Sermon for Sept. 21
Sermon
St. Luke Lutheran Church – Sept. 21, 2008
19th Sunday after Pentecost – Lectionary 25 – Year A
Primary Text: Jonah 3:10-4:11, Matthew 20:1-16
This last year in my Hebrew language class we spent the final two weeks of the semester on the book of Jonah. Our end of semester party featured the two separate classes, the one that took the class before chapel and the one that took it after, reenacting the story with their own twists. The other group reenacted it portraying it as the story that is being read in the movie “The Princess Bride” with one of my classmates playing the Grandfather reading to us, the sick grandson. My favorite moment came as one of my friends stood uncomfortably close to anther classmate, playing Jonah, and blew on his neck and head as the sultry east wind. I would imagine that Jonah’s reaction was more on the lines of painful uncomfortable vs. awkward uncomfortable. My class group enacted the story as Indiana Jonah and the Lost Carp. In our story Indiana Jonah, a religion professor in Jerusalem flees from God’s command and when thrown over board from the boat in the sea is captured not by a whale, but Pirate/Nazi’s, as it would not be a Indiana Jones story without some Nazis. Escaping by hiding in a torpedo tube and being launched to shore, Indiana Jonah flees to Nineveh this time played by the other class, where upon he informs that “Man this town is huge, I’m not walking anymore. And also, you are going to be destroyed in 40 days.” Indiana Jonah then goes to relax outside of town. He waits for the Pirate/Nazis to come and destroy the town of Nineveh. But God upon seeing that the people of Nineveh have repented, decides to spare the town, in our version by melting the Pirate Nazis ala the Nazis in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The reason that both my class’s version, the other class’s version, or any other retelling of the Jonah story works is that it is such a great story to begin with. Indiana Jonah gives the story a twist, but the story is a great twist itself. When you look at the other books of the minor prophets, they begin the same, a prophet is called to do something, they do it and the story ends. Jonah is different, he is called to do something, and just when we expect him to do it, he gets up and instead heads the other direction. When he finally gets to his end point, we get another twist. When other prophets would come into a town and declare that it would be destroyed, the town would disregard it and then be destroyed. Nineveh is different, they actually listen to what Jonah says. Again a twist, and then finally one great twist. God changes God’s mind, and spares the city. Jonah, angry that God did not destroy Nineveh, declares he wants to die. God makes a plant, and then has it die the next day. Again Jonah is angry, God responds by saying, you care about this plant which you had no connection to, and I should not be concerned about 100,000 people and many innocent animals. So, the story ends and we are left to ponder what this means.
I think that we can find out one answer by looking at today’s Gospel lesson. Just as the authors of the Old Testament knew that stories are good learning tools, Jesus does as well. His ministry is known for, healings, preaching, and parables. Just as Jonah’s story gives us a twist, so does the parable of the landowner.
Regardless of who we interpret the landowner to be, Jesus tells us that it is a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard early in the morning and agreeing on the usual daily wage. This is pretty common. However, very quickly, just like in Jonah, the twists begin. A good landowner, or anybody who owns a business, knows that you hire what you need. Jesus does not mention anything about money here, so we can assume that in the morning the landowner would look to hire all the workers that he would need for the entire day, he would not hire less than needed and count on other workers being still available later. So when he later sees idle people in the marketplace it is not because he is looking for more workers, he just happens to be in the marketplace. When he sees them we get the first twist, he tells them to go work in the fields. This happened at 9 and happens three more times, each time more workers for the field that had enough at the very beginning of the day.
And finally the greatest twist, when pay time arrives, they are all given the complete day’s wage. And the Landowner answers the complaints by saying “Are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
This topsy turvey statement seems strange to us. We have trouble figuring out where we fit. We sometimes feel like we are the workers who started in the morning and feel that the others got more than they deserved. Other times we feel like the last workers chosen, either thinking that we are very blessed or that we may be undeserving of this. Life often does not seem fair, there are those that we feel like get off to easily and times when we feel like we are undeserving of this grace. We also see stories where those who seem to commit great evil are given grace. It is here that these two stories enlighten us.
In both stories, Jonah and the landowner, there are people who complain about getting what they deserve or about what others deserve. Jonah declares that Nineveh deserves destruction and the first workers declare that they deserve more than the last workers. In both cases God, either named directly as in Jonah, or indirectly as the landowner in the parable, gives mercy in mysterious ways. God forgives and spares the great evil that is Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria a great enemy of Israel, and God is gracious to those who were the last picked to work. God does not punish, but rewards all equally. Whether we are the first who work all day, or we are the last, who barely have to work, or even if we are of the great evil city of Nineveh, God is, as said in both Jonah and our psalm, gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
That is what we need to remember from these wondrous stories, on the days when we feel like the last and it seems like we don’t deserve God’s grace in our life, or the days when others seem to do so little while we have worked so hard, God’s mercy is beyond comprehension. For “Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised! There is no end to your greatness.”
