Score a point for Joe the Plumber. Joe Wurlzebacher a plumber near Toledo Ohio, recently asked Barak Obama a question about his tax policies. It seems Joe was thinking about buying a plumbing business and was concerned that Senator Obama’s tax policies would affect his bottom line. John McCain picked up on the exchange and suddenly Joe the Plumber found himself on center stage as the topic of discussion at the third and final presidential debate this past Wednesday night. Joe the Plumber became the dividing line between the tax policies of Barak Obama and John McCain.
Taxation is only one of many issues that concern your average American voter this election season. If Joe the Plumber is worried about taxes, perhaps is Joe the college student is worried about the environment, or maybe Joe the Car Salesman is worried about health care, or Joe the dad with a son in the military is worried about the war. There are lots of issues that lots of people are concerned about this election season and there are lots of things that voters are looking to the candidates for, hoping to find solutions.
Jesus walks right into the middle of all of this and in our text this morning he makes the following statement. “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” For all of the election issues on the table that our candidates have been debating, Jesus answers all of our questions and all of our fears by reminding us what is truly of most importance.
We have heard a little bit about those who show up at campaign rallies to try to trip them up and disrupt the rally. Well, if our presidential and vice presidential candidates have their hecklers, Jesus also had his. Today we have the 527’s like the Sierra Club or Citizens United, Jesus had the Pharisees and the Herodians.
It seems that the Pharisees and the Herodians sent a delegation of their disciples to Jesus to ask him a trick question and hopefully to trip him up in his words – to secure a sound bite that they could use against him. They thought they found the perfect issue – taxes. After all, no one likes to pay taxes, everyone hates to pay taxes – especially Jewish nationals who are occupied by a tyrannical Roman government. They thought they had him. There was no way Jesus could give a right answer. Either he denounces the tax and gets in trouble with Rome or he supports the tax and he looses popularity with the people.
They say Barak Obama is unflappable – cool under pressure – he is no match for Jesus. Jesus saw the trap a mile away. He knew what was in their hearts and what was in their minds. Instead of getting caught up in a political debate, Jesus went right to the heart of the issue. While no one likes to pay taxes, while we would all prefer to keep our tax dollars in our own pockets, Jesus reminds us of our duty to honor and respect our authorities, even when we don’t like them, don’t approve of them, and don’t agree with them. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
If we could but follow that simple command, all of our campaign issues would be a lot less complicated.
There are two parts to Jesus’ command. The first is that we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. The second is that we give to God what is God’s.
Of course, you and I don’t call our president Caesar – but the rule still applies. Jesus is giving to us a command that has to do with our government. We could just as easily insert “president” or “king” or “prime minister”. The point is, give to your government what is due to your government.
So what do we, what do you and I, what does Joe the Plumber owe to his government?
From Jesus’ own comment we can infer that we aught to pay taxes. After all, the question that was asked to Jesus was about taxes. This is hard enough. After all, no one likes to pay taxes. But we all owe taxes. We all should pay from what God has given to us whatever amount has been set by the government to contribute to the general welfare of our nation. It costs money to run the government. It costs money to build roads, maintain order, defend our borders, prosecute and punish lawbreakers. We all benefit from these provisions; these things are all gifts from God so we all should pay our fair share. Whatever that fair share may be. All the candidates are doing is discussing how to divide that pie fairly among the citizens of our great country.
But we owe them more than taxes. In St Paul’s letter to Romans (13:7) he says this: “Pay to (the governing authorities) what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” In addition to taxes we owe our leaders respect and honor.
And then Paul says again in 1 Timothy 2 that “prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, [2] for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. [3] This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.”
In summary then, what we owe to our rulers, our judges, our police officers and to our president, (whoever that winds up being) is honor & respect, our prayers, and yes, even taxes.
But that is only ½ of what Jesus commands. That is really the easy half of Jesus’ command. The more difficult portion of his command is the second half. While we owe to Caesar what is Caesar’s we also then owe to God what is God’s. It is far easier to give Caesar his due than it is to give God what is due to him.
God doesn’t need our taxes. Sometimes Christian’s think of the money they put in the plate for an offering on Sunday is the same as the taxes they pay every April 15. You’ve got to pay your dues. It keeps the lights on and the pastor in the pulpit.
Caesar needs your money. Without it he can’t operate. God doesn’t need a thing from any of us. He already owns it. Our offerings are not for His benefit, they are for ours. God permits us to give Him what He does not need so that it can be a means for us to worship Him and thank Him for all that He has done for us. When we do not give our offering, we do no harm to God we harm only ourselves. So, no, God need to assess a tax.
What God does want from us is our hearts. In the explanation to the commandments from the Small Catechism we confess that we should keep the commandments because “We fear, love, and trust in God.” God wants our love, our respect and our trust.
So often we are more prepared to give those things however to our elected officials.
