God Loves the Leftovers!

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on Sunday, September 24.]

Matthew 20:1-16
The title for this morning’s message is God Loves the Leftovers!

From today’s Gospel lesson, we can see that God loves the also-rans, the forgottens, the nobodies, the johnny-come-latelies-to-faith.

And He loves them with the exact same passion and provides them with the exact same eternal salvation with which He loves and provides to those who have believed in Him for as long as they can remember.

This morning, as we consider Jesus’ words, we should be grateful that God loves the leftovers. Because He does, you and I have a place in Jesus’ eternal kingdom.

So do all who turn from their sin and trust in Christ as their God and Savior. That’s good news, gospel!

So, let’s take a look at what Jesus says to us today.

A few verses before the beginning of our gospel lesson, Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells the disciples that it will be harder for the wealthy to get into His kingdom than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. Peter, anxious to show that he and the other eleven apostles are worthy of being in the kingdom, reminds Jesus that they’ve given up incomes to follow Him. (As thought Jesus had forgotten that!) Jesus tells Peter and the others: “...everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29)

In other words, anyone who has sought the kingdom above everything in life, will gain much more than the wealth that this dying world can offer. As Jesus puts it elsewhere: “...seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

Jesus caps His response off with these words: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30)

You may have noticed that Jesus says similar words to these at the end of today’s Gospel lesson. That means that everything from Matthew 19:30 to the end of today’s lesson, Matthew 20:16, is about just this: In the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ kingdom, God the Father’s kingdom, the first will be last, the last will be first.

The leftovers will go to the front of the line and the people who showed up first, who followed Jesus faithfully for years and years, won’t mind sitting in the back; they’ll just be grateful to be in the eternal kingdom God gives to all who trust in Jesus! 

To say that this is foreign to our way of thinking is an understatement. It’s revolutionary, it’s counter-cultural. Some might even call it un-American.

But let’s listen to what Jesus tells us this morning, starting at Matthew 20:1: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.”

In those days, landowners and employers had total power, the way that God has total power over His kingdom. When it says that the landowner, standing in for God in this parable, “agreed” to pay the workers a denarius, the common wage for a day of labor in those days, it doesn’t mean that there was any negotiation. This was the rate that the landowner decided on: The workers in his vineyard were going to be paid this amount.

Read on, please: “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.” (Matthew 20:3-5)

It’s been several hours since the landowner first went to the marketplace to find people to go into his vineyard. He mentions nothing about the rate of pay to this second group. He just invites anyone who wants to go to his vineyard to do so. They aren't sent to Human Resources. No interviews. No screening. No attempts to learn the qualifications of the workers. If the men milling in the marketplace are willing to trust the landowner and his offer, they go to the vineyard.

How often do church members want to screen out people they don’t think will “fit in”? How often do we keep people from becoming part of Jesus' kingdom because we thoughtlessly neglect to invite them?

True story: A man who had just moved into a community told me about attending a Lutheran church shortly after his move and having a pleasant conversation with one of its members turn unpleasant when the member told him, “You seem like a nice person. But we already have enough members here. Things are just the way we want them to be here. Maybe you should go look for another church.” He did.

That’s not the way it is with the God we meet in Jesus, the God portrayed by Jesus as the landowner in today’s parable. God invites everyone into His kingdom. Anyone willing to leave the square, with its sins and warped values, and instead, enter His vineyard will be richly rewarded in forgiveness of sins, the power to resist evil, the presence of Christ in their lives on earth, and eternity with God and His people.

Read what Jesus says next, please. “[The landowner] went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’” (Matthew 20:5b-7)

“Why aren’t you in my kingdom?” the landowner-stand-in-for-God asks. “Because no one has invited us in.” These are the leftovers, the people nobody else wants. But God does!

The leftovers called by the landowner are like David, at whom the prophet and judge Samuel looked, and saw, not a king, just a scrawny afterthought. But God told Samuel: “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) Samuel anointed David king.

