Matthew 19:27-20:28
“For Those Bent on Power, Position and Prestige”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN eastridgeumc.org
A pastor was serving as a hospital chaplain, and noticed the extraordinary care given by one particular nurse.
She was usually working the night shift, but never used the slower time as a means to slack-off.
Instead, she was constantly busy, checking every patient on a very regular basis, and often holding hands with those who were fearful of surgery, praying with the dying, and reading to those who couldn’t sleep due to their pain or anxiety.
The chaplain stopped to thank her for her exceptional nursing care.
It seemed to make such a difference for those whom the chaplain came to visit as a pastor.
He asked her if she ever got tired from her exhausting hours and often thankless job.
“Not at all,” she told him. “In fact, every night I am adding jewels to my crown.”
That kind of surprised him, so he asked her what she meant.
“Our Lord has promised to reward our good deeds,” she replied.
“If my tally is correct, I now have 1,374 jewels in my crown in heaven.”
Suddenly, the chaplain saw her through new eyes.
The person he had admired for her inner beauty, tender care, and sacrificial service became as he explained it, “in an instant a greedy religious ogre, choosing to locate herself in spots where more heavenly goods could be looted from her unsuspecting prey.”
It made him sick.
Jesus’ parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is really a response to Peter’s question in Chapter 19:27, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
It is also an explanation of what Christ means in Chapter 19:30 when He says, “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”
This parable also speaks to us about God, and what kind of God we have.
Think about the last group of workers, the ones who were hired when only one hour of the day was left.
We might wonder why they hadn’t been spotted before.
The landowner asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?”
“Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.”
In other words, “Nobody has given us a job. Nobody has wanted us.”
They were, perhaps, the sort of people who lived on the margins.
Perhaps they were the “outcastes.”
They may not have come from the “right side of the tracks.”
Perhaps they weren’t blessed to have been born into loving and nurturing homes.
Maybe they had some mental disabilities or mental illness.
Maybe they were ugly, smelly, difficult to look at.
They weren’t the so-called “beautiful people” of the world.
They hadn’t been given the breaks that so many take for granted.
But the landowner hired them, and paid them the same as the people who had been slaving away all day in the heat of the sun.
As in so many of Jesus’ stories, the Landowner obviously represents God, and the workers are those who are saved by God.
And Jesus intends the parable as a warning to the disciples themselves about their attitudes and as a warning to us as well.
People who work in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle.
In reality, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everyone else) with God’s generous grace!!!
The early Church needed to learn this lesson, and in all reality, is there anywhere in today’s Church that doesn’t need to be reminded of this as well?
And after-all, weren’t all of us, at some point, standing in the marketplace until God came and called us into God’s Kingdom?
We are all sinners.
Paul in Romans Chapter 6:23 explains that “The wages of sin is death.”
Abandonment.
Oblivion.
Darkness.
Hell.
This was going to be my plight!
But, ah!
The incredible grace of Jesus Christ calls me to faith, to redemption.
Jesus saved me from my purposeless, self-absorbed existence into His Kingdom!!!
I became one of His co-laborers!
Oh, the dignity of it all!!!
And Jesus rewards me!!!
And it’s just a free gift, it is not something I have or could possibly earn.
And the fruit of Jesus’ efforts in my life, and my effort in Him, is “love, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.”
And my drab, mundane existence has been altered forever!!!
My waiting is over.
I have a purpose!!!
I am wanted!!!
I am fairly paid!!!
And there is much, much work to be done…
…work done, not for the pay…
…but because of the love already lavished on me.
But nonetheless, I am well-paid, I am well-paid, I am fairly paid—the same as all who answer God’s call…
Glory be to God; blessed be the One Who shed His blood for me—even me!!!
Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!!!
God has saved me from hell!!!
Perhaps there is someone here this morning and you hang your head saying, “It’s too late for me. I’m too old, too sinful, too…whatever!!!”
But look!!!
God gets the first laborers to work and then throughout the day God returns again and again and again to the public marketplace hiring any and all who are willing to go into God’s fields to help with the harvest.
No matter who you are.
No matter what you have done.
No matter where you come from.
Jesus is saying, “It is not too late for you! There is more than enough room in God’s purposes for you.”
