Sunday, September 24, 2017

The Last and the First: A Meditation on Matthew 20


For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, 
which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
And when he had agreed with the labourers for a [denarius] a day, 
he sent them into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour, 
and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, 
and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, 
and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. 
He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; 
and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, 
Call the labourers, and give them their hire, 
beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, 
they received every man a [denarius].
But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; 
and they likewise received every man a [denarius].
And when they had received it, 
they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, 
These last have wrought but one hour, 
and thou hast made them equal unto us, 
which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

But he answered one of them, and said, 
Friend, I do thee no wrong: 
didst not thou agree with me for a [denarius]?
Take that thine is, and go thy way: 
I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? 
Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
So the last shall be first, and the first last: 
for many be called, but few chosen.

It should be no surprise that the greatest teacher of Law and Gospel, perfectly distinguishing between Justice and Grace, would be the One in whom these principles both emerge and are united— the very Person of our Lord Jesus Christ who is Himself the incarnate Word of the Father.  The parable from Matthew 20 wraps up a series of teaching Jesus offered His disciples when they began asking questions such as who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, how often should they forgive their neighbor, and what extra was in it for them since they were the first ones to be called?  Part of the trouble revealed in the disciples’ previous questions was that they continued to appeal to God’s justice for their rewards, failing to recognize that God owed them nothing but judgment according to the Law.  Into these hearts Jesus continued to pour the Gospel of grace and mercy, after demonstrating to them just how they stood before God according to the Law.

In the parable above, it’s worth noting that the land owner had no obligation to hire workers for his vineyard.  He could have satisfied the harvest in any number of ways, but instead, by grace, he went into the marketplace and found people willing to receive His gift of employment and wages.  For those who were willing to receive it, it was the promise of a good day’s pay, upon which they were motivated to work for the master of the vineyard.  Later in the day, the land owner went out and found other laborers still idle, and invited them to the same work, saying, “Whatever is right, I’ll give you.”  This pattern continued until the end of the work day, with the master of the vineyard inviting workers into His fields until the last workable hour.

As was customary, the land owner called all the workers together at the end of the day to give them the wage He offered them, and which none of them was really entitled to except by the promise they received.  Beginning with those called near the end of the day, he gave to each one the same daily wage.  As we might imagine, the ire of the first workers was roused when they had worked all day to receive the same that those who worked only an hour had also received.  The land owner told the first laborers that he was free to do whatever good he desired, and that his desire was to give the same good gift to those who came late in the day, as he had offered those who came early… and that if those first laborers’ hearts turned evil because of the owner’s generosity, preferring to live by the justice of the Law rather than the grace of the Gospel, they were free to take their day’s wages and leave.

Jesus was uncovering the bizarre condition of the human heart when it encounters the grace of God.  Twisted in our own sense of self righteousness and pride, people often encounter the gifts of God as something God owes to them, and something they deserve.  Like the laborers in the parable who without work and wages could not feed themselves or their families, every person needs the goodness and grace of God to live, both in this world and the next.  No one is entitled to demand of God that which is authentically His according to the Law, and to make our situation worse, what God actually does owe us according to the Law of justice is condemnation, both now and forever.  Jesus was helping His disciples to see that their calling, their work, and their gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation was not on the basis of the Law, but rather on the Gospel He would offer them through His sacrifice on Calvary.  The disciples, like the laborers of the field in the parable, or like us today, could never work enough to merit God’s favor, or even to pay for the debt of evil we have incurred by own wicked thoughts, words, and deeds— the things we have done, and the things should have done, every moment of our lives.