St. Luke Lutheran Church – Sept. 21, 2008
19th Sunday after Pentecost – Lectionary 25 – Year A
Primary Text: Jonah 3:10-4:11, Matthew 20:1-16
This last year in my Hebrew language class we spent the final two weeks of the semester on the book of Jonah. Our end of semester party featured the two separate classes, the one that took the class before chapel and the one that took it after, reenacting the story with their own twists. The other group reenacted it portraying it as the story that is being read in the movie “The Princess Bride” with one of my classmates playing the Grandfather reading to us, the sick grandson. My favorite moment came as one of my friends stood uncomfortably close to anther classmate, playing Jonah, and blew on his neck and head as the sultry east wind. I would imagine that Jonah’s reaction was more on the lines of painful uncomfortable vs. awkward uncomfortable. My class group enacted the story as Indiana Jonah and the Lost Carp. In our story Indiana Jonah, a religion professor in Jerusalem flees from God’s command and when thrown over board from the boat in the sea is captured not by a whale, but Pirate/Nazi’s, as it would not be a Indiana Jones story without some Nazis. Escaping by hiding in a torpedo tube and being launched to shore, Indiana Jonah flees to Nineveh this time played by the other class, where upon he informs that “Man this town is huge, I’m not walking anymore. And also, you are going to be destroyed in 40 days.” Indiana Jonah then goes to relax outside of town. He waits for the Pirate/Nazis to come and destroy the town of Nineveh. But God upon seeing that the people of Nineveh have repented, decides to spare the town, in our version by melting the Pirate Nazis ala the Nazis in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The reason that both my class’s version, the other class’s version, or any other retelling of the Jonah story works is that it is such a great story to begin with. Indiana Jonah gives the story a twist, but the story is a great twist itself. When you look at the other books of the minor prophets, they begin the same, a prophet is called to do something, they do it and the story ends. Jonah is different, he is called to do something, and just when we expect him to do it, he gets up and instead heads the other direction. When he finally gets to his end point, we get another twist. When other prophets would come into a town and declare that it would be destroyed, the town would disregard it and then be destroyed. Nineveh is different, they actually listen to what Jonah says. Again a twist, and then finally one great twist. God changes God’s mind, and spares the city. Jonah, angry that God did not destroy Nineveh, declares he wants to die. God makes a plant, and then has it die the next day. Again Jonah is angry, God responds by saying, you care about this plant which you had no connection to, and I should not be concerned about 100,000 people and many innocent animals. So, the story ends and we are left to ponder what this means.
I think that we can find out one answer by looking at today’s Gospel lesson. Just as the authors of the Old Testament knew that stories are good learning tools, Jesus does as well. His ministry is known for, healings, preaching, and parables. Just as Jonah’s story gives us a twist, so does the parable of the landowner.
Regardless of who we interpret the landowner to be, Jesus tells us that it is a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard early in the morning and agreeing on the usual daily wage. This is pretty common. However, very quickly, just like in Jonah, the twists begin. A good landowner, or anybody who owns a business, knows that you hire what you need. Jesus does not mention anything about money here, so we can assume that in the morning the landowner would look to hire all the workers that he would need for the entire day, he would not hire less than needed and count on other workers being still available later. So when he later sees idle people in the marketplace it is not because he is looking for more workers, he just happens to be in the marketplace. When he sees them we get the first twist, he tells them to go work in the fields. This happened at 9 and happens three more times, each time more workers for the field that had enough at the very beginning of the day.
And finally the greatest twist, when pay time arrives, they are all given the complete day’s wage. And the Landowner answers the complaints by saying “Are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
This topsy turvey statement seems strange to us. We have trouble figuring out where we fit. We sometimes feel like we are the workers who started in the morning and feel that the others got more than they deserved. Other times we feel like the last workers chosen, either thinking that we are very blessed or that we may be undeserving of this. Life often does not seem fair, there are those that we feel like get off to easily and times when we feel like we are undeserving of this grace. We also see stories where those who seem to commit great evil are given grace. It is here that these two stories enlighten us.
In both stories, Jonah and the landowner, there are people who complain about getting what they deserve or about what others deserve. Jonah declares that Nineveh deserves destruction and the first workers declare that they deserve more than the last workers. In both cases God, either named directly as in Jonah, or indirectly as the landowner in the parable, gives mercy in mysterious ways. God forgives and spares the great evil that is Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria a great enemy of Israel, and God is gracious to those who were the last picked to work. God does not punish, but rewards all equally. Whether we are the first who work all day, or we are the last, who barely have to work, or even if we are of the great evil city of Nineveh, God is, as said in both Jonah and our psalm, gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
That is what we need to remember from these wondrous stories, on the days when we feel like the last and it seems like we don’t deserve God’s grace in our life, or the days when others seem to do so little while we have worked so hard, God’s mercy is beyond comprehension. For “Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised! There is no end to your greatness.”
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