Pay Day and the Benefits of Grace
Pastor Mathew Magera – 9/24/17 – Sermon 245
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
I was thinking this morning
about the seasons of the church year and how we always have seemed to have our
Tractor blessing Sunday during the season of Pentecost, the season of which the
color is green. I wonder if that means something. And you know, of all the
colors of the church year, green is used the most. Yet, the color green in the
liturgical year is mostly a color to be used during ordinary time. Nothing
special, and gets boring after a while. Red, on the other hand, is not used
that often but it is reserved for some of the most important days in our church
year, including Reformation Day, commemorating the birth of the Lutheran
Church, and Pentecost, the birth of the Christian Church. Unfortunately, orange
is not a color of the church year. Sorry.
But, all this talk of
tractors and their colors brings up a very important point. No matter which
color we are loyal to, we are loyal to it. We stand by it as the best and it
never seems to hurt to poke fun at the other colors every once in a while.
Nevertheless, regardless of their color, tractors do good work in the fields
and they have been a feat of engineering to help farmers do their jobs to
provide for others. We should be more thankful for the tractors themselves, not
for the color of paint that was used to cover them.
The parable of the workers
in the field is easily my favorite of Jesus' parables. It's my favorite because
it is so very real for me. It sets me straight and it gives me a promise. It
never fails to tell me that I'm looking at something with the wrong pair of
glasses and it never ceases to deliver the power of God's special and unique
calling on my life through the promise of forgiveness. This parable is another
example of grace being given in excess and especially when grace is shown on a
day like payday, you can expect some pushback to this kind of generosity. It
convicts the proud and it releases the poor. It convicts the cradle Christian
and it frees the newly converted. It values the young and cautions the old curmudgeon
within us. It’s like a John Deere watching an International roll past the
pearly gates of heaven. We should be happy about it, but something inside us
makes us a little uneasy.
On the outside this parable
is about farming. I'm so glad this parable comes up on this particular day, a
day when we are specifically thinking about farming and tractors. A day when we
are thinking about the workers in the fields and the vineyards, the harvest,
the irrigation of the soil. It takes work to get the job done. It's never over
and many workers are needed to get the job done.
Jesus uses this opportunity
to make a metaphor in this parable. He
describes a daily occurrence when a farmer brings in some unemployed workers
into his field throughout the day. The job must be done by day’s end and he
needs workers. At the end of the day, he pays them. From the last to the first
he pays them each a day's wage. The ones at the back of the line had every
right to be thinking they were going to receive more. It's very possible it
could happen. But, they don't get more. They get what was agreed upon and
jealousy abounds. The problem was not in the money they received, but in the
value that they assumed had been placed on their work. At the end of the day,
those workers who started early in the morning knew they were going to receive
a day's wage. They knew it. They agreed upon it. They made that contract and
they went to work. As they lined up to be paid there likely was nothing else on
their mind except getting that day's wage. It was only when they saw the others
being paid a similar amount, that same amount they agreed to and that same
amount they received, that drove them into frustration. "They didn't work
all day, why should they get the same pay? They don't deserve that!" Isn't
that the nature of grace? Getting something one does not deserve? Those who
started early in the day felt they were better, superior, far excelling those
who started later. The others didn't deserve that day's wage. But, they got it
anyway. If the green tractor doesn’t start until later in the afternoon, should
it still be as important as the red one and the orange one that have been
working all day?
There are times when we feel
we are better than someone else because we have more experience than they do.
We just want to be one step ahead of somebody else and Jesus is saying that
when it comes to the kingdom there is no place for that kind of talk. There is
no being one step ahead of someone else. Yet, in this world, in our daily
lives, that is all we do. We, almost naturally, will use our size, our
experience, our knowledge and we will try to use it as leverage to put
ourselves on a higher pedestal.
The SR-71 Blackbird was one
of the fastest, highest flying planes ever built. There's one on display down
at AirZoo in Kalamazoo. A marvel of an airplane. Major Brian Shul of the US Air
Force recounts a story about one day he was flying the SR-71. He and his
co-pilot were doing a training mission and it was a day they would never
forget. They were out just trying to build up their hours. So, they'd take off
from Sacramento, head up to Idaho and Montana, zip down over Denver, hang a
right over Albuquerque, head out over the coast, north to Seattle and back down
to Sacramento and they could do it in 2 hours 21 minutes. And they would do
this route over and over so they could build their hours.
So, on this particular day,
they were over Tucson, Arizona and they are so high up they can see downtown
Los Angeles. That's the view at 89,000 feet. They're so high they don't even
have to worry about other planes but they still have to have the radio on and
so they're monitoring a few different radio frequencies that are talking to the
planes thousands of feet beneath them and so they're listening to the Los
Angeles Center radio, which controls a portion of the southwest United States.
They know they are on the radar screen but they’re above the point in which
they need to have two-way communication with them. There is no reason to talk
to anybody, nobody else is up there.
Now, being a pilot myself, I
enjoy talking on the radio. I love interacting with all of the airliners and
business jets out there and when I talk with air traffic control, I feel like
I’m one of them. They make me feel as important as an airliner. I like to fly
down and do some practice down at Grand Rapids airport. Here I am in my little Cessna
pulling up behind a 737 waiting to take off at the Grand Rapids airport and to
the tower, I'm just as important as they are.
And so these SR-71 pilots
are listening to the radio as they cruise over southern Arizona and California.
As they listened a small Cessna calls up and wants to know his ground speed. Now,
nearly every plane, this Cessna included, has a gauge in their plane telling
them their airspeed, but that has nothing to do with how fast you are moving
over the ground and ground speed is important in navigation and fuel
calculations. With the changes in wind, ground speed changes all the time. So,
this little Cessna calls up, "LA Center, Cessna 1TA, have you got a ground
speed reading on us?" Now, this is a little Cessna. He's nothing compared
to the big jets hanging around the area and maybe air traffic control doesn’t
want to worry about him but they will talk to him like he's John Glenn.