Look at the election issues. We want a president who will save the environment. We want a president who will end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We want a president who will quiet our financial markets. We want a president who will provide good health care for our children and families. Can a president really do any of these things? Not even close.
While God calls on us to be good stewards of the world that he has given to us, the weather patterns, the temperature, the oceans and the waves are not controlled by presidents. Whenever you are tempted to believe that we control the weather you should go back to the Psalms. Read Psalm 104. There God says, “He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; [4] he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.” He opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing.
When ever we are tempted to believe that our president can control violence between the nations and that our presidents have the power to end war we should go back to Psalm 46 where God says that “He breaks the bow and shatters the spear and that he burn the chariots with fire.” Or in Psalm 2 where God says that he looks down from heaven and laughs at the kings of the earth who gather their armies together.
When we are tempted to think that a president can take office, implement a few policies and all of a sudden the economy will turn around we ought to remember Matthew 6 where Jesus says that God is the one who feeds even the birds of the air and clothes the grass of the field and that He is the one who provides for all of our needs.
When we are tempted to believe that a president can wave his hand and provide for the health and well being of the citizens we aught to remember that Jesus is the great physician of both body and soul. That he can heal whatever illnesses effect our bodies and that ultimately he is the one who can heal our souls. Jesus can do those things because he suffered our infirmities, because he took on himself our sorrows, because he carried all of our sins and guilt on his own shoulders to the cross.
While God works in this world through kings and presidents and prime ministers, their reach is very short and their power is very limited. But God? His power is limitless and he extends his righteous right arm to us to care for all of our needs. He provides for every physical need that we might have, he keeps us safe from evil and from our enemies, and best of all he has saved us even from ourselves, from the sins that cling to us so closely that no one on earth could ever begin to take away.
One of the great things about being president is that the president is awarded the executive privilege of pardon. He can call the worst offender in the most secure prison into his audience where he can then at his own pleasure set them free from their guilt. While a president can do that here on earth, only God can do that in heaven. Because you see, Jesus himself through his own death and resurrection has earned the executive privilege of pardon, He has called you and me into his audience where he declares us free from all accusations so that we can go free to love him and to serve him.
While we exercise our right to vote, we realize that whoever is voted into office deserve our honor, our respect, our prayers and even our taxes- yet God himself deserves to be feared loved and trusted above all things.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Pentecost 22 - Matthew 22:1-14
So how does it feel? How does it feel to be sitting in the banquet hall of a king. You have been invited! The King has selected you to be placed on His list of honored guests. He has prepared a meal especially for you! And here you sit on this very morning in the banquet hall of heaven’s King ready to be served with the finest foods, finer than any of the foods that have been offered on any table set by any king in any kingdom.
And there have been some pretty nice tables. We have all been to wedding receptions. We have all been to banquest. We have all tasted good food, food prepared by those who know what they are doing. We have tasted some of this ourselves.
We have all heard of lavish parties. Exclusive guest lists, people dressed in their best formal attire, rich foods prepared from only the finest ingredients – oh to live the life of the rich and famous, right? Oh, but what we have set before us here today puts all of those banquets to shame, our clothes are better, our food is richer, our host has set a grander and greater table, one that somebody’s super sweet 16 could only dream about – beyond their wildest imaginations and way beyond their means to provide.
Wait a minute, you might be saying. This makes no sense! This is a church, this is no banquet hall. We are sitting at pew, not at fancy tables. Maybe I or my husband has come in from the fields and cleaned up a bit, maybe we are dressed nicer than we will be later on this afternoon, but no one here is hardly dressed for a formal dinner. And look at the guest list – perhaps we might call it a who’s who list for those who live in Chuckery, but that’s not saying much, this is just about everybody who lives in and around Chuckery – we are hardly a cosmopolitan group. Not many of us are likely to be on anyone’s who’s who list – not many of us would be likely to be included at any state dinners with any people of any importance anywhere. We are just common everyday folks, sitting in our little country church, dressed in our common every day clothes here to go church.
YES! And that’s it! That’s the big deal. This right here, this common every day church and this common everyday worship service filled with our common everyday people – this is God’s church! The King of kings and the Lord of lords has sent out an invitation to you, he sent his own personal curriers to you to hand deliver your invitation. He has thrown out your common every day attire and he has given you a brand new outfit that would dazzle the eyes starlets in Las Angeles, He has set a table that cannot be rivaled anywhere on earth because the food has been prepared by God himself in heaven. All of this has been set. It is ready and waiting for you.
Out text today is about a wedding banquet. A party thrown by a king, and not just any king, the King of Heaven. That’s what Jesus says, this wedding feast is compared to the Reign of Heaven – the place where our heavenly King reigns and this is how he does it. He prepares every detail, gets it all set just right and then he sends out his invitations. He sends out his messengers to invite his guests.