The leftovers are like ancient Israel to whom Moses said: “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you…” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

The leftovers are like the thief on the cross, a criminal who had wandered in the marketplace, stealing and killing all of his life, but on the brink of death, encountered Jesus, acknowledged His sins, and asked for a place in Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus told him as they both died on their crosses: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)

The leftovers are like the apostle Paul, who had rejected Christ and yet came to believe and would speak of himself as “the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” yet…”by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10).

I am a leftover, someone who had once rejected the crucified and risen Jesus and His grace. Yet God still kept calling me. Why? Because God loves the leftover people of the world. He wants everyone of them in His kingdom. And He wants His Church to keep calling all people to repentance and new life as long as this brittle, dying world still turns on its axis.

Look at what Jesus says next. “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

"The Workers in the Vineyard" by Kazakhstan Artist Nelly Bube. 

 We know, good Lutherans that we are, you and I, that we are sinners only saved by the generous grace of God, brought to us through our faith in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God has ushered us into His vineyard, His kingdom, and it’s a privilege. We know that we don’t deserve life with God. It’s a free gift which He created for us. The apostle Paul reminds us: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

But sometimes we forget about grace. Sometimes, we may want to pray like the self-righteous Pharisee in another of Jesus’ parables: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:11) Life in God’s kingdom belongs to all who hear Jesus’ call to follow and like the tax collector in that parable in Luke’s gospel say to God: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)

No matter our sins or failures, God wants us in His kingdom.

Whenever we have the guts to acknowledge our sins, turn away from them, and follow Jesus, we are in His eternal kingdom.

It’s true that God loves leftovers. But the deeper truth is that in His kingdom, there are no leftovers.

As Jesus says at the end of today’s Gospel lesson: “...the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16)

Speaking for myself, as long as I can be in Jesus’ kingdom forever, I’m not particular about the seating arrangements. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Living Water is a congregation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).

A Lot More Than Fair

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio on Sunday, September 21, 2014.]

Matthew 20:1-16
Once, like I’m about to do this morning, I preached on today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 20:1-16. There, as we’ve seen, Jesus tells a parable--a story--about what one Bible scholar called "the eccentric employer" who pays the people who worked just one hour for him the exact same amount of money that he pays those who spend the whole day working in his fields.

After the service that day, a lifelong Christian and member of that church waited until I had shaken everybody’s hand, then approached me. “That Gospel lesson has always bothered me,” he said. “It’s not fair! Is Jesus saying that a mass murderer who repents and trusts in Him just before the executioner flips the switch is on an equal plain with someone like me? I’ve been a Christian all my life.”

I tried to tell the man: “It’s hard for us to accept, but no, God isn’t fair in that we can never earn what He gives to us. We can earn no more and no less of the grace He gives to those with faith in Christ.

"And, yes, the mass murderer who turns to Jesus in repentance and faith is every bit as much a part of the kingdom of heaven as any other sinner who repents and believes.”

Our conversation started there and didn't get any better, frankly.

Few sayings of Jesus more reliably offend many faithful Christians than those found in these verses from Matthew. Yet, if we only stop to think, we realize that this isn’t the only time Jesus has delivered the same message.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. In it, a good-for-nothing son returns home to his father, begging for a job as a hired hand and is instead, welcomed home with a feast of forgiveness and welcome, assured that He is an heir once more. The message is clear: Even the worst sinner can, with repentance and faith in Christ, receive all the perks of eternity that Jesus died and rose to give repentant believers in Him.

But sometimes overlooked in the parable is the older brother, a guy who had always obeyed his father, always towed the line, and so resented his father’s grace toward the prodigal son that he refused to come into the party, representing those who resent God’s grace and forgiveness for those they deem beneath them on the righteous-meter. He reminds me of Christians and non-Christians I've known through the years who have refused the grace of God or the fellowship of the Church out of the same sense of self-righteousness.

Later, on the cross, Jesus would demonstrate the very things He proclaims in these parables. A thug hung on the cross next to Him. He acknowledged His sins and Jesus’ kingship and Jesus promised this undeserving man, who came to repentance as he was breathing his last, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

The God we know in Jesus Christ is not fair. He forgives sinners who will turn from sin and trust in Him no matter when they do that in their lives. 

But there’s more to this parable than giving hope to johnny-come-latelies. Let’s take a few minutes to unpack Jesus’ parable to find that something more.

