“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” (Matthew 20:1)
Text study for Jonah 3:10—4:11 and Matthew 20:1-16
Lectionary texts for September 18, 2011
The parable of the workers in the vineyard remains deeply offensive to the flesh and to reason. I understand that I should be satisfied with my wages and not begrudge others God’s kindness toward them, however “with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)
Jonah resents God’s changed mind about the fate of the Ninevites. Jonah complains: “You are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Is that something to complain about? These qualities of God are something to extol as the object of hope and praise.
In the book, “The Song of the Bird,” Anthony deMello writes:
Two brothers heard God’s call to love their neighbor. The older brother went away to serve the poorest of the poor. When a persecution arose he was tortured and put to death. In heaven, God said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
The younger brother stayed home, raised a family and raked his neighbors’ leaves or plowed their snow. He died full of years surrounded by his family. God said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
The older brother observed this and said to God, “If I had it to do all over again, I would still have lived my life just the same for you.”
Such an attitude is not the product of the flesh and reason. It is the gift of God. Flesh and reason can only grumble when someone else receives from God’s generosity what you feel they don’t deserve. Think of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.
But those who have been raised up and restored by grace — Ninevites, Jonah, late-coming vineyard workers — cannot begrudge others their experience of God’s grace. Instead of being consumed by the worm of bitter resentment, God himself is the shade at their right hand (Psalm 121:5).
God leaves no one unemployed: Jerusalem and Nineveh, old timers and new comers. God desires to clothe the naked with the righteousness of Christ, to robe us with grace, and fill us with the mind of Christ. But before we put on our new clothes, our old wardrobe of bitterness, resentment, envy and self-centeredness is washed away and sent down-stream in the waters of holy baptism.
Psalm 145 expresses thanks to God: for putting us to work; for paying us more than we could ever earn; for clothing us with righteousness; and for forgiving us all our sin. After the Law has revealed how like Jonah we are and how like the resentful all-day workers we are, we finally appreciate and do not resent the fact that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love! Bless God’s holy name!
R. Don Wright is a 1992 graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. He served 16 years in parish ministry in the ELCA Nebraska Synod with his wife, Donna, who is also an ordained pastor of the ELCA. The Wright family now lives in Pennsylvania where R. Don and Donna both currently serve parishes.
Pastor Wright quotes St Paul: “with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)
Once again, we can see the problem with Luther's Bondage of the Will. St Paul says that his mind -- which in classical philosophy includes the will -- is a "slave to God." His flesh, as all of us know from experience, is a slave to sin. Luther became confused and said that the will is partially in bondage to sin, that it is not completely free.
Pastor Wright also wrote in a comment on Sept. 10: "The disposition and inclination of our hearts is hardly under our control. God inclines them to sorrow and regret... or hardens them. 'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me, (Psalm 51.10; nrsv)." I believe this to be serious error. God does not control our "hearts" -- much less harden them. This reflects the erroneous teaching of Martin Luther, and others, on this issue.
"Davey" disagrees with my remarks as reflecting the erroneous teaching of Martin Luther and others, but I must point out that "the others" include St. Paul and King David.
Our old nature is more comfortable putting confidence in the ability of the flesh and reason to determine our destiny and is repulsed at having to depend so passively on God's grace. The new creation we are in Christ is eternally grateful that redemption has been utterly resolved quite apart from any chance to mess it up.
Our old nature is a most annoying and dangerous back seat driver who must daily be drowned in the waters of baptism so that a new creation may come forth to live before God in righteousness and holiness all our days.
Mr. Wright,
Are you saying that we can never mess it up any more now that we know Christ? No possibility to turn on Him out of our own ill will towards the Holy Spirit?
And are you suggesting that some being other that ourselves is responsible for drowning this back seat driver?
And where are these Holy and righteous Christians at? I see people who are mired in sin and cannot free ourselves in this life. I have yet to find anyone Holy and righteous in this life.
