indeed, you rulers of synods and teachers of seminaries, you wearers of fine linens and ridiculous funny hats, you elders and deacons, priests and bishops, pastors and laity, who rest in the approvals and accolades of men:  behold, the prostitutes and con artists, the derelicts and the defrauders, the alcoholics and the drug addicts enter the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of you.

And why is this?  Because they have heard the Word of the Lord, and believed unto life.  They have heard the Law of God, and repented of their sins.  They have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for their salvation, and have trusted in Him.  They have set aside the heretical, prideful, self serving authority of men, and yielded rather to the divine authority of the Son of God.

And so it can be, even for you.  Repent of your love of man’s pride and his baubles, and turn to the love of God in Christ Jesus revealed in His Holy Word.  For in His Authority alone come the words of eternal life:  You are forgiven, for Christ’s sake.  Repent, and believe the Gospel.  Amen.

To be Content with God's Gifts

Jesus’ parable of the landowner and the workers reveals a great deal about our common human condition.  It begins with the landowner seeking workers for his harvest.  When he finds some at the beginning of the day, he agrees with them for a good wage, and they get to work.  Throughout the day, he continues to seek out laborers, promising to give them whatever is right for their work, and many come throughout the various hours of the day.  At the end of the day, the landowner settles accounts, beginning with the last called.  To the shock of the first called workers, the landowner gives generously to every worker the same amount he offered to the first.

In disgust, the first workers, who worked longer than the last, grumbled and complained against the landowner, thinking they should get more.  To their grumbling, the landowner simply tells them to take what’s theirs, and to go their way—he will not be held hostage to their expectations, and he will be generous with his gifts according to his own pleasure.

How quickly the laborers forget the grace they were given!  They forget that the vineyard is not theirs, and neither is the right to work in it.  They forget that the harvest is not theirs, and neither is the right to harvest it.  They forget that the work and the labor belong to the landowner, as do the wages he is willing to offer.  They forget, that before the landowner came to them, they were without work and without pay.  They forget, that not only their labor but their rewards are given by the grace and mercy of the landowner.

It is easy to do, is it not?  We, who have received the call of God to labor in the fields of the Lord, often forget our relationship to our God.  The universe is His, as is all the labor within it.  We, on the other hand, have nothing until He comes to us, gives us good labor to do, and promises to us His good grace of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation through Jesus Christ.  Whether we hear and respond to God’s call early in life, in our adult years, or perhaps even at the sunset of our days, it is God who gives the grace of work, and God who gives the grace of reward.  As individual sinners, lost and condemned in our own corruption, we don’t deserve to be called by God, to be sent into His labors, nor to receive His good gifts of forgiveness and life.  As we keep our eyes upon Him, and the Cross of His Son which calls us into His fellowship, all we can see is His goodness, mercy, and love.

But when we take our eyes off of Jesus our Savior, and begin to look at our neighbor or ourselves, our vision becomes polluted once again by the sin and corruption in our hearts.  Why does my neighbor have that labor, and I have this?  Why does my neighbor, who doesn’t seem to be working as hard as I do, get the same reward of grace?  If I have served the Lord my whole life, shouldn’t I get something above and beyond what my neighbor receives, if he has only served the Lord a short time?  Shouldn’t I, raised in a Christian home and serving the Lord as long as I can remember, be entitled to a better reward than the drunken letch who made a death-bed conversion?  As I take my eyes off myself, I quickly begin to fool myself into thinking that I deserve or am entitled to grace—that my labors demand remittance from my God.  It is as if I were so foolish as to say, “Oh, God, I demand to be given what I deserve!”

May such awful words never pass our lips!  For we deserve nothing but death and hell forever.  All that we have received, we have been given by God’s good grace in Jesus Christ—our lives, our families, our work, and our promise of everlasting life.  Everything we have, we have by grace; every grace we have received, we have received by faith in His Gospel promise.  Whether we labor in this way or that way, for this long or that long, the labor and the reward are all grace.

It is here we perceive the enigmatic statement of our Lord at the end of His parable:  “For many are called, but few are chosen.”  It is absolutely true, that the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ is spilled for every soul that has, or shall ever, walk the face of this globe.  It is also most certainly true, that the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is preached to every person under heaven.  But not all will hear Him.  Not all will receive Him.  Not all will enter into His labors.  Not all shall be content with His grace.  Some will choose, even after having spent a lifetime in His service, to stand defiantly before their gracious God, and demand what they deserve according to the Law… thinking they are justified by their own works, only to find that by their works of the Law, no flesh shall be justified in His sight.  Indeed, many are called to salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone; but few will be chosen, who remain standing by grace through faith and not by works, preferring the mercy and love of their Redeemer to the awful justice of their Judge.

Many are called, but few are chosen.  To you, the Word of the Lord calls.  He calls you to repent of your evil and wickedness, and to trust in the grace and mercy of Jesus, who has paid your debt, forgiven your sins, and invites you into the fellowship of His labors.  He calls you to stand in His grace according to His Holy Gospel, and not by your pitiful attempts at works in His Holy Law.  He calls you to live in Him, and not in yourself.  Hear Him.  Believe and live.  Amen.