By way of background, turn please, in the sanctuary Bibles, to Matthew 19:27-29. Jesus has just encountered a rich young man who wanted entry into God’s kingdom. Jesus could see that the man’s wealth was his god, the most important thing in his life. After Jesus tells the man that he clearly must sell everything he has and give to the poor, then follow Him, the man walks away from Jesus, sorrowful. The rich man's identity was too wrapped up in wealth to let go of it, even if doing so meant taking hold of eternal life with God.

Jesus mourned the man’s decision. Just as He mourns it today whenever we turn from Him and His grace. He talks about how hard it is for those with wealth to follow Him, how we must divest ourselves of our dependence on anyone or anything other than God if we are to have life with God.

Defensively, Peter asks Jesus: “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

Can you hear the pathetic tone in Peter’s words? “We’re good guys, right, Jesus? We checked off that box, right? We gave up everything to follow You.”

Jesus doesn’t answer Peter’s question directly. Instead, He speaks words that challenge Peter to some prayerful reflection (maybe they challenge us similarly): “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”

Tough words! Those who follow Jesus--who repent and believe in Him and keep believing in Him--will reign with God over the new creation that will come about on His return.

But He defines those who follow Him as all who are willing to rid themselves not just of their dependence on wealth, but also dependence on their closest kin, even their spouses, if those dependencies prevent them from following Him.

Followers of Jesus must be willing to lose what the world counts important in order to gain eternity. The last will be first. The first will be last. God isn’t fair. He’s gracious.

Jesus then tells the parable that makes up today’s Gospel lesson. You know the story well. A wealthy landowner goes to a public square at about 6am, 9am, Noon, 3pm, and even 5pm, just one hour before the end of the workday in order to hire people to take care of his harvest.

It was common for landowners to go out to such places at the beginning of workdays to hire laborers. But no landowner would keep going out every several hours through a workday in the way the owner in Jesus‘ fictional parable did.

In verse 6, we’re told that the owner went to the square at 5:00 and asks why no one has yet hired the men still there. It’s a good question. At harvest time, there should have plenty of jobs for willing workers.

In verse 7, the men reply: “Because no one has hired us.” The owner doesn’t stop to think, “Are these guys loafers? Are they troublemakers? Did other landowners let them go because they're unreliable?” He simply hires the men on the spot. He has a whole harvest field and he needs more harvesters.

At the end of the parable, as we’ve seen, those sketchy latecomers get the same pay as the ones who toiled all day long in the sun.

 Because God isn’t fair, but gracious, as long as there is breath, there is hope that those who don’t believe in Christ will turn to Him and live. And their place in eternity will be as secure and as joyous as the places of people like Paul and Peter and Stephen and Martin Luther and Billy Graham and Mother Teresa. That gives us a great hope, not only for ourselves, but for those loved ones for whom we pray Christ will become Lord.

But the parable is about much more than that. Remember that this is a parable about the “kingdom of heaven.” “...the kingdom of heaven is like...” Jesus begins. The laborers are saved not by what they do but by their trust in the landowner.

Yet, the landowner doesn’t call them to a life of ease.

Being citizens of the kingdom of heaven is not about strumming harps and hangin’. The God we follow in Christ intends to put us to work on the same saving mission that God was on when Jesus was born, when He died, and when He rose again.

When we sign on for salvation through Christ, we also sign for holy assignments from God.

In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus tells the disciples: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Jesus was saying that there are lots of people in the world who need the good news of John 3:16. And people really only come to know and follow Jesus Christ--people only come to know Jesus as their God and Savior and Lord--in life-to-life encounters with Christians who have been sent out into the harvest by Christ.

And the New Testament makes clear that that is every Christian, not just the people wearing collars. The apostle writes in 1 Peter 2:9: “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

Every Christian has been entrusted with the great commission to go into the harvest and make disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you...”



But even though Jesus couples the commission to make disciples with a promise--”...I am with you always, even to the end of the age”--I find the whole idea of living life-to-life with other people in order to help them become disciples of Christ intimidating.

