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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
There’s a lot of talk today about justice and equality and fairness in the public arena. And people can be very quick to point out injustice and inequality and unfairness. Take the parable in the gospel reading for today, where five different guys start work at five different times and get the same pay. That doesn’t seem just; it doesn’t seem equal; it doesn’t seem fair. So the workers who are hired first grumble and say, “Hey, these last worked only one hour, and you’ve made them equal to us. And we have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” Those grumblers seem justified. That doesn’t seem fair. And we might think so, too.
But this parable is a lesson that Jesus is trying to teach his disciples, showing them how things work in God’s kingdom. The parable teaches us how God deals with people equally. That is how He deals with sinners. Yeah, this parable is called the parable of the vineyard workers, but it could also be the parable of the sinners.
So is it fair? Is it fair that the Master gives the same pay to all of the workers equally? Likewise then, as this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven and how things work with God, we can ask, is God fair with His forgiveness? So is it fair what this Master does, and is it fair what God does? Yes. And no.
Yes, it’s fair because the master says to the grumblers, “I’m doing you no wrong. You agreed to work for a denarius, and that’s what you got.” The master paid the first workers what was promised to them. Totally fair, right? But what about those who worked less and got the same pay? Is that fair? Yes, because that’s the way the master wants it. That’s what the master wants to do. And he says to those grumblers, also, the master says, “I choose to give to this last worker as I gave to you, because am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”
The master sees all of the workers as the same and wants to pay them the same. And when it comes to sinners and matters of salvation, Jesus says this is what the kingdom of heaven is like with this parable. He’s saying this is how God operates. This is not an issue of earthly equality or earthly fairness; this is about God’s equality and God’s fairness.
This parable shows how God carries out justice on sinful people equally. This is God’s way. This is God’s justice. This is God’s equality. This is God’s fairness. And God’s way, lots of times, maybe all the time, is not our way. We even heard that in the Isaiah reading, the familiar passage: “Your way is not my way. Your way of thinking is not my way of thinking,” God says. And this is a great example because what we think is fair is not the same as what God has seen as fair.
But yes, God is fair in His equality of forgiveness because He sees all of us the same. Because we are the same, we’re all sinners. Romans chapter 3, “None is righteous, no, not one.” Sounds familiar? Short and sweet right there. Nobody is righteous; we’re all sinners. And Romans 6, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We’re all the same, equally sinners. But God forgives all the same, equally. Because like the Master in the parable, God wants it that way. If for no other reason, this is the way God does things—He forgives equally.
Like the Master, Jesus says, “I choose to give to this last worker” substitute in their sinner. Jesus says, “I choose to give to this last sinner as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” Jesus is saying. “Or do you begrudge my generosity?” People are forgiven because God wants to forgive them. Because He says so. Forgiveness is His to deal with and His to give. That’s what belongs to Him, and this is the way He wants it.
I think of this illustration sometimes about a baseball game. A guy’s on first base, and he’s stealing second base. He’s running to steal second, and he slides into second base, and he’s tagged way before he gets there. He’s obviously out. And the umpire says, “Safe.” Okay? Which one is he? Is he safe or is he out? I mean, he’s obviously tagged out, and the umpire says safe. What is it? He is safe. Why? Because he says so. And you can grumble about that. You can complain about it and call the talk show, sports talk radio show and grumble about it. Or if it goes in the record book, you put a little asterisk by it, but that’s the way that God wants it.
That’s the official. God says, “You are forgiven.” You may not think you are; you don’t deserve it, and that’s right, but He still forgives you anyway because that’s the way God wants it. Again, you may grumble about it; you may not think it’s fair. And especially when you think about, “Hey, there may be other people that I don’t think deserve forgiveness, and I don’t even want them forgiven.” But this is the way it works in the kingdom of heaven. This is how God wants it. No, we don’t deserve it, but this is how God wants it.
So why grumble against God’s generosity? Why grumble against His mercy and His forgiveness? It’s His to do with what He pleases. God’s justice. God’s equality. God’s fairness. Totally fair. So yes, going back to the question, is God fair? Yes, God is fair. But then again, no, He’s not.
This has happened several times. When Marsha and I are teaching Bible to international students—people who have never studied the Bible, not even all that familiar with Christianity—they really respond to the gospel about God’s love and God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness, and they’ll respond with, “That’s not fair.” It happens several times. They’re not grumbling, but they’re saying, “That’s not fair.” Two things are not fair about it in particular. Number one, we don’t deserve that. They’re right, right? We even think that. We don’t deserve forgiveness because we didn’t earn it. We didn’t work for it. That’s not part of the human ethic. No matter how hard, how long, or skillfully we work in the vineyard, it doesn’t matter. And that’s not fair for God to treat us that way—to forgive us to do that, but that’s the way He wants it.
