Sermon 3

The Third Article.

Of Sanctification.

I believe in the Holy Spirit; one holy catholic Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

What does this mean?—Answer.

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with [His] gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as [He] calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church [He] forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.

Sermon 3 (Article 3):

Matthew 20:1-16

Jonah 4:1-8

Audio Available: https://youtu.be/LQqZHVSyg9s

Let’s be honest about the gospel reading for today—Jesus tells a parable about a land owner who pays everyone the same amount no matter if they started working early in the morning or late in the evening. This is ridiculous! It’s hard for us to hear this parable because this is not how our economic systems work, this is not how our world or our lives work. Our world is one where people are paid according to their work—according to the amount of effort they put forth. We live in a world where we are expected to accomplish something before we get to feel good about ourselves. In this world you’ve got to earn things!!!

I can’t help but consider the American Dream when I consider one’s efforts and the supposed reward.

The American Dream— is the ethos or essence of the United States, a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and an upward mobility achieved through hard work and determination. James Truslow Adams, an American historian from the early 20th century writes, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”. 

How many times have people told us, “Life isn’t fair” and how many times have we groaned in knowing that they’re right but also in exasperation for how arbitrary the whole concept is!

I think we can come up with tons of reason why life isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair because the rich get richer and the poor, well they get poorer. Spouses and children are beaten by individuals who claim to love them, people die before they ought, bombs fall from the sky on the innocent heads of children who have nothing to do with the politics which brought the bombs in the first place, people who never touched a cigarette receive a terminal lung cancer diagnosis, people who worked long and hard for their churches and communities are struck down by disease… From these things we can easily conclude that life is not fair…

Life isn’t fair because we live in a broken world. We live in a world ravaged by sin and death. The enemy fights against God’s goodness and love and brings trial and tribulation to our lives—day in and day out. 

I think Jonah gives us a wonderful insight into how we react to the world around us…. Jonah is angry and goes out of the city and sits in the hot sun. God knows that Jonah won’t get any happier sitting in the sun so God calls forth a bush to shade Jonah’s head. Jonah is happy about the bush and feels a bit better but then night falls and the next morning God destroys the bush. AND Jonah is MAD! Jonah calls out that God should just kill him. God talking to Jonah is like a parent talking to an angsty teenager. Jonah didn’t do anything to deserve the shade, yet God provided it, and when God took the shade from Jonah he was so angry as to wish himself dead. 

How often do we see ourselves playing the role of Jonah? We get angry with God … it happens right in the beginning when Adam and Eve eat the apple Adam says, “It was the woman you gave me! God you’re at fault!” We feel that we have so many reasons to be angry with God, maybe even on a daily basis.  

So life in this world isn’t fair… We blame God, we blame others, and we blame ourselves…

And yet the parable from our Gospel reading today isn’t telling us what our world is like…. we don’t need parables to tell us what our world is like… we can see it all around us. We see the winner takes all mentality, we see money and resources being hoarded by individuals in power, we see the hungry and thirsty, we see that some people who came into the world the same way that you and I did are left homeless and heartbroken.

HERE, in this parable, Jesus tells us what the KINGDOM of Heaven is like…

It’s so hard for us to understand grace and to believe GRACE because of the way our society is set up. We don’t believe that we have done enough to be worthy of God’s unending grace and mercy. We’ve done nothing to deserve GRACE and we’ve done everything to NOT DESERVE GRACE. In continuing our look at the Creed — in the third article of the creed we say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit; one holy catholic Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.”

Luther writes, 

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to [Him]; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with [His] gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as [He] calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church [He] forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.

This is my favorite part of the Creed or any theology period. It gives an incredible amount of hope. I believe that I cannot believe! BUT the HOLY SPIRIT makes me believe, propels me to believe, leads me into service of my bothers and sister, and sustains me! We are forgiven and loved children of God. We are made new by God, day after day. And we are gifted with God’s grace to pull us out of the webs that sin spins around us.

The beauty of grace, my friends, is that it makes life not fair…. For Matthew, the vineyard is the Christian community and those who join early or late will be treated the same. They will be treated as equals!! Jesus is trying to convey to the people that eternal life- - -life forever with God- - - is not a result of human merit… it is a FREE gift from GOD. 

A free gift. It’s not like the usual gift. You don’t get it on your birthday or Christmas… it’s a gift that comes totally unmerited and undeserved. It’s a gift that come totally unwrapped and you have no opportunity to reject it. It’s like falling in love… it happens suddenly and you have no control over it. 

You see, if we have to earn grace, Christ’s role is diminished because reason and philosophy can lead individuals to do good works… BUT we are led by the law, by the dos and don’ts of the Bible, to the foot of the cross… Where the Holy Spirit allows us to see what Christ has already done for us!!!

Weekly we hear the absolution, we hear that “the grass withers and the flowers faded but the word of our God will stand forever. Through that living Word, Jesus Christ, God forgives our every debt, our every sin, and gives us new hearts and a new Spirit.” —- As the Apostle Paul tells us, “Faith comes through hearing…” In the hearing of this message week after week we are reminded that there is no sin that God will not forgive. 

IS THAT IT? Just those few words?? — Yep! That’s it! We are forgiven of every sin on account of Christ’s faithfulness week after week, day after day, minute after minute… we can hardly believe our ears! Now we can say to ourselves….”God forgives me, despite all of my unworthiness, pulls me in and over and over says you are mine you filthy yet holy little human.” 

Amen.