So often when you and I hear, “Kingdom of Heaven” or “Reign of Heaven” we think off into the future. We think of what’s to come when we die, we think what’s to come when Christ returns on the last day. We sell ourselves so short! Yes, God has so much to give us after he has called us out of this sinful world and after our sorrow and suffering have gone away, but this is not just a future hope! It is a present reality. It is right here and right now! It is yours today! This banquet table has already been set and the Easter and Ascension Day party is already going on. It’s not somewhere off in the hazy future. It is right here and right now! The party has already started.
Jesus tells us that when the party first began, the King sent out his invitations but no one came. He was preparing the meal for the celebration for hundreds of years. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned God began planning the menu, preparing the ingredients, and setting the table. He made his guest list and he sent invitations to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the 12 tribes of Israel, to Moses and the Israelites, to David and Solomon and all the kings and people of Israel. But they grew tired of waiting for the party to start, so they went off to join other parties. The put off waiting for Heaven’s Eternal Party. They looked around them. There were other parties they could attend, with other hosts. They went off to eat at these other tables. They went off in search of false gods. Some of them even decided that they would throw their own party. Not just anyone can throw a party like God can throw in heaven. After all heaven has a vast treasury and a huge banquet hall, but these Jews thought they could throw their own party and then when God finally decided to show up he could simply join them. It didn’t work that way.
When the party was finally prepared and God sent his messenger, in fact when God himself showed up with the invitations to His heavenly party, his guests were too busy with their own little party to pay any attention. Jesus came to the Jews carrying an armload of invitations to Heaven’s eternal party but the people were too busy eating the food that they had prepared themselves.
Think about it. How ridiculous is that? Jesus, the Son of God himself, comes with invitations to a party that has behind all the wealth of heaven and the people were too busy and too engaged with their own party. Sure Jesus, you have a rich banquet table set in Heaven for me to feast and be filled and to enjoy. I am sitting here undernourished and starving to death with the food that I have prepared – it tastes bad and it is filled with poison and it is going to be the death of me but I am just going to stay right here where I am comfortable in my own skin.
Why did the Jews do that? Why did they insist that Jesus join their party? Why didn’t they receive Heaven’s invitation with anticipation and joy? Why didn’t they jump right up, leave behind what they were doing, and run off to join Jesus at His banquet table? There is no reason that will ever come close to making sense.
Why do we do the same? Why is it that we are so often drawn to earthly glory, why is it that we are so eager to sit down at the table of worldly wealth and power that we get up from our seat at Heaven’s table, that God has set for us. Why is it that we are so drawn to walk down earth’s red carpet when it’s glory is only like those photographers flash bulb’s shining bright for an instant but then gone, when the Glory of God in heaven shines brighter than the sun for ever and ever. There simply is no explanation! It just does not make sense.
When the guests in the parable rejected the king’s invitation to the banquet when they treated the messengers with violence and contempt the king became angry. He sent his army to destroy them and to burn their city to the ground. The Jews rejected Jesus. The insulted him, they beat him, and then they killed him. He came offering them invitations to join the banquet that had been prepared for them and they did not care to attend and they crucified Jesus so the angry king did destroy them. 40 years later the Roman army laid siege to their city, Jerusalem. They pulled it down and they set it on fire. This judgment was only a shadow of the judgment that comes on those who reject the kings invitation when he send them to their eternal punishment in hell.
But then the king, who had prepared his feast and made ready his banquet hall, had a feast prepared with no guests to attend. So he sent out his messengers into the highways and byways, out to the common everyday folks in their common everyday lives, wearing their common every day clothes and he invited them to come.
That’s you and me. We are those common everyday folks out in the streets. We are not important people. We are not powerful people. We are not even good people, we’re sinners. But Jesus, the High King of Heaven wants his banquet hall to be filled so he sent his messengers to you. They called you by name and said to you, “Come enjoy the feast prepared for you in heaven by the hands of God himself.”
It seems that most women, the moment they receive an invitation to some party or event think to themselves, “I have nothing to wear.” And the next thing is to plan a shopping trip – go find the perfect outfit to wear to this event. Ladies, regardless of what you have in your closets, this time you are right. You don’t have a thing to wear. Guys, sorry to tell you but the suit you always pull out to wear to wedding and banquets isn’t going to cut it either. And no luck going to look for a rental, not even the finest tailor using the finest materials could make you an gown or a suit that would be fit for heaven’s banquet hall. The only clothes you could wear that would even get you in the door are the clothes made for you by God himself.
Everyday that Jesus lived, from the moment he was born in a stable to Mary and Joseph to the moment of His ascension he lived his life weaving together the material for the garments that you and I wear to His banquet hall. Every act of obedience, every act of love was another thread in your heavenly robe of righteousness. And then, on the day that you were baptized that material was cut and fitted just for you. Christ’s righteousness, his acts of love and obedience became the clothes that you wear to get you into heaven, became the gown, the suit that you will wear for all eternity. The righteousness of Jesus covered your sin so that you have just the right thing to wear.