Titus 3, “God saved us not because of works done by us, but according to His own mercy.” And what’s also not fair to these students is where that mercy and forgiveness comes from—why God gives it to us. And it comes from the Master. It comes from Jesus, from His love for the vineyard workers, for His love for sinners. It comes from His suffering and His death and His resurrection. It comes from the completely innocent Son of God taking our punishment on Himself as a sacrifice. It comes from Jesus bearing the burden of the cross and suffering the scorching heat of death. Jesus did not deserve that. And they pick up on that and they say, “That’s not fair.” Jesus shouldn’t have to do that.
And I don’t think they’re grumbling, but maybe it kind of sounds like they’re grumbling, but they’re right. That’s not fair. It’s not fair for the Son of God to die as a sacrifice for us. And Marsha and I, our response, we’ve learned the greatest response to that is, “You’re right.” And we’re really happy about that—that God is not fair. We’re happy that forgiveness and salvation comes from God’s mercy, and it’s not dependent on us. We’re happy that this unfair sacrifice of His Son is given all of this to us. We don’t begrudge His generosity; we just take it, right? We don’t grumble about it; we celebrate it.
We celebrate that our God is not fair, and we don’t deserve it. But they’ll ask again, “Why? Why did Jesus do this? Why did he have to die?” Just this week, students said, “Why didn’t Jesus just go on living and keep teaching His disciples?” I think Jesus had given up on the disciples, where He says, “Ah, you guys.” No, I jest. No. Why did Jesus die? Why didn’t He just keep on living and teaching?
And I love it when they ask that because really the best answer we can give is, “Because He loves you,” would give His life as a sacrifice for you. No, that doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the way God wants it, and wants it for you. That’s His way of justice and equality and fairness because we’re all equal in sin, but He loves us equally. No matter what you’ve done or think you’ve done—little sins, big sins, everything in between—forgiveness and salvation aren’t according to how much you work, but according to God’s generosity.
I think a great response these days, a Christian response to all the problems and the discussion and the upheaval of equality and justice and fairness, I think a good response for Christians is to acknowledge and proclaim the equality of sin. That all of this racism or whatever is coming from sin, and we’ve all got it. It’s not just something that’s in one group of people or certain races of people; it’s in the human race. We should acknowledge that, but also that we’re equally forgiven, equally given God’s grace and forgiveness in the greatest equalizer of Jesus Christ.
That God’s generosity goes beyond color or race or economic status. With God, His grace, His forgiveness is not a matter of race; it’s a matter of grace. It’s a good response today in light of all this. Yeah, there’s equal sin, but there’s equality in forgiveness, and it’s free, and it doesn’t seem fair.
When I was a pastor up in Round Rock, I got a call from a woman who came from Dallas down to Round Rock. She was going to have some surgery in Austin, and she was staying with her family in Round Rock. And she was a Lutheran, and she wanted to see a pastor and receive the Lord’s Supper before her surgery. And I said, “Yeah, sure.”
So I go over to the house she’s staying at in Round Rock, and I get there, and her whole family is there. There are lots of them. There were her children and grandchildren. They’re all sitting there in the living room. I was not expecting that. I was just expecting there would be one-on-one and talking with her, but there they all are. And I’m like, “Okay, whatever. I’m here for her. They can watch.”
And we go through confession and absolution and the Lord’s Supper, and when I finish, one of her grandkids says, “Wow, Grandma, you got off easy. That’s not fair.” And I’m gonna go, “Yes, exactly, that’s the point.” God’s grace and forgiveness is a gift; it’s free, and I know it doesn’t sound fair, but we’re really happy about that.
I meant to say that their family was from a different denomination. They weren’t Lutheran. I needed to add that there, I guess you can figure it out where they were at and what they were thinking, but no. No penance, no indulgences, none of that. Free gift, and no, that doesn’t sound fair. They were grumbling. I should have added, too, they were grumbling. “That’s not fair.” But how wonderfully unfair God is to us, right? How wonderfully fair He is, though, in His generosity.
That’s how the kingdom of heaven works. That’s how God works. And fair or not fair, we praise God for it. Amen.
Now may the grace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.