"Davey" cites and is probably familiar with Luther's "The Bondage of the Will" (LW33), but for the sake of others who may be comforted by it, I repeat Luther's conclusion of his fine treatise:
"For my own part, I frankly confess that even if it were possible, I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive toward salvation. For, on the one hand, I should be unable to stand firm and keep hold of it amid so many adversities and perils and so many assaults of demons, seeing that even one demon is mightier, than all people, and no one at all could be saved; and on the other hand, even if there were no perils or adversities or demons, I should nevertheless have to labor under perpetual uncertainty and to fight as one beating the air [1 Cor 9.26], since even if I lived and worked to eternity, my conscience would never be assured and certain how much it ought to do to satisfy God. For whatever work might be accomplished, there would always remain an anxious doubt whether it pleased God or whether God required something more, as the experience of all self-justifiers proves, and as I myself learned to my bitter cost through so many years. But now, since God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his, making it depend on his choice and not mine, and has promised to save me, not by my own work or exertion but by his grace and mercy, I am assured and certain both that God is faithful and will not lie to me, and also that he is too great and powerful for any demons or any adversities to be able to break him or to snatch me from him. “No one,” God says, “shall snatch them out of my hand, because my Father who has given them to me is greater than all” [John 10:28 f.]. So it comes about that, if not all, some and indeed many are saved, whereas by the power of free choice none at all would be saved, but all would perish together. Moreover, we are also certain and sure that we please God, not by the merit of our own working, but by the favor of his mercy promised to us, and that if we do less than we should or do it badly, he does not hold this against us, but in a loving way pardons and corrects us. Hence the glorying of all the saints in their God. (LW33:288-289)
davey,
There is only one thing that comes to my mind to add to (detract from?) Don's excellent and comprehensive post: Luke 17:9-10 (in response to 'not being credited with the good and only the bad'). The Law is "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect". If you can do that, it will be reckoned to you as righteousness. It's not that we're not credited for the good we do and only the bad, it's that we're failing to meet expectations, let alone exceed them. This is why you can't win under the Law.
Actually, I tend to think the laws of thermodynamics work pretty well for theology, too. First Law of thermodynamics: you can't get ahead, you can only break even. Second Law of thermodynamics: you can't break even. What keeps the earth going is the (practically) limitless power of the sun. What keeps us going is the completely limitless power of the Son.
Peter,
Do you believe in evolution?
davidt,
Yes; evolution is useful for theology, too, though more in the sense of an active use of God's Law: smashing up the idol of Biblical literalism.
Luther writes:
"A Christian and a true saint must be a divine work and creation, the creature of a Master who with a single word can make everything out of nothing, and make it complete and perfect. No human effort, rule, or order can do this. For even if an abbot teaches and trains a monk for a long time, the final product will, after all, be no more than a human being as he has been created—a human being endowed with a free will and reason, and made up of flesh and blood. To be sure, he is clothed and adorned in a different way with works; but in spite of this his nature remains unchanged. He is still a knave, and his nature and his thoughts are no different from what they were before. For he still drags the old Adam around with him; but he has pulled a mask over the old Adam and has feigned a different way of living, and different works. These are all human works, just as a school-teacher trains and schools a child with works but cannot make another creature or form. This only the Creator can do with His own hand and power, and without human aid.”
(LW24:225)
In the second lesson for today, St Paul makes this point, too (Phillipians 1:29): "For God has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well"
For even if an abbot teaches and trains a monk for a long time, the final product will, after all, be no more than a human being as he has been created—a human being endowed with a free will and reason, and made up of flesh and blood.
Well, what do you know. Luther believed in free will after all.
In "things below", absolutely. But not in "things above", ie in our ability to make things right with God. If we could make things right with God, we wouldn't need Christ to do it.
The Master created everything “complete and perfect” in the first 7 days, and then utterly destroyed His perfect creation because it.. was.. complete…and..perfect? Maybe free will did have a role to play here.
Free will doesn't fix that problem, since that's still part of the Master's "complete and perfect" creation. Nor is it all that free if even in paradise, the human heart still inclined to rebellion against God.