And now that you are dressed, now that your sins have been covered with the righteousness of Jesus you are ready to sit down at the table. The fattened calf has been slaughtered and prepared just right, just for you. And what’s on the menu? Food that comes from heaven. To you and I it might look like small wafers of bread and a small cup of wine, but in this festal hall here in heaven God will hide in that wafer the very body of Christ, God will hide in that cup of wine the very blood of Jesus. You will eat, you will drink and you will be fed and forgiven and all your sins will be washed away.
You know what? We look around here and there is nothing that looks too terribly out of the ordinary. We see regular people in regular clothes in a regular church on a regular Sunday morning, but hidden here is the hand of God who has invited us, who has dressed us, and who is prepared to feed us with the forgiveness of sins earned and won by Jesus himself.
Amen.
And there have been some pretty nice tables. We have all been to wedding receptions. We have all been to banquest. We have all tasted good food, food prepared by those who know what they are doing. We have tasted some of this ourselves.
We have all heard of lavish parties. Exclusive guest lists, people dressed in their best formal attire, rich foods prepared from only the finest ingredients – oh to live the life of the rich and famous, right? Oh, but what we have set before us here today puts all of those banquets to shame, our clothes are better, our food is richer, our host has set a grander and greater table, one that somebody’s super sweet 16 could only dream about – beyond their wildest imaginations and way beyond their means to provide.
Wait a minute, you might be saying. This makes no sense! This is a church, this is no banquet hall. We are sitting at pew, not at fancy tables. Maybe I or my husband has come in from the fields and cleaned up a bit, maybe we are dressed nicer than we will be later on this afternoon, but no one here is hardly dressed for a formal dinner. And look at the guest list – perhaps we might call it a who’s who list for those who live in Chuckery, but that’s not saying much, this is just about everybody who lives in and around Chuckery – we are hardly a cosmopolitan group. Not many of us are likely to be on anyone’s who’s who list – not many of us would be likely to be included at any state dinners with any people of any importance anywhere. We are just common everyday folks, sitting in our little country church, dressed in our common every day clothes here to go church.
YES! And that’s it! That’s the big deal. This right here, this common every day church and this common everyday worship service filled with our common everyday people – this is God’s church! The King of kings and the Lord of lords has sent out an invitation to you, he sent his own personal curriers to you to hand deliver your invitation. He has thrown out your common every day attire and he has given you a brand new outfit that would dazzle the eyes starlets in Las Angeles, He has set a table that cannot be rivaled anywhere on earth because the food has been prepared by God himself in heaven. All of this has been set. It is ready and waiting for you.
Out text today is about a wedding banquet. A party thrown by a king, and not just any king, the King of Heaven. That’s what Jesus says, this wedding feast is compared to the Reign of Heaven – the place where our heavenly King reigns and this is how he does it. He prepares every detail, gets it all set just right and then he sends out his invitations. He sends out his messengers to invite his guests.
So often when you and I hear, “Kingdom of Heaven” or “Reign of Heaven” we think off into the future. We think of what’s to come when we die, we think what’s to come when Christ returns on the last day. We sell ourselves so short! Yes, God has so much to give us after he has called us out of this sinful world and after our sorrow and suffering have gone away, but this is not just a future hope! It is a present reality. It is right here and right now! It is yours today! This banquet table has already been set and the Easter and Ascension Day party is already going on. It’s not somewhere off in the hazy future. It is right here and right now! The party has already started.
Jesus tells us that when the party first began, the King sent out his invitations but no one came. He was preparing the meal for the celebration for hundreds of years. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned God began planning the menu, preparing the ingredients, and setting the table. He made his guest list and he sent invitations to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the 12 tribes of Israel, to Moses and the Israelites, to David and Solomon and all the kings and people of Israel. But they grew tired of waiting for the party to start, so they went off to join other parties. The put off waiting for Heaven’s Eternal Party. They looked around them. There were other parties they could attend, with other hosts. They went off to eat at these other tables. They went off in search of false gods. Some of them even decided that they would throw their own party. Not just anyone can throw a party like God can throw in heaven. After all heaven has a vast treasury and a huge banquet hall, but these Jews thought they could throw their own party and then when God finally decided to show up he could simply join them. It didn’t work that way.
When the party was finally prepared and God sent his messenger, in fact when God himself showed up with the invitations to His heavenly party, his guests were too busy with their own little party to pay any attention. Jesus came to the Jews carrying an armload of invitations to Heaven’s eternal party but the people were too busy eating the food that they had prepared themselves.