"Cessna, 1TA, we have you 90 knots, 9-0 knots across the ground." And
that simple exchange of words was all it took for something to get started.
A short while later, a Twin
Bonanza called up, maybe he was working on cross country navigation or maybe he
was trying to show off. "LA Center, Bonanza 8BE have you got a ground
speed readout for us?" Maybe a little bigger than a Cessna but still of no
significance compared to larger planes. Yet, ATC talks to him like he's Air
Force One. "Bonanza 8BE, we show you 120, 1-2-0 knots across the
ground." Oh, it was on now. A Navy F-18 called up and you knew he was a
navy pilot because he talked so smooth. "Center, Dusty 52, speed
check." But, wait a minute. This guy is flying a multi-million dollar
fighter jet. He's got state of the art navigation and a groundspeed readout
right in his cockpit, what's he calling up for? Oh wait. He wants everyone to
know he is the biggest baddest military jet in the sky today. He's taking his
F-18 and screaming it over Death Valley and he wants everyone to know what real
speed is. And you could almost hear a little smile coming from ATC as he thinks
this is the end of all of this nonsense. "Dusty 52, we show you 620, 6-2-0
knots across the ground." After that, there wasn't an airliner from
Seattle to San Diego that wanted to be next on the frequency. But there was
still one person reaching for the radio.
From the back seat of the
SR-71 Blackbird comes this, "LA Center Aspen 30, have you got a ground
speed readout for us?" You could almost hear a collective gasp on
frequency like, "oh, the poor fools didn't hear the previous
transmissions, oh they're going to get crushed like a grape.” But, ATC had to
give that same voice. "Aspen 30, we show you 1,992 knots across the
ground." You'd think that would have done it, until the same pilot clicked
the microphone again and said, "Center, we're showing a little closer to
2,000."
It’s good to feel important.
Those of us who have been Christians a long time feel important. We feel like
we're experienced, knowledgeable and ready for anything and we are greatly
looking forward to our reward of eternal life when that day comes. But, when
someone becomes a Christian later in life we have a tendency to get all bent
out of shape on the inside. Why do they get so much grace? I mean, we're glad
for them and happy for them, but who hasn't sunk into that state of mind when
you almost wish you were grabbed by grace a little later in life? This person
has been able to have fun in life a lot longer than I have. This person has had
the opportunity to sleep in on Sundays, not worry about coming to church for
Bible studies or fundraisers. They haven't had to read the Bible or study the
Small Catechism, go through confirmation. They haven't had to sit through
arguments on carpet colors or paint or budget meetings. They've been able to
sin all their life and not have a care about it. They could do it and not even
feel guilty about it. And we can't help but feel a little bit of jealousy. We
start to value our time in ridiculous portions and we see a new Christian and
we see them as a receiver of the same reward as us and we don’t always like it.
When Jesus tells this
parable, he's pulling out this very thought process. He's putting us on the
spot and telling us that he doesn't care when a person is given faith but it is
more important that they receive it than to hear those first workers grumble
about what they're getting. We are each called to work in God's kingdom. Some
of us receive that call early, some receive it later. Maybe we've spent our
lives being lazy and avoiding the call. Maybe we've had a good excuse. But it
doesn't matter. He's calling. And he's offering us a reward and that reward is
our very freedom. He offers it to us regardless of when we receive the call. To
those who have missed the early calls, that reward is worth much more but it is
still the same reward.
God has chosen to forgive us
of our sins and welcome us into eternal life. God has chosen to do this, he has
chosen to call you and he has chosen to give you a reward. But, God didn't have
to. He could've turned you away. He could've left you on the side of the road
but he didn't. He saw you, he knew you were missing something, he knew you
needed something that others could not provide and he picked you up and he took
you to his field. We need to refocus ourselves on the gift that has been given
to us. For if we do not see the value of the gift that has been given to us, we
begin to judge the value of the gifts received by others and we end up in a
competition for who is the best. Nobody wants to be at the bottom. Nobody wants
to be the slowest. Nobody wants to have the least. What we don't realize is
that nobody has the least. We all have the same. The only reason we believe we
have the least is because of the value we put on it. The gift is still the
same. In the end we are not receiving less.
Through it all, Jesus wants
us to be changed. He wants to change our attitude, he wants to change our
focus, he wants to change our hearts. And though he wants us to be changed, one
thing still remains the same at the end of the day. The pay and the benefits of
His grace. At the end of the day, whether we have worked all day or whether we
have only mustered to work one hour of it, that grace is still there for us.
Some days that grace will mean more to us, especially those days where we feel
we have not put in as much work. Other days, after long hard hours we may feel
like we deserve more. Regardless of that day, God's grace is for you and you will
have what has been promised to you from the beginning. At the end of the day,
you still receive that reward.
Jesus tells this parable so
that we might not forget what we have been promised. Don't forget what you were
promised when you received the call on your life. Do not forget the value of
what was promised to you when you were standing out on the side of the road
waiting for something to come your way. When nothing did, Jesus came for you.
When all your hope began to fade, no matter what time of the day you were
called to work in His field, Jesus came. Jesus stopped. Jesus reached out to
you and brought you to his field and he promised to give you what was right.
And now, it's up to him to deliver on that promise and we can be assured that
he will not forget us. He will not forget the promise he gave to us.
So, on this Sunday when we
bless the tractors and consider the farmers, the history of working in the
fields, let us not forget about God's calling on our lives to work in his
fields and let us never forget the promised pay and benefits of grace that were
undeservingly offered to us. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.