Of course, like the disciples, everyone is free to receive this good and gracious gift of God.  He continues to go out by His Word and Spirit into every time and place, calling to everyone of every situation and circumstance to enter into His Kingdom by grace through faith in Jesus.  Some hearts are young when they heed His call, and others are older; some have been brought up in the fellowship of the Church, and others have languished in darkness and despair; some are washed in the waters of Holy Baptism from just days after birth, and some are finally brought in even as their sight and breath are failing them.  Like the laborers of the field, those who are saved by God’s grace can be tempted to think of their gifts as something owed to them, to judge other laborers based upon the comparative length or ardor of their work, rather than giving thanks to God for the unfathomable divine love which comes to seek and to save us all.

What then can we say, regarding those who were first, and those who will be last?  First, that no one saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ has the right to judge by the Law their neighbor who stands by the same grace, and in the same faith.  Like every soul who receives the call of our gracious Lord by faith, we will each stand before our God to gift an account of our lives and service, not to be judged according to the Law which Jesus has satisfied in our stead, but by the Gospel of Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and grace.  Secondly, that those who respond earlier in their lives, who bear the heat of the day’s persecution and tribulation for the service of their neighbors and the proclamation of God’s Eternal Word, have the inestimable gift of time spent in the gracious fellowship of our saving Lord.  Those who may come later have the sadness of knowing how many days were spent apart from Him and His grace, whose sufferings under the demonic lash of our age were wasted and unnecessary pain.  Like the Holy Angels, all the saints are called to rejoice over every sinner brought to repentance, whether that occurs early or later in this short temporal life, because the grace of God seeks to save each and every soul for eternity.  While a few years or decades may seem long to us now, how brief will they seem when we look back on them 10,000 years hence, gathered around the Lord’s banquet table in His Kingdom, basking in the love and fellowship of every creature who abides in His grace?


To you this call comes today.  No matter if you’re young or old, sick or well, rich or poor, the Word and Spirit of the living God calls you to His fellowship this day, and all the saints and angels wait to rejoice in your welcome return to the Author of Life.  Hear Him today, repent, believe, and live forever.  Amen.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Forgiveness: A Meditation on Matthew 18


Then came Peter to him, and said, 
Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, 
and I forgive him? till seven times?

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, 
Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Forgiveness may be among the hardest things for people to offer each other, even while knowing it is the thing everyone needs most.  In the Gospel lesson for this week from Matthew 18, St. Peter asked Jesus a seemingly generous question, thinking that forgiving his neighbor up to seven times was far beyond any custom or social necessity.  And who would quibble?  If my neighbor stole my lawnmower once and asked forgiveness, what kind of heroic soul would authentically forgive the same neighbor for stealing from him seven times?  In practical terms, Peter’s suggestion seemed beyond gracious, and frankly beyond what almost anyone is ever willing to do.

Jesus, however, knew that while Peter was heading in the right direction regarding grace for his neighbor, he had failed to see the depths of his own need for grace, which had given him a false sense of piety with his offering.  First, Jesus bowled Peter over with a symbolic calculation that multiplied his number by 70 (a number which signified completeness or totality) and then illustrated the point with a parable.  In that story, a king began settling accounts with his servants whom he had trusted to steward his resources well.  Coming across a servant who owed him 10,000 talents— a sum beyond imagining which the servant had lost of his king’s wealth— the king issued the decree that this incompetent embezzler be sold, together with his wife and children, so that some recovery of his debt might be made and some approximation of justice be satisfied.  Since a talent of gold was more than a year’s wages for a worker (around 75 pounds of gold would be over $1M dollars in contemporary value, so 10,000 talents would be somewhere north of $100B,) even this would repay only a tiny fraction of what was lost.  The servant begged his master to have mercy and patience with him, making an impossible promise to repay everything, knowing that he couldn’t live long enough to even make a dent in that much debt.  The king, moved with compassion for the doomed servant and his family who stole unfathomable riches from his treasury, did the unthinkable:  he forgave the servant the entire debt.  Rather than selling the servant off, punishing him, or enslaving him under that debt for the rest of his life, the king forgave it and freed the servant from the debt and justice he was owed.

