Service September 20th 2020 Leighmoor Uniting Church
-Rev Barbara Allen
Suggested Hymns
TIS 153: God is love
TIS 738: My Jesus, my Saviour
TIS 129: Amazing Grace
TIS 164: The great love of God
TIS 624: Christ be my leader by night as by day
TIS 619: Have faith in God, my heart
TIS 666: We are marching in the light of God
Prayers of Adoration, Thanksgiving and Confession
Gracious and loving God,
we give you thanks for a crisp, new day, full of promise.
Thank you for helping us through a troubling week, time spent, for the most part, behind closed doors.
We thank you for the scent of spring, for the colours of blossom and bulbs, for the warmer evenings, the lighter mornings.
You are here with us.
We thank you for all that keeps us believing that our lives have meaning,
that the world is full of good,
that our comings and goings are noticed by you,
that disappointment, sickness, fear or death
does not cut us off from you,
that always there shines the light of Jesus Christ
to sparkle in our happiness,
or to lighten our darkest hours.
We thank you that you are a God who goes beyond justice, to overflowing grace,
that though we are forever indebted to you, no weight of debt is held over us.
Thank you for your lavish, undeserved generosity.
And yet, we confess that we do not always look favourably upon your acceptance, forgiveness, and love for others.
We have an ‘us’ and ‘them’ in our minds and hearts that is revealed in our prejudices and discriminations- even though your love accepts everyone.
Forgive us.
We are guarded, reasonable people who choose who and how much we will love, who choose what is deemed ‘sensible.’
Forgive us.
We confess that this can lead to not loving our neighbours,
not hearing the cry of the needy.
Forgive us.
Forgive what we have been,
help us to amend what we are,
and direct us to what we shall be.
Forgive us and renew us.
God keeps no account of wrongs, but assures us in Christ that our debt is completely cancelled.
Our sins are forgiven and forgotten.
We are free to begin again in newness of life, justified by our faith in Christ.
Our sins are forgiven
(Thanks be to God).
Go and live your lives as forgiven people, loved by God,
Amen
Bible Readings
Exodus 16: 2-15
Psalm 105: 1-6, 37-45
Philippians 1: 21-30
Matthew 20: 1-16
Sermon
Jesus told many of his parables, NOT to give us information, BUT RATHER to get our adrenalin flowing!
There were two parables that drew lots of responses when I was a minister in a rural parish: the prodigal son (for most of the farmers were the elder son, staying to work on the farm), and this one, for they could identify with the subject matter. They may even have been one of the hired help.
This week’s parable is one of his best.
The previous two Sunday’s Jesus’ parables in Matthew have dealt with forgiveness
-forgiveness for the community
-forgiveness for ourselves-and how we then forgive others.
We know how hard, how unnatural it is to forgive.
Today, we consider God’s graciousness, God’s abundant gift of grace.
Why does God’s graciousness sometimes cause grumbling? Or whinging?
Part of the problem lies in the verse before today’s parable, and today’s concluding verse:
‘so the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
When we get to the end of today’s parable, and hear ‘so the last will be first, and the first will be last’, it seems as though it is the logical moral to the parable
BUT if we examine the parable carefully, it is a poor fit.
-a poor fit.
As well as parables, there existed groups of ‘sayings’, one liners, that were usually attached to the end of a parable. A bit like Aesop’s fables…the moral is…’
Sometimes the moral at the end of the parable doesn’t seem to fit the story.
The Parable of the Vineyard, unique to Matthew’s gospel, is NOT a parable about the reversal of fortunes
(the first will be last, the last will be first).
-for a REVERSAL implies that someone will be a significant loser.
Nor is it an insider/outsider story, for all the workers get paid the wage agreed upon-no one is left out, or goes away unpaid.
In this parable, everyone seems to win equally-and that is the shock.
The theme is: God’s generosity, which is beyond human comprehension.
This is shocking.
The message of the parable, that everyone receives exactly the same reward-no matter how much or how little effort they have put in-does a number of things:
- It confounds those who expect a type of justice from God which rewards obedience and punishes transgressions;
- It frustrates the pious, who think they will get preferential treatment;
- It unnerves those who think their beliefs are right-and all others inferior to their faith and practice;
- It illustrates that there is no seniority in God’s kingdom.
All will be treated equally-from the disciples, who had left everything in order to follow Jesus-to us.
From those who have left everything, or cloistered themselves in monasteries, or have worked hard at salvation-seeing their hard work as a way to earn salvation?
Is that how we look at God’s generosity?
We can’t earn God’s love.
We can’t earn God’s love.