The Seriousness of Forgiveness: A Meditation on Matthew 18

After a discussion with His disciples that started with a question about who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus is asked, “how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?”  To St. Peter’s apparently generous suggestion, Jesus replies, “I say not unto

thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”  Knowing that the problem in his disciples’ hearts was not really the number of times to forgive, Jesus begins to teach them about the relative gravity of their own individual sin before God.  Until they understood that, this question of dealing with a brother’s or sister’s sin could never rightly be addressed.

Jesus tells the story of a man who owed so much to his master, that he couldn’t pay it off in multiple lifetimes.  The master, according to the law, was about to cut his losses, sell the servant and everything he owned (including his wife and children) to recoup at least some of the debt.  The man begs mercy of his master, making a ridiculous offer to repay everything, and in compassion, the master unthinkably forgives him all his debt.  Rather than scolding him, or putting him on some kind of repayment schedule, he simply forgives the debt.  It is an act of complete mercy and compassion that is nearly unfathomable, but it is the heart of the master to have mercy on his servants.

That same man, shortly thereafter, finds a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money—perhaps a few months wages—but enough to be significant.  The servant demands repayment, and when the second begs for mercy and time to repay the debt, the first has him thrown in debtor’s prison until he works off the money.  Disgusted at the lack of compassion shown by this ungrateful servant, the master’s other servants tell him the tale.  And the consequences are brutal.

Having first forgiven the servant his enormous debt, the master asks him why he did not have compassion on his fellow servant.  Unable to respond, the master then hands the unmerciful servant over to the tormentors, until he pays the last penny owed… a fate of eternal torment, since the debt was greater than his very life.  Rather than retaining the forgiveness of his master, the unmerciful servant now bears the full, eternal weight of his sins, because he refused to reciprocate his master’s mercy to his fellow servants.  His act of unforgiveness was an act of infidelity and unfaithfulness to his master.

This is the problem Jesus wants to deal with in His disciples.  To even ask the question about how many times I should forgive my neighbor, reveals my own lack of understanding about how much God has already forgiven me.  In truth, I owe a debt to God that I can never repay.  I can never go back and fix a single moment of my past, where my thoughts, words, or deeds were evil.  I can never go back, and undo what I’ve done, anymore than I can go back to do what I failed to do.  I can never become holy, because I am already wretched and blind because of my sin.  My debt to God, the Holy One I have insulted and mocked through my unbelief, my lack of love, my selfishness and idolatry, is greater than I could ever repay.  God’s Holy Law shows me this truth, and it should shake me to my core.  I deserve nothing from God but death and hell, to be handed over to the tormentors for all eternity.  By every right, God should cut His losses with me, and be done with me.

But He did not cut me off.  When the terrors of His Holy Law struck my conscience and taught me that I am a sinner destined to hell, His Holy Spirit worked contrition in my heart.  Knowing that I could not save myself, and that only my God could save me from the hell I deserved, His Holy Gospel came to me, and His Holy Spirit worked faith in Jesus who was crucified for my sins.  That Gospel of Salvation, so sweet and so pure, gave me faith that I might receive His Grace, Mercy, and Forgiveness, purchased for me by the precious Blood of Jesus spilled at Calvary.  I have become like the servant who owed far more than he could ever repay, but whose Master has forgiven my debt and set me free for Jesus’ sake.

In light of so great a salvation, how can I hold any sin against my neighbor?  How can I demand justice for any slight, any harm, or any wound a person might do to me?  I have been forgiven an eternal debt—how can I take my neighbor by the throat and demand he repay to me his little, temporal debt?  If my brother sin against me, no matter how often, and he beg of me forgiveness, who am I that I should bind him?  For the truth of the matter is, that my neighbor can do nothing to me, no matter how heinous, that holds a candle to what I have done to God.  If God can forgive me an eternal debt for the sake of Jesus’ Sacrifice for me, who am I to withhold forgiveness from anyone for any debt at all?

Jesus’ words are clear.  Like the ungrateful servant, if we do not forgive those who sin against us, God will revoke His forgiveness of our eternal debt.  This is no small business, but a severe preaching of the Law:  as we are forgiven, so we are called to forgive.  Do you harbor judgment against your neighbor?  Do you, saved from an eternity of hell fire, hold a grudge against your brother?  Do you, having begged the mercy of almighty God for your sins, hold the sins of your sister against her?  Do you, who seek to live by the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ, demand your neighbor live under the retribution of your judgment and law? 

If so, I say to you, Repent!  Turn from your unbelief and unforgiveness!  Hear the Word of the Lord which saves you, forgives you, has mercy on you—and carry that same grace to your neighbor.  Having received from Almighty God the grace of Jesus Christ by faith, undeserved and unmerited favor poured out upon you for the sake of His death and resurrection, rise up in the new life of His Spirit and speak the forgiveness given to you, to everyone you meet.  For Christ has died for you, that you might be forgiven—go therefore, and forgive, in the most holy name of Jesus.  Amen.