I love the idea of being part of Jesus’ kingdom. I’m really shaky on being someone who tries to go harvesting for disciples among skeptical family members, cranky neighbors, or hostile strangers.

“I want to be in your vineyard, Lord. But instead of being a harvester, could I just be an encourager of harvesters? A spectator of harvesters?”

Maybe you have similar feelings. But according to Jesus, we don’t have those options. To be all in with Jesus is to receive all of His grace and all of partnership in His mission to win all the world to faith in Him.



Fortunately, for we squeamish disciples, help is on the way. Your church council has recently voted to sign on to a three year process of the North American Lutheran Church called Congregational Discipleship Ministry.

Not a program, this ministry teaches us--first the pastors, then a group of about twelve people called the life and learning team, then more and more people of the congregation--how to live as disciples, how to harvest the vineyard, how to make new disciples.

The focus is on being not members of the Church, but disciples within the body of Christ, empowered by God to reach those who, without saving faith in Christ, will be lost for all eternity.

For the first nine months or so, you’ll hear little about this discipleship ministry. A coach will be working with Dan Mershon and me, helping us learn how, using the gifts, abilities, experiences, and personalities God has given to us as individuals to share our lives and Christ’s life with others, so that we can help you to do the same.

This is precisely how Christ envisioned the Church to work. In the Church, Christ created the first pyramid scheme, disciples multiplying by one-to-one contact with the Gospel present in the lives of of believers in Christ.

This is the life to which the One Who bought us out of slavery to sin and death has called us to live.

We are called, no matter when Jesus Christ calls us to faith in Him, to be Christ’s harvesters.

Pray everyday, please, that the Holy Spirit will teach us how to fulfill that call. Nothing is more important. Amen

After God Has Forgiven You...Forgive Yourself

Today, after you've confessed your sins to God, ask God to help you to forgive yourself as God has forgiven you.

No more rehearsing of the sins that caused you to tell God you were sorry and to ask God for His forgiveness! God's Word in the Bible promises: "As far as east is from the west, so far [God] removes our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12).

When we hold onto sin that God has forgiven, we display a lack of faith in God's compassion and God's willingness to keep His promises. But the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, show us God's compassion and God's resolve to do all that's necessary for us to be forgiven and have our relationship with God restored. When we genuinely confess our sins to God in Jesus' Name, we can be sure that we are forgiven.

Holding onto our sin and refusing to accept God's forgiveness can also turn our guilt into shame.

Guilt is God's prod to our consciences, alerting us to something we have done that's building a barrier between God and us, between us and others, between us and God's forgiveness.

Shame is that boulder we carry on our shoulders when we think that our faults, real and imagined, make us irredeemably bad.

Look, no one is irredeemably bad. Even the bandit on the cross next to Jesus turned from sin and to faith in Jesus with His dying breaths and Jesus told him, "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

Through Jesus, we know, as the Bible tells us, "If we confess our sins, [God] Who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). It also says that "everyone who believes in [Jesus] receives forgiveness of sins through His Name" (Acts 10:43).

Today, after you've confessed your sins to God, ask God to help you to forgive yourself as God has forgiven you.

Still Reasons for Hope!

[The funeral for my Uncle Jim happened yesterday. I was honored to be asked by my Aunt Marge, my father's older sister, to preside. This is the sermon I shared then.]

Isaiah 40:27-31
Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 23
John 11:21-27

Aunt Marge, Danny, Jennifer, Cindy, and all your family members: Alongside Uncle Jim, you’ve been through terribly hard times. In just a short while, you’ve suffered sudden multiple losses after long suffering on the parts of people you loved.

There will be, sadly, hard times yet ahead. The loss of loved ones isn’t something people can just “get over.” In a sense, losing Uncle Jim—who, along with Aunt Marge—presided over a “brood” that included eighteen great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, is something none of you will ever “get over.”

And why should you? When the ties of love are strong, so is the sadness you feel when the familiar voice and the well-known heart are gone.

But, as the Bible says, we who believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, don’t grieve as people without hope. We have hope. Even today there is hope!