Think about it. How ridiculous is that? Jesus, the Son of God himself, comes with invitations to a party that has behind all the wealth of heaven and the people were too busy and too engaged with their own party. Sure Jesus, you have a rich banquet table set in Heaven for me to feast and be filled and to enjoy. I am sitting here undernourished and starving to death with the food that I have prepared – it tastes bad and it is filled with poison and it is going to be the death of me but I am just going to stay right here where I am comfortable in my own skin.
Why did the Jews do that? Why did they insist that Jesus join their party? Why didn’t they receive Heaven’s invitation with anticipation and joy? Why didn’t they jump right up, leave behind what they were doing, and run off to join Jesus at His banquet table? There is no reason that will ever come close to making sense.
Why do we do the same? Why is it that we are so often drawn to earthly glory, why is it that we are so eager to sit down at the table of worldly wealth and power that we get up from our seat at Heaven’s table, that God has set for us. Why is it that we are so drawn to walk down earth’s red carpet when it’s glory is only like those photographers flash bulb’s shining bright for an instant but then gone, when the Glory of God in heaven shines brighter than the sun for ever and ever. There simply is no explanation! It just does not make sense.
When the guests in the parable rejected the king’s invitation to the banquet when they treated the messengers with violence and contempt the king became angry. He sent his army to destroy them and to burn their city to the ground. The Jews rejected Jesus. The insulted him, they beat him, and then they killed him. He came offering them invitations to join the banquet that had been prepared for them and they did not care to attend and they crucified Jesus so the angry king did destroy them. 40 years later the Roman army laid siege to their city, Jerusalem. They pulled it down and they set it on fire. This judgment was only a shadow of the judgment that comes on those who reject the kings invitation when he send them to their eternal punishment in hell.
But then the king, who had prepared his feast and made ready his banquet hall, had a feast prepared with no guests to attend. So he sent out his messengers into the highways and byways, out to the common everyday folks in their common everyday lives, wearing their common every day clothes and he invited them to come.
That’s you and me. We are those common everyday folks out in the streets. We are not important people. We are not powerful people. We are not even good people, we’re sinners. But Jesus, the High King of Heaven wants his banquet hall to be filled so he sent his messengers to you. They called you by name and said to you, “Come enjoy the feast prepared for you in heaven by the hands of God himself.”
It seems that most women, the moment they receive an invitation to some party or event think to themselves, “I have nothing to wear.” And the next thing is to plan a shopping trip – go find the perfect outfit to wear to this event. Ladies, regardless of what you have in your closets, this time you are right. You don’t have a thing to wear. Guys, sorry to tell you but the suit you always pull out to wear to wedding and banquets isn’t going to cut it either. And no luck going to look for a rental, not even the finest tailor using the finest materials could make you an gown or a suit that would be fit for heaven’s banquet hall. The only clothes you could wear that would even get you in the door are the clothes made for you by God himself.
Everyday that Jesus lived, from the moment he was born in a stable to Mary and Joseph to the moment of His ascension he lived his life weaving together the material for the garments that you and I wear to His banquet hall. Every act of obedience, every act of love was another thread in your heavenly robe of righteousness. And then, on the day that you were baptized that material was cut and fitted just for you. Christ’s righteousness, his acts of love and obedience became the clothes that you wear to get you into heaven, became the gown, the suit that you will wear for all eternity. The righteousness of Jesus covered your sin so that you have just the right thing to wear.
And now that you are dressed, now that your sins have been covered with the righteousness of Jesus you are ready to sit down at the table. The fattened calf has been slaughtered and prepared just right, just for you. And what’s on the menu? Food that comes from heaven. To you and I it might look like small wafers of bread and a small cup of wine, but in this festal hall here in heaven God will hide in that wafer the very body of Christ, God will hide in that cup of wine the very blood of Jesus. You will eat, you will drink and you will be fed and forgiven and all your sins will be washed away.
You know what? We look around here and there is nothing that looks too terribly out of the ordinary. We see regular people in regular clothes in a regular church on a regular Sunday morning, but hidden here is the hand of God who has invited us, who has dressed us, and who is prepared to feed us with the forgiveness of sins earned and won by Jesus himself.
Amen.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Pentecost 21 - Matthew 21:33-46
Dear people of God, take comfort in this text. Know that this parable of Jesus is a parable about you. And that Jesus has given this parable because He loves you.
That is really what the parable is all about. It is about the love that God the Father and the Son have for the Church, the people of God. Jesus told His parable as a warning to the pastors, to the preachers and teachers from His Old Testament Church. They had not been faithful in their duties, they had not been faithful administrators of the church they had been given to attend. The same warning goes for today pastors. Do your duty. Tend your vineyard. Do it well and do it faithfully, because if you don’t you will see a wretched end, and the vineyard will be taken away from you and given to another.
But you? You are the vineyard, and the message that Jesus has hidden for you in this text is that he loves you! In fact, He loves you a lot. You are His vineyard. He has planted you and protected you. He has left nothing to chance.
