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The Master of the House said, “I want to give to this last one as I also gave to you.”

᛭ INI ᛭

The next three weeks serve as a countdown not to Lent but to Easter. (Today we’re about 70 days until Easter.) Putting this counter before Lent focuses our attention not on our Lenten preparation, or prepping for our Lenten preparation, but rather on our Lord’s Resurrection. Gesimatide drops the benefits of Good Friday and Easter right in our laps! This has to do with what each respective week is all about.

All of the propers for each week fit tightly together. (The “propers” are the portions of the service that are proper or fitting or appropriate for that specific day, usually determined by the Gospel reading.) Now all the propers for the gesimas: the Old Testaments, the Epistles, the Gospels, the Introits, Graduals, and Tracts are unified in their treatment of the traditional Reformation Solas: sola gratia, sola Scriptura, and sola fide. That is: by grace alone, by Scripture alone, and by faith alone.

Today: sola gratia, by grace alone. “Grace” means “the favor of God,” that is to say God’s undeserved, unmerited favor. And because of that focus today, we get a Parable about the Kingdom of Heaven, to see how it “works” in Jesus’ heavenly Kingdom, that is, the “one holy Christian and apostolic Church.”

(2. The world is a Kingdom of works.)

So, if we’re being told how things work in Jesus’ Kingdom, we have to consider how things work outside of His Kingdom. When it comes to how things work in the world, well, the world works by works! The world is a Kingdom of works! We hear worldly wisdom in the complaint of the first workers: “These last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have born the burden and heat of the day!”

Nothing more worldly could be spoken! That’s just how life works. Isn’t it? “No pain, no gain.” The saying goes. In fact, it’s not just “no pain, no gain.” It’s “more pain, more gain!” The harder you work the more benefit. The more you put in the more you get out. You work more, you get paid more, even overtime! The early bird catches the worm. You’ve gotta burn the midnight oil, the candle at both ends.

That sort of system, a Kingdom of Works, of Payment, of Due, is also a Kingdom of Penalty. The default of the Kingdom of works is not clemency, is not pardons, is not forgiveness. Especially of the unmerited variety. For example, presidential pardons are politically charged, and we always look at them with suspicion. (They’re just letting off their cronies anyway.) The guilty shouldn’t be pardoned. We all know that.

This plays out in the world because because of our Flesh, our “sinful nature” as it’s called in the Catechism, our “Old Adam” as Paul calls it in Romans. As much as our Flesh is a Frat Boy, living however it wants with whatever makes it feel good, our flesh is also “righteous” in its life. That is to say, there’s honor among thieves. We are legal beings. We naturally live by rules and regulations. Even modern woke-ism does this. It’s just a different legal framework, with those who are guilty, who get no pardon, and those who are righteous and are heroes.

And the fruit of such legal Kingdom, a Kingdom of works: we’re all set at odds with each other. No one’s equal in that sort of Kingdom. We’re fighting, scraping our way through the world. Putting others down who stand in the way of our pursuit of having. They lessen our success, our gain, our benefit and blessing.

(Transition.)

That’s how it works in the world. Now there’s still room—only a little!—for clemency, for pardon. But it’s for those who deserve it, or who at least deserve a break or a second chance. (That’s the exception not the rule.)

Christ’s Kingdom, as we shall see, is the exact opposite. In fact, to put it briefly, in Christ’s Kingdom clemency, pardon, mercy, forgiveness is the rule—no exceptions!

(1. Jesus’ Kingdom is a Kingdom of Grace.)

I say that because Jesus’ heavenly Kingdom is a Kingdom not of works but of grace, of undeserved and unmerited favor. That’s the only sort of favor we have—undeserved. Undeserved pardon. Unearned clemency. Unmerited forgiveness. All in Christ Jesus, of course. It’s all for His sake, not yours. “Not a result of works so that no one may boast.”

The workers in the vineyard were offended because there was an equality of outcome! They were fine with equality of opportunity. “Sure give those guys a shot, too. Let ‘em work an hour.” But when those last ones got a full days wage, “they thought they’d receive more.” But they didn’t. The last were made equal with the first. But that’s exactly the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven! “I want to give to them as I gave to you.” Equal in what they receive.

There’s an equality of outcome because of who Jesus is. He chooses to give out His favor, His grace both without any regard to good works and without any regard to sins. You works don’t make it more. Your sins, your idleness, don’t make it less. Paul puts it this way, “But to him who does not work but believes in the One who justifies the ungodly—his faith is credited as righteousness.”

It’s because grace is based not on merit but on the death of Jesus. Sure, in the world a criminal only gets a lessened sentence or parole, maybe, for good behavior. But in Christ’s church, it’s founded upon Jesus’ death. The payment—His holy precious blood and innocent suffering death for you and for all. One hour, twelve hours—neither matter to Jesus! He died for our works. He died for our sins. He gives out His cross-won mercy, forgiveness, and favor to all equally.

The outcome of that isn’t that we’re equal in the Church. That’s still old Adam measurement. The wonderful message about how we relate to one another in Jesus’ is that

WE’RE MORE THAN EQUAL—WE’RE ONE!—IN JESUS’ KINGDOM.

We’re one not just in our “wage”—God’s unmerited favor on account of Christ. We’re One in our Baptism. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

And in this Kingdom, this Vineyard of God, we’re not equal but one in the Fruit of Vine. One in the Cup. One in the Bread, so one Body. For Paul says, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is a communion of the blood of Christ. The bread that we break is a communion of the body of Christ. Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

WE’RE MORE THAN EQUAL—WE’RE ONE!—IN JESUS’ KINGDOM.

(Conclusion.)

Today: sola gratia, by grace alone. “Grace” means “the favor of God,” that is to say God’s undeserved, unmerited favor. (Dropping the benefits of Good Friday and Easter right in our laps!) Today, with the parable of the workers in the vineyard we see how it “works” in Jesus’ heavenly Kingdom, that is, the “one holy Christian and apostolic Church.”

The world is a Kingdom of Works where there’s still room—only a little!—for clemency, for pardon. But it’s for those who deserve it, or who at least deserve a break or a second chance. (That’s the exception not the rule.) It’s never unmerited or undeserved.

Christ’s Kingdom is the exact opposite. In Christ’s Kingdom clemency, pardon, mercy, forgiveness is the rule—no exceptions! There it’s always unmerited, undeserved. It’s based on Christ’s death. Within the Church there’s equality of outcome. It’s all grace.

If you want to hang on to your fairness, to you’ve done more and better than your fellow worker, “take what is yours”—your “fairness”—“and go.” (Same goes for those who’d rather have their sins.) You’d have your works, your sins all the way out of the vineyard.

But not so in the Vineyard, within the “one holy Christian and apostolic Church” we’re not just equal.

WE’RE MORE THAN EQUAL—WE’RE ONE!—IN JESUS’ KINGDOM.

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” In Holy Baptism, “we are all one in Christ Jesus.” So also His Supper: one “because we all partake of the one bread.” Thus we are one body in the body and blood of Jesus. So it is,

WE’RE MORE THAN EQUAL—WE’RE ONE!—IN JESUS’ KINGDOM.

One in grace, in the forgiveness of your sins.

᛭ INI ᛭