There’s hope, first of all, because the moment Uncle Jim left this life, his suffering ended and he entered a new reality. The words of Isaiah, chapter 40, spoken by God to His chosen people, Israel, through the prophet hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, are for you to hold onto today. "Those who wait for the Lord,” God says, “shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Through trust in Jesus, we can know that Uncle Jim, denied his health and the ability to walk in this world, is not only walking again, but is running without weariness. He’s once again alive, living in the presence of God.

But this passage from Isaiah is also a promise to you. Uncle Jim’s long illness and the other adversities and tragedies faced by this family have left you depleted and tired. But God will give you strength! The God Who created the universe and died and rose for us, can give you rest and renewal! “Come to Me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest.”

Aunt Marge: When I read the passage from Romans 8 a few moments ago, Ann smiled because I've told her many times that if it isn't read at my own funeral, I'm getting up and reading it myself. I love it so much because it contains another amazing promise, one that underscores this hope that you can have as you move through day to day in the weeks and months to come. Those who trust in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, it says, can live knowing that nothing “in all creation…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

God has not forgotten any of you or any of us this morning! That, God says in another place in Isaiah, is impossible: “I will not forget you…I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.” Even now, God is...

• as close as a prayer, 
• as close as His Word in the Bible, 
• as close as a church fellowship in which we can confess our sins, hear the Gospel, and receive Christ’s body and blood* along with others who, like us, need comfort and hope and strength, 
• as close as a friend or a family member willing to listen, to help, and to pray with you.

But we have hope more than just for this life. In the lesson we read from the Gospel of John, Jesus has gone to a town called Bethany, where a friend of his, a man named Lazarus, had died four days earlier. His sisters, Martha and Mary are beside themselves with grief. When Martha first sees Jesus, she gives words to what many people think when a loved one dies. “Lord, if You had been here,” she says, “my brother would not have died.” Martha feels that Jesus had abandoned her.

Jesus doesn’t bother sparring with Martha; God is big enough to take our accusations and our sense of abandonment. After all, if we get upset with God, it only proves our belief in God because you don’t get upset with a God you don’t believe is there. (Jesus Himself would later have the same feelings as Martha had, when, as He was being executed on the cross, He cried out, “My God, My God, why have Your forsaken Me?”) Instead of being defensive, Jesus told Martha plainly, “Your brother will rise again” and “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Then Jesus asks Martha a question that He asks us again this morning: “Do you believe this?” Martha said that she did. Without any evidence but the credibility and love she saw in Jesus, Martha said that she believed that all who trust in Christ will live again.

Shortly thereafter, Jesus gave a sign that He could be trusted to make good on this promise to those who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him: He called Lazarus back to life.

Later still, Jesus gave the ultimate sign that we can place all our hope in this promise: He took our punishment for sin on the cross and then was raised from the dead. In Christ, we have the hope of everlasting life with God…alongside all who have trusted in Him.

Now, there’s one last hope that we have this morning. That’s the hope for this life we derive from a good example, like that given to us in so many ways by Uncle Jim.

It’s one of the indelible memories of my growing-up years. Somehow, Uncle Jim and I found ourselves alone in the living room of Pop’s and Grandma’s house in Bellefontaine. Marge and Jim had recently celebrated a wedding anniversary and out of the blue, Uncle Jim told me: “You know, Mark, a lot of people say bad things about marriage. But it is a wonderful thing, especially when you're married to the right person.”

Those words were as much a tribute to you, Aunt Marge, as they are in remembering them now, to Uncle Jim. I have to tell you that, along with the examples of good marriages I saw in my own Mom and Dad and those of other couples I got to see up close, it gave me hope that I too, could one day have a good and happy marriage, with which I am blessed today. I never forgot what Uncle Jim told me!

And today, in addition to the hope that comes from knowing that God is with you and the hope that comes from knowing that God has promised everlasting life to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus, I want to suggest that you also latch onto the hope that belongs to those who have been inspired by a good example.

Uncle Jim was a good man who loved the Lord, loved his wife, and loved his family. May his example help give us all inspiration to live lives at the end of which people can say similar things about us. Amen

*Until illness and the closure of the congregation of which he and my aunt were long-time members, Uncle Jim regularly assisted the pastor in sharing Holy Communion during worship.