In converse, that same servant went out and found a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii— roughly 100 days wages for the average worker.  It was not an insignificant sum, as I’m sure most people would think 1/3 of their annual paycheck was nothing to sneeze at.  He seized his fellow servant and demanded payment.  When the servant asked for patience and mercy to repay the debt— something that given time and effort, he could probably do— the first servant mercilessly threw him into debtors prison to work off the sum he owed, caring nothing for the impact it would have on the man and his family to be locked away in slavery for months, no longer able to support, house, clothe, or feed his wife and children.  The king’s other servants were grieved over what they saw, and reported the abuse to their master.  The king’s fury was swift and devastating, demanding to know why this wicked servant who received so much life-saving grace from him, could not extend even the smallest amount of grace to his neighbor.  Thus the king gave the unforgiving servant back his unplayable debt, and handed him over to the torturers until every penny was repaid— an imagery of hell’s eternal torment, where infinite time cannot erase the debt and scandal we have caused in the universe, perverting and destroying God’s good creation, and wasting His riches on our pride and debauchery.

And so, Jesus’ Word comes to everyone today, just as it did to St. Peter and the Disciples.  This Word reminds us that every human soul is a debtor before God, and everyone who lives, lives by His grace, mercy, love, and compassion.  To receive the forgiveness of God, a debt we could never live long enough to repay and which we could never deserve, yet not reflect that same grace and forgiveness to those whose petty sins against us are mere droplets compared to the ocean of our own sins against God, is to sin not only against the Law but against Grace.  We who live by grace through faith in the Son of God have had our incalculable debt forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus upon His Cross, where the infinite merit of God alone could be our salvation.  Thus standing by grace through faith in Jesus, we have no appeal to God according to justice and the Law, as if to demand something be owed to us, when instead of the hell we deserve, we have instead been given the Kingdom of Heaven as our inheritance.  We are a people marked by grace, living in the faith and love and compassion which was given so freely and undeservingly to us, and called to reflect the same to everyone around us.


Hear the Word of the Lord which comes to you, that you might by faith and repentance live in the mercy and compassion of your saving King.  Let go the debts of justice you think you’re owed by those who have sinned against you, and instead reflect God’s love and forgiveness to them, so that they, too, might know the same unfathomable riches which you have freely received.  Forgive your neighbor, not because he deserves it, nor because you think he might repay you later— but because you know that you are a debtor who’s sins are washed away in the blood of Christ, and that God’s love for you is for your neighbor, too.  Hear the Word of Christ, turn from your demands for justice or vengeance, that both you and your neighbor might be forgiven and live.  Amen.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Humility: A Meditation on Matthew 18


At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, 
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus called a little child unto him, 
and set him in the midst of them, And said, 
Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, 
and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, 
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, 
it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18 begins with a very human question which Jesus’ disciples ask him:  Who is greatest…?  Perhaps one can assume a little tacked on piety by amending the question with in the kingdom of heaven, but ultimately the heart of man is revealed in the premise about who specifically is greatest.  Lest we think the disciples any less human than the rest of us, St. Matthew faithfully records this embarrassing episode between them and Jesus, so that we might hear Jesus teach us what He taught them.  As Jesus so often did, He went to the heart of those who asked the question, rather than directly to the question itself.

In using a child for His response, Jesus took a person who was generally without any rights or dignity in the surrounding culture.  Certainly the Jewish Law provided for recognizing the humanity of children based on their divine Creator’s image given to them, and the Law of love pertained to them as well as anyone else, forbidding that they be murdered or abused.  But adults in every age have a way of using their physical and social power against those weaker than themselves, and so children have often been abused, murdered, ignored, or manipulated for adult interests.  In our own day we see much the same— child abuse of every kind and sort, sexual slavery and kidnapping, degeneration of public services for children (such as decaying and violent schools, social policy engineers using them as experimental subjects in gender and sexuality wars, etc.,) and when children are unwanted by their sexually libertine and self-absorbed parents, they are abandoned, aborted, and murdered.  The sad reality is that children are easier to abuse and manipulate because they have less physical power than adults, generally have little legal standing in society, are less educated, are more naive and less corrupted by the perversions of society at large, and they depend upon adults to protect, nourish, and guide them into their own adulthood.  This is partly why child abuse is often passed from one generation to the next, as the survivors of abuse learn their future behavior from their childhood abusers.  Cultures across the world have been guilty of abusing children, and ours is no exception.