In the parable, Jesus tells us of a master who planted a vineyard. But he was not merely content to just put the seed in the ground and let it grow. It was not enough to have the vines and the grapes, not for this master. He cared for his vines too much to simply leave them out on their own, to allow anyone and any thing to wander through and do whatever damage they would do. So he built a fence, a hedge, a wall all around the vineyard. Sometimes fences simply mark boundaries. Sometimes fences are built to keep things in. Sometimes fences are built to protect what is kept inside. This master built his fence to keep out thieves and wild animals, people and things who would come in to try to steal away the fruit from his precious vines.
But even that was not enough. He then went to the trouble of building a watchtower. A tower that stood up over the vineyard where his workers could keep watch over it, where they would be able to see where there was danger, where they would be able to see where there were thieves who were coming in to attack and to steal. The watchtower was built for the protection of the vines and their fruit.
But even that was not enough. The master knew that he would be gone. And while he was gone he wanted there to be workers in that vineyard, who would love it the way he loves it, who would care for it the way he cares for it, who would be his hands gardening and pruning and digging and fertilizing, but who would also be his eyes watching over and protecting, defending and guarding it from enemies and predators. The master loved his vineyard and he did whatever was needed to protect it and to preserve it.
Dear people of St Paul you are that vineyard. God the Father is your master. He has planted you in his vineyard. He carefully chose you, selected you from among the other vines to be his very own. He prepared a place for you in his vineyard where he would plant you. He lovingly dug in the soil of his vineyard and selected a spot, a place just for you, where you could sink your roots down deep into the soil to be fed with the nourishment that you need to thrive and bear fruit. Where you could grow up and grow strong. You are a vine planted in the vineyard of the Heavenly Father.
Just like the master in the parable saw to it that his vineyard would be protected and safe, God the Father who has planted you in the Church has seen to your protection and safety. After all, He has enemies in the world who want to steal you away from him and who want to destroy you. The devil and his demons would like nothing better that to sneak into his vineyard under cover of darkness and uproot you from your carefully chosen place and carry you away to your utter ruin. The Father would have none of that. He wants you to stay right where you are, so He has lovingly provided for your protection.
The master in the parable built a wall, a fence, a hedge around his vineyard to keep the predators out. The Father has done the same for you. He has given to you a wall of protection that completely surrounds you. It keeps the attacks of the Devil away from you so that you are safe. So that you are guarded and protected, so that you can not be stolen away. God has given to you the Bible as a fence a strong wall built up around you for your protection. God had his prophets and apostles write this book for you; for your benefit and blessing, for your learning, for your faith and your growth, but also for your protection.
The Word of God is wonderfully and blessedly specific. God enables us to see and understand this very thing. He tells us in the Book of Romans that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17) When we want to believe, when we want to see God and know God and understand God, when we want to know God is, when we have questions about God and what he has done and why he has done it the place where we go to find him is to His Word! To the Bible! To Genesis through Revelation and everything inbetween. It’s all there!
IN that way, the Bible is like the fence, the hedge that God has planted around his vineyard. It is a rock solid strong fence that nothing can break down and that nothing can break through. The Bible is boundary line, it is the property, the place where God can be found.
A few weeks ago there was a surveyor who came out to the property to mark out the boundaries of our property line. We hired them because he was coming to survey the land that has been donated by the Burns family and he was hoping to get the dimensions marked out properly. If you walk around the property lines you can see markers that clearly define where the property is. As long as you are inside that boundary line you are on St Paul’s property. Boundaries mark ownership, within those boundaries is St Paul Chuckery.
Those boundaries are a blessing for our congregation. They mark out what belongs to us, but more than that, those boundary lines are marked to a specific spot, a definite location. You can look it up on a map, in a phone book, plug it in to a gps and you will find the right spot, the exact place where you need to go. Those boundaries give a definite security.
The Bible functions in that exact way for us. The Bible is the boundary line that marks out the location of the place where we go to find God. Lots of people are looking for God these days. Lots of people want to find him – many of them don’t ever get there because they don’t know where to look. God tells us. He gives us his address, his coordinates where he will always be. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the WORD! It is plain and simple. Not complicated. God doesn’t make us go off on a journey to find him, he doesn’t only reveal himself after some sort of a spirit walk or journey. God is right here in his word.
What a blessing! We don’t to have to wander too and fro, back and forth searching for him, wondering where he is and if we have found him. We don’t have to be blown back and forth, to never be sure if we are in the right spot. He wants us to be firmly planted and to know that we are inside his boundary lines, inside the place where he has promised that while we are there we belong to him and we are safe and secure inside the place where he has planted us.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t let that assurance be taken away from you. The devil hates it when Christian are confident in their faith. He hates it when Christians are comforted by the assurance of God’s promises. He would rather that we wonder, that we have doubts, that we not be so sure about God and the things he has promised us in His Word. The devil wants to take that confidence away from us.
One of his subtle tricks, one of the sly little things he does is to sneak into the minds of Christians and tell them that God’s word is not enough, that there needs to be more. God’s Word isn’t enough. The things that he has promised to do for you are not enough. You won’t be sure that he loves you and you won’t love him back until something extra has happened. Until God has come face to face with you, slipped you a personal note or an invitation, and then answered all your really tough questions face to face. Don’t believe these lies. Don’t let these ideas creep into your mind and steal away from you the confidence that God has given in his Word of promise.
I have loved you with and everlasting love. [Jeremiah 31.3]
God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. [John 3.16]
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:38-39]
What more do we need?
God in his unbounded love for us has reduced himself to paper – to Words on a page so that we always know where to find him. So that we can always know where the boundaries of his vineyard lie. Because God has limited himself to His Word we never have to be in doubt. We never have to wonder where those boundary lines are. We never have to question whether or not we are still planted in His vineyard. As long as we are standing on the word we are planted in the vineyard.
The master cares for his vineyard. He loves his vineyard. He loves it so much and so deeply that he relentlessly provides for and cares for it.
In the parable, when the workers were unfaithful, that is to say, when the pastors of His church had been unfaithful with the Church and simply wanted to keep it from themselves, the master sent his servants – they were thrown out and beaten and even killed. When the master saw what his workers had done, and fully aware of their violent tendencies he sent his son, hoping to restore the workers but at the same time fully aware of the risk to his son. His Son was murdered.
In the same way, when God sent his son to the pastors of His Old Testament Church they rejected his son, they threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him. God loved his church so much that he even risked, he even sacrificed his son to protect it and to possess it.
God has planted you in his vineyard. He has called you to faith and he has planted you in the boundary lines that he has marked out for you so that you could be confident that he has you. You don’t have to go looking for him, you don’t have to wonder if you have found him. You don’t have to wait for a special invitation in your mailbox or go wandering out in the woods. All you have to do is go to church. All you have to do is open your bible. All you have to do is bloom and grow where he has planted you protected you and preserved you. Where he has held nothing back to keep you.
Amen.
That is really what the parable is all about. It is about the love that God the Father and the Son have for the Church, the people of God. Jesus told His parable as a warning to the pastors, to the preachers and teachers from His Old Testament Church. They had not been faithful in their duties, they had not been faithful administrators of the church they had been given to attend. The same warning goes for today pastors. Do your duty. Tend your vineyard. Do it well and do it faithfully, because if you don’t you will see a wretched end, and the vineyard will be taken away from you and given to another.
But you? You are the vineyard, and the message that Jesus has hidden for you in this text is that he loves you! In fact, He loves you a lot. You are His vineyard. He has planted you and protected you. He has left nothing to chance.
In the parable, Jesus tells us of a master who planted a vineyard. But he was not merely content to just put the seed in the ground and let it grow. It was not enough to have the vines and the grapes, not for this master. He cared for his vines too much to simply leave them out on their own, to allow anyone and any thing to wander through and do whatever damage they would do. So he built a fence, a hedge, a wall all around the vineyard. Sometimes fences simply mark boundaries. Sometimes fences are built to keep things in. Sometimes fences are built to protect what is kept inside. This master built his fence to keep out thieves and wild animals, people and things who would come in to try to steal away the fruit from his precious vines.
But even that was not enough. He then went to the trouble of building a watchtower. A tower that stood up over the vineyard where his workers could keep watch over it, where they would be able to see where there was danger, where they would be able to see where there were thieves who were coming in to attack and to steal. The watchtower was built for the protection of the vines and their fruit.
But even that was not enough. The master knew that he would be gone. And while he was gone he wanted there to be workers in that vineyard, who would love it the way he loves it, who would care for it the way he cares for it, who would be his hands gardening and pruning and digging and fertilizing, but who would also be his eyes watching over and protecting, defending and guarding it from enemies and predators. The master loved his vineyard and he did whatever was needed to protect it and to preserve it.
Dear people of St Paul you are that vineyard. God the Father is your master. He has planted you in his vineyard. He carefully chose you, selected you from among the other vines to be his very own. He prepared a place for you in his vineyard where he would plant you. He lovingly dug in the soil of his vineyard and selected a spot, a place just for you, where you could sink your roots down deep into the soil to be fed with the nourishment that you need to thrive and bear fruit. Where you could grow up and grow strong. You are a vine planted in the vineyard of the Heavenly Father.
Just like the master in the parable saw to it that his vineyard would be protected and safe, God the Father who has planted you in the Church has seen to your protection and safety. After all, He has enemies in the world who want to steal you away from him and who want to destroy you. The devil and his demons would like nothing better that to sneak into his vineyard under cover of darkness and uproot you from your carefully chosen place and carry you away to your utter ruin. The Father would have none of that. He wants you to stay right where you are, so He has lovingly provided for your protection.