Do you remember Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted of so many ghastly murders?
He became a devout Christian in his short time before being executed.
His behavior changed during that time, and the former deliberate murderer who stalked his victims and tortured many of them, who had previously shown no remorse became very sorry for the terrible sins of his past.
Yes.
Jesus clearly says that the last to be hired have been “idle” all day, and yet when the pay is handed out at the end of the day those who came to work most recently are told to get their reward first.
Everyone else gets to see what it is they earned.
And so when it is their turn to be paid they become infuriated that their pay is the same.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
The world tells us, “You get what you deserve, He had it coming, She made her own bed; now she has to lie in it.”
And although there are causes and effects in this universe, the Kingdom of God is all about God and God’s grace.
It really isn’t about us at all.
It’s about God’s amazing love.
It’s about God’s character.
It’s about God’s desire to save the persons God has created.
And the “hundred times as much…and inheriting eternal life” is for everyone, equally no matter what time they came into the Kingdom.
Indeed, when you think about it, there is kind of a strangeness about the way many of us tend to jump into Jesus’ story.
A lot of us might quickly assume that we are part of the group of workers hired early in the day.
Maybe that has to do with our years as faithful church members.
Maybe we get that from the historic strength of the Church in our communities or nation.
But why should we view it that way?
Why should we ever have some secret suspicion that someone else is getting a better deal that we are?
Maybe we need to reposition ourselves in the parable in order to appreciate better the character of God’s grace.
Who knows?
It may well be that we are the last to arrive.
After Jesus tells His disciples this parable, He again says to them that they are heading to Jerusalem where Jesus will be put to death.
But the disciples seem to think that Jesus is just using some kind of picture language for the great victory He is going to win…
…which in a sense, this is true, but not at all in the way they think.
So James and John come with their mother.
She’s had a bright idea, or perhaps it was their idea all along: when Jesus sits on His throne, as they all know He’s going to do, why not have her two sons on either side of Him?
And this request opens a window for us on the whole sordid business of power.
And when the other disciples get angry with James and John, it’s probably not because they were too pure minded to have had similar thoughts and desires, but simply because James and John got to Jesus first.
It’s been said that young politicians try and guess who’s going to be powerful.
They attach themselves to him or her, so that if they’ve guessed right they will be rewarded handsomely for their early allegiance.
People play games like that all the time.
It produces cheap “loyalty” that is not worth much, hollow “friendships” that don’t go deeper than the outward smile, and easy betrayals when things go wrong.
That’s the level James and John were working at as well.
So Jesus called the disciples together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
Not so with you.
Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Very humbling words are they not?
Especially for those of us who are only working for the accolades!!!
Jesus said to them, “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
The Old Testament prophets speak darkly about the “cup of God’s wrath.”
These passages in the Old Testament talk about what happens when the One God, grieving over the awful wickedness of the world, steps in to give the violent and bloodthirsty, the arrogant and oppressors the reward for their ways and deeds.
It’s as though God’s holy anger against such people is turned into wine: dark, sour wine which will make them drunk and helpless.
The shock of what Jesus says is that Jesus speaks of drinking this cup Himself!!!
No wonder the disciples couldn’t grasp the idea!
They were getting eager to become rich and famous.
They were starting to become bent on power, position and prestige.
They were becoming, perhaps, just a little arrogant…kinda like the rulers of the world.
Had they, so soon, forgotten the Sermon on the Mount?
Jesus says that He has come to “give his life as a ransom for many.”
A “ransom,” in that world, is what someone might pay to give freedom to a slave.
Jesus’ approaching fate was and is the payment that would set free many who are enslaved in sin and wickedness, and also those who are in the grips of the lust for power and position—yes, people like James and John.
And maybe even people like me and you!!!
The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, along with the passages which follow answer Peter’s question and our own.
“What then will there be for us?”
The answer?
Christ’s justice, Christ’s sovereignty, and Christ’s graciousness.
Jesus is the cause, the harvest, the labor, the capital, the calling, and the wages!!!
And, Lord willing, we are reminded that Jesus is the Boss, not we ourselves!
Let us pray: Lord, if You are willing, we will come. Set us to work with no thought of ourselves. For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen.