But a child, as Jesus points out, is necessarily humble.  They know they need their fathers and mothers to care for them, that they are not strong enough to defend themselves against the evils of the world, and that they don’t know enough about how to survive and thrive in adulthood.  Of course, there are examples of children who were too prideful or rebellious to recognize these truths, and such children often find their ends in graveyards, prisons, or destitution.  There are also examples of children who through divine providence escaped the abuse and perversion of those who sought to harm or destroy them.  But a child who is raised by their loving parents in the fear and love of their Maker comes naturally to see their humble state, knowing that they live and grow by the grace given to them.  Such a child trusts both their parents and their God to care for them, to give them what they cannot provide for themselves, and to love others as they have been loved.  They see their parents and their Savior sacrifice themselves for the good of their children, and they learn that no greater love can a person have, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  They learn duty and courage, faithfulness and perseverance, respect and dignity, justice and compassion, from those who have demonstrated these virtues in caring for them.  Such children are humble as a reflection of their order in creation, and by their humility, receive the grace to grow into honorable adults.

Juxtapose that concept with what the disciples were really asking.  At this point, they didn’t see themselves in need of grace, but rather in the pursuit of power.  To ask Who is greatest is to reveal the heart of pride and selfishness that would abuse and use other people to reach a pinnacle of lordship over others.  This heart could never even enter the kingdom of heaven, let alone be great within it, which by pride and lust for power desires to stand before their suffering, sacrificial, and compassionate God, only to seize for themselves greatness.  Like ignorant or rebellious toddlers who petulantly demand what their parents have denied them due to their own immaturity, the disciples reveal the heart of all fallen men who think they can seize greatness with their tiny fists from the Almighty and Everlasting God.  What’s more, Jesus reveals that not only is their heart corrupt and unworthy of entrance into heaven, but the wounds they and others impose on the humble— be they children, or adults who have become humble as children before their saving Lord—are deserving of the most brutal condemnation.  Jesus teaches them that it is better for a person to be maimed, disfigured, blinded, or even drowned in the sea, rather than to harm, offend, or lead into corruption one of these humble little ones.  The heart of pride which seeks to know who is greatest, is also the heart inclined to abuse others in the pursuit of greatness, and thus Jesus pierces their hearts with a devastating Word of Law which cuts them to their core:  not only have they no hope of seizing greatness in the Kingdom of God, but they are worthy of eternal torment and condemnation for the abuses they have already perpetrated upon those humble souls to whom God has given His gracious presence.

And yet, with such withering Words of Law, comes also the hope and consolation of the Gospel.  Jesus does not leave them condemned in their sins, but calls them to faith and repentance which is marked by humility, love, mercy, and compassion.  Rather than trying to take or work for the greatness they covet, He invites them to see themselves as they really are— blind, weak, and helpless in a dark and deadly world.  He calls them to understand their fate apart from God’s grace, and to return to Him that they might abide in His grace.  Knowing that His disciples and the whole world are enslaved by their fallen nature to sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, Jesus calls them— and us —to trust in Him for all the things which people cannot earn or take by their own power:  forgiveness, life, and salvation in His Name, all for the sake of His sacrifice on Calvary in our place.  In such recognition comes the humility we need to receive the grace of God by faith in Jesus Christ, which then in turn grows us and matures us into people who reflect His great love, mercy, hope, compassion, joy, and victory over every foul and loathsome force at work in this fallen world.  There, in Jesus, the humble of heart and mind become the blessed children of His Heavenly Father, inspired by His Holy Spirit to live in Jesus forever.  There, composed of the humble who live by grace through faith in Christ alone, is the Kingdom of Heaven, where the just live by faith, the Communion of the Saints share hallowed eternal fellowship with their Savior and with each other, and where the greatness of Almighty God pours out as a life-giving river to nourish everyone who abides in Him.


