Eyes on the Master

Eyes on the Master

Matthew 20:1-16 T Septuagesima

INI

          The parable from Matthew 20 indicates that there’s no distinction between what God gives His children on the Last Day. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian, laboring in the harvest field for one day, 10 years, 30 years, or 80 years. Entry into God’s kingdom is by His GRACE, not our works. And so, the forgiveness, life, and salvation given by God aren’t ours to earn or ours to give. It all comes from our Master’s generosity.

“Is your eye evil because I am good?” says our Lord at the end of verse 15 of our text. The translation that you have before you says, “or do you begrudge my generosity?” Your translation gets to the heart of the problem of those who were hired first to work the vineyard. But the Greek text “Is your eye evil because I am good?” gets to the source of the problem. Those hired first didn’t like that the master was so generous with his wages. They bore the heat of the day. They did all the work! Yet folks who were hired at the 3^rd, 6^th, 9^th, and 11^th hours of the day got paid the same denarius as the ones who worked the full day.

The master responds, “do you begrudge my generosity?” And that’s really the heart of the matter for those workers. And certainly, it can be at the heart of the problem for us in the church too. Because it reveals what we truly believe about sin and works. It shows that we believe our sins aren’t all that bad, and we can earn God’s favor through our works.

Sinners want to control the things of God. Our sinful flesh has the tendency to have a “God owes me” attitude. Like, if I complete the reading of the Bible in a year like pastor mentioned at the beginning of this year, or pray enough, or am kind enough to my neighbors, then I will in some way be blessed – whether it’s financial, or whether it’s your family life is better, or your health getting better, or  your work is more fruitful. We want rewards for the good things we do. And we usually want them to gain advantages OVER our neighbor.

Ultimately, us sinners want to control God’s creation. We want to control His people, His gifts, His forgiveness, His love, His generosity. Sinners wish to take these gifts of God out of His hand, to be used by us in how WE see fit.  Though our perspective be extremely limited, we believe we have the correct view of justice. Though, that’s certainly not the case. Because it’s almost as if we don’t believe in the just punishment of our sins. In the metaphor of the parable, the one who was hired at the beginning of the day didn’t realize how lucky he was to have a job in the first place. He didn’t realize how blessed he was to even be hired by the master. And perhaps we as Christians don’t realize how good we have it. We have SALVATION! We have the forgiveness of sins. We have the kingdom of God among us! We eat and drink the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood here at this altar for the forgiveness of our sins! Heaven comes down to earth here! The place where the creator dwells with His creation!  And I know we talk about these things all the time, so perhaps we’re a bit desensitized to the greatness of what God gives! Perhaps, we don’t see how blessed we already are!

It’s because our eyes are focused on the wrong things. We want more than the promises of God.  This leads us to the problem of those in the parable, and our problem: we begrudge the Father’s generosity.

But to fix the problem, we need to know the source of the problem. And the source of the problem, Jesus says from the Greek translation: sinners have wandering eyes. We’re looking at how generous God is to our neighbor, and we dare to think we DESERVE MORE of God’s generosity than them!

Our eyes are busy looking at those around us and seeing if their blessings are more or less than mine. And by golly, if the person who goes to church twice a year, and never seems to help anyone but himself gets the same or what would even seem like more material blessings than I, then why isn’t God blessing me?? In that way, we break the 9^th and 10^th commandments. We covet. We covet our neighbor’s material blessings. And we fail to see that God provides daily bread to all people, even evil people, as the Catechism says.

As soon as we start looking around and thinking we should get more because of what others received, our wandering eyes become evil. Our evil eyes begrudge the master and what He seeks to give, because we aren’t focused Him. Rather, we’re focused on what others receive FROM Him. Our wandering evil eyes lead us to dare to think that the master is unjust.

What does God owe us? Does He owe us anything? Why would we think that our works are so special, that we deserve any MORE grace from the master that he doesn’t also give to our neighbor? Why would we even dare to imagine that our sins aren’t that bad, and that despite God calling us to work His kingdom due to His GRACE, that we deserve something more? All because WE are unsatisfied with what we have? That’s the definition of entitlement.

We can’t think we get special treatment over another because of the works we’ve done. That’s not how grace works. Because grace is UNDESERVED! It’s given freely and richly! And it’s the Master’s gift to give, not mine. Not yours.

So take your evil, covetous, idolatrous eyes off your neighbors, your fellow church members, or folks from other churches. Fix your eyes on your Master. For He has hired you to work His vineyard. Focus on His grace! Be thankful for it! Don’t become unsatisfied with it, pray for it all the more! Pray that the grace which flows from Christ on the cross would change you! That it would change you to be more like Jesus! For while in the midst of Jesus’ own suffering and torment, where were His eyes focused? Was He lusting after the wine that the Roman soldiers got drunk on? Was He unsatisfied with the divine power He’d been given when He saw Pontius Pilate wielding his earthly power to Jesus’ own detriment? Would Jesus have rather been in Barabbas’ position, who was set free by the voice of the people, while Jesus was sentenced to death by the voice of the people?

No. Jesus wasn’t concerned about these others. He wasn’t concerned about their blessings. His eyes were focused on the Father, because He was concerned about you. His eyes were focused on the generosity of the Father, who would use His own death to bring undeserved sinners into fellowship with Him. That’s grace. And where were Jesus’ eyes focused? On the Father. Before the cross in the garden, Jesus prayed, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus cried from the cross – “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” “Woman, behold your son. Behold your mother.” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” “It is finished.” And “Father, into your arms I commit my Spirit.”

Even the perfect Son of God, the lamb who has taken away the sins of the world, didn’t get special treatment. Rather, He underwent the labor of the whole day to bring you into the vineyard at the last hour. The last moment. The last second. He labored so that you – yes, a sinner like you – may gain entry to the eternal places due to His great love towards us.

Our master is incredibly generous and gracious, isn’t He? Keep your eyes always focused on the Crucified Christ, lest we forget the generosity of Him who’s saved us. For by disciplining our wandering eyes to focus on Christ alone, our evil eyes are transformed by His mercy to see our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as worthy recipients of His gracious favor too.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston