Sermon for September 20, 2020 Pentecost 16 A House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Jonah 3:10 - 4:11; Matthew 20:1-16 Rev. Karl-John Stone

I am going to preach the shortest sermon you’ve ever heard. Actually, I’m going to quote it. It’s from Jonah chapter 3, right before the verses we heard in our first reading today. You ready? “Forty days more and Ninevah shall be overthrown!” That’s it! That’s the sermon. What’s more, it was also one of the most successful sermons ever. This is what happened: “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth” in repentance. And the king of Ninevah said, “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” And what did God do? “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”

You’d think Jonah would be happy. He did exactly what God asked him to do, and he was successful beyond what he could have possibly imagined. His sermon not only spared the lives of 120,000 people plus their animals, but also caused them to turn away from doing evil, and turn toward God and put their faith in him. But was Jonah happy? No.

Why? Because Jonah wants the worst for the people of Nineveh. Jonah detests the Ninevites. They were part of the Assyrian empire, who had oppressed and conquered Jonah’s people, both the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. As he saw it, these were the worst people in the world. And not only did Jonah and his people hate them, even the hated Babylonians hated the Assyrians and Ninevites. Everybody hated the Ninevites, and couldn’t wait for them to get what they deserved.

As Jonah tells God, he would rather die than have to forgive these people. He doesn’t want them to change their ways; he just wants them to be punished. Meanwhile, Jonah himself has been very disobedient to God. He tried running away to Tarshish rather than go to Ninevah as God instructed, but that didn’t work. When he finally got to Ninevah, he preached his sermon very reluctantly. When he succeeds, he is bitter and jealous; he’s resentful, because God didn’t do what Jonah wanted.

But just as God did not give up on the Ninevites, sending Jonah to pursue them with a word of mercy and grace, God also did not give up on Jonah--even though it certainly would have been easier to give up on him. God keeps pursuing Jonah, showing him the same mercy and grace that God gave to Nineveh. God does this because he loves Jonah, and wants to teach him how to see the world from God’s perspective, so that he can gain a different, better way of life. And why is God’s way better? Because it is built on a faith that moves people out of the endlessly destructive cycles of behavior that are so easy for us to fall into--and it’s a faith that moves people to live based on forgiveness and grace, which opens the door to new life for today and salvation for eternity.

This different, better world that God wants to lead us into is available to everyone, from Jonah, to the Ninevites, to you and me. It’s called the kingdom of heaven. And it’s something that is not just available after we die. It’s available wherever God is present, which is to say, everywhere and in every time! The kingdom of heaven is all around us, right now, even in the most challenging of situations, because God is always present with us. And God’s kingdom becomes something we can see, feel, understand, participate in when we give ourselves over to Jesus in faith. When we “let go and let God”. When we take all the bitterness, or jealousy, or resentment that we hold in our hearts and hand it over to Jesus on the cross, for him to carry away from us, and replace it with his generosity of forgiveness, mercy, and love.

This grace of God is equally available to all, even when it doesn’t seem fair. And that’s what we see in today’s gospel, the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Each one gets hired by the landowner to work in his vineyard. Some begin working early in the morning, agreeing to be paid fairly for the “usual daily wage”. Others begin work in mid-morning, mid-day, or mid-afternoon, each agreeing to be paid “whatever is right”. Finally at five o’clock, the landowner goes to the marketplace and finds more laborers who’ve been waiting for someone to hire them--so he brings them to work in the vineyard. And at the end of the day, what does the landowner do with his vast resources? He pays each laborer the “usual daily wage”, regardless of how long they’ve worked.

This is a challenging parable, because our human nature being what it is, most of us find it easy to be jealous or resentful of others getting what they haven’t earned. It goes against what we consider to be “fair”. And this parable shows us that God is not fair--instead, God is generous. God lifts up each person to the point where everyone is equal. The laborers who worked all day complain about this, but the landowner points out, “I am doing you no wrong”, even though he asks “are you envious because I am generous?” Or to translate it literally, he asks, “Are you giving me the evil eye because I am good?” And he is doing them no wrong, even though they are giving him the evil eye, like Jonah gave God the evil eye.

Or maybe what this parable is trying to do is to expand our human ideas of what is fair and what isn’t. Maybe the parable shows us that God really is fair because God is consistent--consistently generous and gracious to people whether we deserve it or not. The grace God has for someone else that maybe I don’t think seems fair, is the same grace God has for me that maybe someone else doesn’t think seems fair.

We are all in need of God’s forgiveness and grace. And God’s forgiveness and grace is equally available to all. Can we let go of whatever jealousy, bitterness, or resentment holds us back? Can we embrace the generosity of God that comes with surrendering ourselves to the way of God’s kingdom? This is what Jesus called us to, when he was nailed to the cross saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In his death and resurrection, he invites us to live into this new reality, beginning today and going through all eternity.

So I invite you to try a little experiment in embracing this mindset of the kingdom of heaven. Take two 3 x 5 index cards. On one, write down a resentment, a grudge you hold in your heart, some jealousy or bitterness, or something you feel is unfair. On the other, write down a blessing, a gift you’ve received, generosity you’ve experienced, something you’re thankful for--either for yourself, or in the life of someone else. Once you are done, place each card face down on the palms of your hands. Notice that each card weighs the same. But in a spiritual sense, one of those cards is much heavier than the other and is weighing you down. Yet the other feels light and brings joy.

I’m going to ask you to choose one of these to give away--one that you want to get rid of. If you’re watching at home--rip that one up and throw it away. Or if you’re at the drive-in service, we’ll have a box for you to put that one in before you come up to receive Communion--and we’ll get rid of them after the service. And then the other card keep with you--in your home, in your car, whatever place would be a good reminder--and embrace the generosity of God toward us in Jesus’ name. Amen.