To you, this Word of Law and Gospel comes today, to warn and convict you of your pride and malice, and to offer you something you could never earn, take, manipulate, or steal.  This love of God comes to you this day, freely offering grace and mercy, love and compassion, to all who would repent of their wickedness and become like humble children before their loving and gracious Father.  Hear Him as He calls to you this day, that you might repent, believe, and live.  Amen.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

If any man shall come after Me: A Meditation on Matthew 16


Then said Jesus unto his disciples, 
If any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: 
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

For what is a man profited, 
if he shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul? 
or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

For the Son of man shall come 
in the glory of his Father with his angels; 
and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Jesus’ hard words at the end of Matthew’s 16th chapter come after His strong encouragement to Peter and the disciples regarding their good confession just a few verses earlier.  Unsatisfied with Jesus’ path to the cross, where He would make satisfaction for the sins of the world by laying down His own life for theirs, the disciples tried to dissuade Jesus from the whole purpose for which He came.  In rebuke, Jesus identified the satanic influence motivating Peter and the others, and took the opportunity to teach them something they desperately needed to understand:  a life focussed only on this fallen world, is a life doomed to eternal perdition. 

Had Jesus come to live in this world and be honored like the pagan gods of Rome and Greece, He certainly could have done so.  He could have used His power as the Only Begotten Son of God to gather for Himself riches, prestige, and secular power.  He could have taken for Himself all those temptations the devil had earlier offered to Him when He was hungry in the desert, lived for His own glory, and been far greater than any mythical Hercules or Apollo.  Healing the sick, creating food, casting out demons, raising the dead, turning water into wine— and all His other manifest demonstrations of His divinity could have been used to make Him the earthly king so many men have tried and failed to become.  But instead, Jesus used all His divine power for the eternal good of mankind, rather than for himself.  He did not take the devil’s bait to serve Himself, or the people’s desire to have Him satisfy only their fleshly cravings.  Looking far deeper into the souls of all mankind, Jesus perceived the true desperation of all creation—chained in death and destined for the eternal fires of hell together with their demonic masters—then in love and selfless compassion, laid down His life, His dignity, His power, to save us all.  The only true God, second Person of the Holy Trinity, creator and king of the universe, condescended to be incarnate in human flesh, born of the Blessed Virgin, live, teach, be rejected, scorned, and die at the hands of evil men— all so that mankind might be freed from their hellish prison of death, and have eternal life in His fellowship restored by His grace.

And of course, Jesus’ words cut His disciples to the quick, just as they do people of every age.  Who among us is so willing to lay down our honor, our prestige, our wealth, or our comforts for the sake of others?  Who lives so selflessly that they give no regard to the present life’s baubles and accolades, but instead peers beyond them to see the true eternal realities in which every person struggles, and lays down his own life and resources to care for them?  Which of us wakes up each morning with more concern for others, than they do for themselves?  And to us, as to the disciples when Jesus taught them, His word burns with convicting fire:  If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