The master in the parable built a wall, a fence, a hedge around his vineyard to keep the predators out. The Father has done the same for you. He has given to you a wall of protection that completely surrounds you. It keeps the attacks of the Devil away from you so that you are safe. So that you are guarded and protected, so that you can not be stolen away. God has given to you the Bible as a fence a strong wall built up around you for your protection. God had his prophets and apostles write this book for you; for your benefit and blessing, for your learning, for your faith and your growth, but also for your protection.
The Word of God is wonderfully and blessedly specific. God enables us to see and understand this very thing. He tells us in the Book of Romans that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17) When we want to believe, when we want to see God and know God and understand God, when we want to know God is, when we have questions about God and what he has done and why he has done it the place where we go to find him is to His Word! To the Bible! To Genesis through Revelation and everything inbetween. It’s all there!
IN that way, the Bible is like the fence, the hedge that God has planted around his vineyard. It is a rock solid strong fence that nothing can break down and that nothing can break through. The Bible is boundary line, it is the property, the place where God can be found.
A few weeks ago there was a surveyor who came out to the property to mark out the boundaries of our property line. We hired them because he was coming to survey the land that has been donated by the Burns family and he was hoping to get the dimensions marked out properly. If you walk around the property lines you can see markers that clearly define where the property is. As long as you are inside that boundary line you are on St Paul’s property. Boundaries mark ownership, within those boundaries is St Paul Chuckery.
Those boundaries are a blessing for our congregation. They mark out what belongs to us, but more than that, those boundary lines are marked to a specific spot, a definite location. You can look it up on a map, in a phone book, plug it in to a gps and you will find the right spot, the exact place where you need to go. Those boundaries give a definite security.
The Bible functions in that exact way for us. The Bible is the boundary line that marks out the location of the place where we go to find God. Lots of people are looking for God these days. Lots of people want to find him – many of them don’t ever get there because they don’t know where to look. God tells us. He gives us his address, his coordinates where he will always be. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the WORD! It is plain and simple. Not complicated. God doesn’t make us go off on a journey to find him, he doesn’t only reveal himself after some sort of a spirit walk or journey. God is right here in his word.
What a blessing! We don’t to have to wander too and fro, back and forth searching for him, wondering where he is and if we have found him. We don’t have to be blown back and forth, to never be sure if we are in the right spot. He wants us to be firmly planted and to know that we are inside his boundary lines, inside the place where he has promised that while we are there we belong to him and we are safe and secure inside the place where he has planted us.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t let that assurance be taken away from you. The devil hates it when Christian are confident in their faith. He hates it when Christians are comforted by the assurance of God’s promises. He would rather that we wonder, that we have doubts, that we not be so sure about God and the things he has promised us in His Word. The devil wants to take that confidence away from us.
One of his subtle tricks, one of the sly little things he does is to sneak into the minds of Christians and tell them that God’s word is not enough, that there needs to be more. God’s Word isn’t enough. The things that he has promised to do for you are not enough. You won’t be sure that he loves you and you won’t love him back until something extra has happened. Until God has come face to face with you, slipped you a personal note or an invitation, and then answered all your really tough questions face to face. Don’t believe these lies. Don’t let these ideas creep into your mind and steal away from you the confidence that God has given in his Word of promise.
I have loved you with and everlasting love. [Jeremiah 31.3]
God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. [John 3.16]
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:38-39]
What more do we need?
God in his unbounded love for us has reduced himself to paper – to Words on a page so that we always know where to find him. So that we can always know where the boundaries of his vineyard lie. Because God has limited himself to His Word we never have to be in doubt. We never have to wonder where those boundary lines are. We never have to question whether or not we are still planted in His vineyard. As long as we are standing on the word we are planted in the vineyard.
The master cares for his vineyard. He loves his vineyard. He loves it so much and so deeply that he relentlessly provides for and cares for it.
In the parable, when the workers were unfaithful, that is to say, when the pastors of His church had been unfaithful with the Church and simply wanted to keep it from themselves, the master sent his servants – they were thrown out and beaten and even killed. When the master saw what his workers had done, and fully aware of their violent tendencies he sent his son, hoping to restore the workers but at the same time fully aware of the risk to his son. His Son was murdered.
In the same way, when God sent his son to the pastors of His Old Testament Church they rejected his son, they threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him. God loved his church so much that he even risked, he even sacrificed his son to protect it and to possess it.
God has planted you in his vineyard. He has called you to faith and he has planted you in the boundary lines that he has marked out for you so that you could be confident that he has you. You don’t have to go looking for him, you don’t have to wonder if you have found him. You don’t have to wait for a special invitation in your mailbox or go wandering out in the woods. All you have to do is go to church. All you have to do is open your bible. All you have to do is bloom and grow where he has planted you protected you and preserved you. Where he has held nothing back to keep you.
Amen.
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