Skip to main content

The Upload

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I pray you had a blessed week.

As I prepare for my sermon this coming Sunday, I have decided that the theme of the week will be “Life isn’t fair!” Our Gospel text is Matthew 16:1-20 and our Old Testament text is Jonah 3:10-4:11. Both texts focus on how unfair God’s ways are. In the Jonah story, Jonah just wants to die because God has shown mercy to the people of Nineveh. The people had been evil and God was about to wipe them out, but he sent Jonah, against Jonah’s will, to preach to them and warn them. Jonah did not want to warn them because he felt they needed to be punished, and he knew God was a “nice guy,” so when he finally warned them and they changed, Jonah told God that he would prefer to die. The fact is we don’t like it when God loves our enemies, and we just don’t think it’s fair.

Then in our Gospel text, Jesus shares the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. You know this story…this is the one where the workers that only work one hour get paid the same amount as those that worked all day. The workers who had been there all day protest and say, “It’s not fair that those that worked so little get the same as we who worked all day.” And they are probably right, it isn’t fair, I wouldn’t like that, either, but that is exactly the point God made to Jonah and that Jesus shares in his parable. God is not a God of fairness; God is a God of justice and endless mercy. God desires that everyone be saved and that everyone come to know him and love him, and he will do whatever it takes to make that happen. In fact, God was willing to die for his creation, which he did in his Son, Jesus, the Christ. What was fair about that?

As we read these two stories, we come to see that God doesn’t measure divine grace as a reward for goodness. Divine grace is an act of unconditional love. We also hear in these stories that we humans often think we have somehow been good enough to earn that grace and, to be honest, we resent and object to God’s love and generosity when we see others whom we think have not “earned” it receive his radical generosity.

Life is not fair, but thank goodness it isn’t. If God’s grace and mercy were about fairness and our ability to earn God’s grace, if we were honest with ourselves, then we would all be in trouble. God’s grace does not come to us because we deserve it; it comes to us because we need it. God’s love for us is not handed out to us in small portions according to our good deeds and faithful actions. No, God is radically generous with his grace, and he lavishly and lovingly pours it upon us because we all so desperately need it. Thanks be to God!

Have a blessed week!

Shalom,

Pastor Dave

Tags: Weekly Word