In truth, none of us fallen and sinful creatures have the power to deny ourselves as Jesus denied Himself; to take up and bear the same means of our own sacrifice as Jesus took up His Cross; or to follow Jesus on the path of perfection, holiness, and righteousness that He flawlessly walked.  Jesus is indeed the greatest example of love, truth, justice, and holiness which we could ever seek to emulate, but if He were just our example, He would only be a mirror which showed our own failure to be like Him, revealing in every way how far short we fall with every selfish breath we take.  Jesus as our model or our coach saves no one, as we are unable our ourselves to break the chains which bind us, or avoid the just fate of all selfish, prideful, callous, lustful, vindictive, lazy, and wicked souls.  But thanks be to God that Jesus didn’t just come to show us the way to life, presenting us the most perfectly polished mirror of the divine Law, but to actually do the work of saving us from the consequences of that Law, and offering to us the immeasurable grace of His saving Gospel.  Thus Jesus comes to be more than our call to righteousness, but in deed and truth becomes our righteousness; more than our example of the good life marked by selfless love and compassion, but becomes our very life, our love, our compassion; more than our encouragement to walk the narrow path which leads to eternal life and reconciliation with the Father, He is Himself our Way, our Truth, and our Life.  His Word comes to us not only as the condemning command of the Law, but as the free gift of His saving grace.

And how are we to respond to such a Word as our Lord Jesus Christ has brought it to us?  With faith— a faith which He gives to everyone through His Word by His Holy Spirit, which is able to perceive the justice of His Law, and the wonders of His grace.  Leaving not even the work of faith to be done by sinful hearts, Jesus gives this gift to any and all who will hear Him.  His Word, unlike the words of muses and poets, mythical gods and false prophets, is alive and able to accomplish the ends for which it comes:  the salvation of each and every soul.  Into our darkness, our chains, our prison, our despair— our world which we have twisted into the demonic image of selfishness and evil— Jesus comes by His Eternal Word, calling all people to repentance and living, saving faith in Him.  No one is excluded from His call, just as no one was excluded from His sacrifice, nor excluded from His selfless love and compassion.  It was your chains, your prison, your death He saw as He walked resolutely to Calvary, to be humiliated, despised, rejected, condemned, and die.  It was for you that He descended to the dead, and on the third day rose again triumphantly over every power of wickedness and evil in the world.  It was for you that He crashed the gates of hell, that it would no longer be your prison nor your eternal fate.  It was for you that he died, that death might no longer be your master.  It is for you that He lives, that you might forever live with Him.

Hearing Him, what else can we do, but live in Him?  Knowing Him, what else can we do but follow Him?  To the one who has heard Him, known Him, and believed Him, what else can one do but turn from the selfish ways of death and hell, and reflect the selfless love of Jesus to everyone around us?  We who have received the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation in His Name, how can we not deny ourselves the passing trifles of the world, so that others around us might receive the same eternal gifts we have been given?  Having our eyes opened to the distinction between the temporal and the eternal, to the wages of sin and the gift of God’s grace, how can we speak anything other than the fullness of God’s saving Word of Law and Gospel into our lost and dying world?  Knowing the sacrificial, saving love of God for us in Jesus, enlivened in Him through His Holy Spirit and reconciled to the Father for all eternity, how can we see our neighbor with anything less than the love God has shown for both them and us?

And so it is true that the Lord shall come again as He has promised, in the glory of His Father together with all the Holy Angels, and judge every person on the Last Day, giving to every soul that which accords with the life they have lived.  For those who have lived for themselves, disregarding the sacrificial love of God, despising His grace, rejecting His gift of faith, and preferring the chains of their dark prison, theirs will be the fires of hell, bound together with their demonic masters forever.  But for those who have heard the Word of the Lord and kept it, who have embraced the faith and grace they were given and striven to turn from a life of evil, theirs will be the blessed fellowship of the Holy Trinity and the communion of the saints and angels forever— not by the merit of their own works, but by the righteous works of Christ who saved them, and continued to work through them for the good of the whole world.  While the selfish and wicked shall be judged by the severity of the Law apart from the Gospel grace they rejected, the righteous will be judged in the Cross of Christ’s Gospel, who’s blood has saved them from the just consequences of the Law, and whose works in them become their works which follow them into eternity.


To you this saving Word comes today, with all its warning and all its hope, just as it has echoed though the halls of history for thousands of years, and into the ears everyone who would listen.  Hear Him, turn, believe, and live.  Amen.