God Isn't Fair!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 20:1-16
This morning, I’d like to invite you to hear a summary of Professor Daniels’ class, Life 101. Here it is: Life is unfair. You don’t need to enroll in the course, do you? You already know that life is unfair. You know often people whose only qualification is the ability to butter up their superiors become successful. You know that kids who toil away at getting good grades and being good citizens get far less recognition than the ones who can shoot a basketball or hit home runs. You know that bad things happen to good people.

Life is unfair, meaning that when we come to a passage of Scripture like our Gospel lesson for this morning, we get upset. In this parable from Jesus, the landowner stands in for God. Jesus says that this parable tells us what the Kingdom of God is like and it dawns on us that God is unfair too. It isn't fair that people who work for one hour get the same wage as those who baked and sweated while working in the hot sun all day long.

So, here’s the summation of my Life 102 course: God isn’t fair; God is gracious!

Grace is a word we throw around a lot in church. But what is it? Well, an old acrostic takes the letters of the word—G-R-A-C-E—and says that grace is God’s redemption at Christ’s expense.

In other words, because of His charitable love for us, God buys us out of our slavery to sin, death, and pointless living through Christ’s death on the cross.

We don’t deserve the grace of God—it isn’t fair for Him to give us blessings we haven’t earned and can’t earn, but God gives grace to all who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Jesus Christ.

So, in addition to revealing that God isn’t fair, the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson also shows us that God’s grace is an absolute gift. He does this by showing us several truths I want to talk about right now.

First: God seeks us out and extends grace to us. God reaches out to us with grace.

I meet people all the time who say that they’re looking for God or looking for the answers to life’s questions.

Now, God and life will always be shrouded in some mystery for us. After all, we’re all only human. There are limits to our wisdom, our strength, our brainpower.

But we don’t have to look for God or for the meaning of life. In Jesus Christ, God has reached out to us. God can be known by anyone who is willing to be found.

Jesus says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father but through Me.” No mystery there!

And this Savior Who has died and risen for us comes to us to extend His grace, a freely-given passport to a daily relationship with God in this world and in eternity beyond.

Many of you know Fred Meuser, the former president of Trinity Lutheran Seminary. One day, Fred took several seminary students, including me, out for lunch. He told us, “I was raised in a Christian home and I don’t remember a single moment in my life when I didn’t believe in Jesus.” I read a few years ago that nearly twenty years into retirement, he’s a volunteer tutor in an elementary school in Florida, teaching kids how to read. Fred heard the call of God to His vineyard as a baby in his parents’ arms and he’s spent his life serving in Christ’s Name.

Someone you wouldn’t know is a man I'll call Roy. Roy lived in Clermont County, where we lived for seventeen years. Roy spent most of his life running away from God. And he made a mess of most of his relationships along the way. Then in his seventies, Roy was dying of cancer. He’d read about a new Lutheran church in the area and about the crazy pastor who was going door-to-door to invite people to worship. Roy called me up. “I haven’t been in church for forty years or more,” he said. “I was never baptized. I want to be right with God.” He invited me to his home and we talked about God’s gracious offer of new life to all who believe and are baptized. A few days later, with several family members and friends on hand, Roy was baptized in his living room. Roy opened his ears to God’s call to His vineyard on the brink of death.

It isn’t fair, but it is gracious that the same promise of life with God belongs to both Fred and Roy...and to you and me. In Christ, God is in the business of reaching out, extending grace to all. No matter when we receive it, it’s ours!

So, truth #1, God extends grace to us. Truth #2: God doesn’t give grace based on what we do. The early hires in Jesus’ parable didn’t like the fact that the last hired were given the same pay they received.

Often, we in the Church act as though membership should have special privileges. And of course, there are privileges associated with being part of the Church: We have an extended Christian family with whom we share worship and service in Jesus’ Name, with whom we receive Baptism and Communion, and with whom we can laugh and cry and grow strong in faith. Those are huge privileges.

But these are gifts God grants to us not because we have seniority or because we’ve served long terms on Church Council or because we’ve worn holes in the same pews for fifty years. And they don’t come to us because of all the work we’ve done at church. They are free gifts that God is also willing to give to all who turn to Jesus Christ. Paul writes in the New Testament book of Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” God doesn’t give grace based on what we do. God gives grace based on the fact that He is unfair: He loves everyone and wants all to turn to Him and live.

Here’s Truth #3: In God’s grace, all who believe in Him are given useful work as a way of honoring God. In Jesus’ parable, the landowner calls otherwise idle people to work in his vineyard. You know, God never meant for work to be seen as punishment. From the beginning, before the fall into sin, God gave Adam, the first man, work to do. It’s partly because of this that my heart aches for the people here in Hocking County and the people across our state and nation who are unemployed right now. We human beings were made to work, each of us using our talents not just to provide for our families, but to glorify the God Who gave us those talents.

For the Christian, whether in our daily work or in the mission of the Church, work is a calling from God, a way of expressing thanks to God for all His blessings. And, folks, within the Church, there is a lot of work to do, many ways for you and me to thank God for those blessings.

I learned this lesson well from a member of my former parish. Steve is the last guy in the world you’d expect to teach a children’s Sunday School class. His own kids are mostly raised and he spends his days doing highly technical work, developing new products for a company that produces thermostatic instruments. (I have no idea what that means.) For kicks, he coaches high school kids in rec league basketball and restores cars that have been totaled. He chaired our congregation’s building program a few years ago. He led the men’s Bible study. In other words, Steve lives with a full plate. But when we were having a hard time recruiting anyone to teach the third, fourth, and fifth graders on Sunday mornings, Steve stepped up. There’s no razzle-dazzle in Steve’s lesson plans. But he’s been at it for several years now and the kids love being in his class. God has given him useful work in the kingdom.

Just this past week, Ann and I met a man who is eighty. It somehow came out in our conversation that last Sunday, he worked in the church nursery. I learned that he has a three-announcement rule. If announcements asking for volunteers have been made three times at church and nobody else comes forward, he volunteers. “I like to read Bible stories to the kids,” he told us.

The examples of Steve and that man and so many other faithful workers in God’s vineyard confront me with a daily question, “What might I do today to tell God, ‘Thank You’ for Jesus Christ and His cross and the new life that’s mine as a gift of grace?”

I hope that whenever there’s an opportunity to serve or be part of a ministry, whether here at Saint Matthew or in your daily life, you’re asking yourself what you might do to honor and glorify God.

Don’t say...
I’m too old,
I’m too young,
I’m too inexperienced,
I’m lacking in talent,
I don’t have the time,
I don’t know enough about the Bible,
I haven’t been trained.
Just heed God’s call and God will give you not only useful work, but a way to do it.

One thing I tell myself is that if Jesus can make a meal for thousands from a few fish and scraps of bread, He’s surely able to make something good of my measly efforts. God can do things through you—can give you useful work—when you heed His call.

God isn’t fair. Thank God for that! Instead God is gracious.

• God extends grace to us, reaching out to us, happy whether we come to follow Him as children or as senior citizens.
• God doesn’t give grace based on what we do, instead loving us just as we are.
• And by God’s grace, all who follow Him are given work to do that uses our gifts, honors God, and extends Christ’s love to others.

This week and every week, hear God’s call to work in His vineyard and, working side by side with Christ and the Church, experience all that it means to be fully alive!

[A portion of the outline for this sermon was inspired by one from Michael Duduit, which appeared here.]