BUT how often do we work or act as though we can?
No, we don’t go around helping others in order to score Brownie points-we do it BECAUSE we can’t help but help others, BECAUSE we follow Christ’s example of love.
BUT we hear this parable and say:
“What about the vineyard owner’s actions? He is a good employer, he follows the law-Leviticus 19:13 ‘You shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning.’ The employer, faithfully, pays his day-labourers before the sun sets,
BUT his payment method is somewhat eccentric,
even torturous.
By paying the workers in the reverse order from which they were hired-the first-hired have to stand and watch it all happen. Agony!
And, of course, the first-hire workers object loudly:
‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’(vs 12).
And what does the employer do?
He responds to them in an unexpected way-in spite of their anger, in vs 13 he answers with the word ‘friend.’
‘friend.’
By using the word ‘friend’ he is saying that he understands their outrage-but at the same time reminds them that he is in fact paying them exactly what they contracted for at the beginning of the day.
He is not cheating them.
Like God-the employer is both just and merciful.
The employer is just, in that those who were hired first, receive a just reward, one to which they had already agreed.
The employer is merciful, he pays all his workers equally, and what had been agreed on.
We, as Christians, hear in this parable, a reminder of Jesus’ controversial ministry among those whom the rest of society despised- and his generous promises to them. According to Matthew 21: 31, though every believer is promised a place in the Kingdom, it is the tax collectors and prostitutes, the marginalized, the outcasts-NOT the pious or the self-sacrificing-who enter first:
Matthew 21: 31: ‘Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you.”
This parable is unsettling-it unsettles the comfortable faithful by reminding them to walk in line behind those to whom they are most tempted to feel superior.
What a sting there is in this parable!
A slap on the hand!
It is not only a parable about generosity-or God’s grace
-but it is also about judgement.
vs 15, when the employer says ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
-that last part: ‘or are you envious because I am generous?’
The insiders, who can’t accept the scope of God’s acceptance and generosity, God’s inclusion,
vs our ‘keeping score.’
Book keeping.
There is no minimum balance below which the grace of God refuses to forgive.
Don’t worry about who is in the red-WE ARE ALL IN THE RED!
Eternally in debt.
BUT
We have all been invited to the party-we haven’t WORKED our way in-we have been INVITED in.
Salvation-it isn’t about accounting, or keeping score. Or balancing the books.
We have to let go of our accounting, of keeping score, and allow God to be as reckless, as generous, as extravagant as God wants to be.
Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that good news?
Grace, judgement-and generosity.
The grace of God in Christ is amazing-but it can also be exasperating.
When God’s grace is grace for everyone-even those whom we regard as ‘losers’-we grumble
because God’s ways are not our ways.
Just as forgiveness is not natural
-it is natural-all too natural
for us to weigh up, and to judge.
Let us give thanks for Jesus’ generosity, and pray that he continues to party with and welcome-the sinners, the marginalized, for he loves the losers, the outcast, and you… and… me.
Grace goes beyond sums, which hope to make an equation equal.
Grace reaches out to love-not just equally-but beyond that, to love extravagantly, abundantly-holding nothing back.
Let us pray
Lord, we have nothing, we are nothing, we can do nothing-except by your grace.
Take us as we are.
Accept us, even in our weakness.
Forgive us for our failings.
Help us to accept the amazing truth that you love others as much as you love us.
Lord, help us to celebrate your extravagant grace and not to resent it when your extravagant grace is offered to all.
Amen
Prayers of the People
We pray for all who live with uncertainty and confusion, doubt and despair.
We pray for those who are ill and in pain today. We especially pray for the terminally ill, and for those who minister to them.
May we be messengers of comfort, with our thoughts, phone calls, emails, and prayers.
We pray for the world in which we live. We pray for justice and peace, seeking those ways that will protect the rights of all.
We pray for those countries struggling with making human rights a reality: for the Philippines, for Sri Lanka.
We pray for an end to all war, all oppression, every act that diminishes the human spirit and robs us of our dignity.
We pray for all animals who are suffering, or are the unfortunate recipients of cruel practices. In light of the recent sinking of a Live Export ship, we pray for an end to dreadful and cruel practices. We pray for all creation.
In a time of silence, we remember others, near and dear to us, who need our prayers.
(silence)
In the words our Saviour taught us, we are confident when we pray to say,
‘Our Father in heaven…’
Amen
Blessing
May God’s hand
keep you from stumbling,
the footprints of Jesus
give you confidence to follow,
and the fire of the Spirit
keep you warm and safe
in your walk with God this day and evermore,
Amen
