Today is Christ the King Sunday. This Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays to preach because the preacher has one job this morning: to talk about the kingship of Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, I preached about the end of the biblical story, which is not disembodied life up among the clouds but rather the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead. That’s the end, so to speak, although even that isn’t precisely the end but rather the beginning of the fullness of the new creation.

But perhaps that sermon left you wondering. Maybe it left you wondering what Jesus is doing between his ascension and that last, great day when he will return, and the dead in Christ will rise, never to die again. This Sunday is the answer to that question. Jesus Christ is King; he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That’s the first point I want to make this morning.

We might be tempted to look at how the world is today and say, “I can’t wait until the day Jesus is King.” There are whole eschatologies, beliefs about the end time, built around precisely this idea. They cannot fathom that Jesus Christ is King already, and so they push his kingship out into the future. This way of thinking is not how the Bible thinks about the kingship of Jesus. ‌

In the Bible, Jesus was enthroned twice, and please notice the past tense. He was enthroned twice. The first time he was enthroned, he was dressed in purple, a crown of thorns was placed upon his head, and a reed was put in his hand as a scepter. And before the soldiers took the reed from him, beat him with it, spit on him, and ripped the garments from his body, they unknowingly spoke a truth that would change the world:

And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

The king was lifted up, enthroned on a Roman cross, and the same words hung above his head.

And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. On that day, Jesus was crowned as the King of the Jews, and if he was King of the Jews, then as the Psalmists and Prophets had always said, he was also the king of the whole world. Jesus was enthroned as the king of all the earth on Golgotha, but then he died, rose, and ascended, and this is his second enthronement.

When Jesus ascended on high, he sat down at the right hand of God. We see this in several places.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

​But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

Even the more extended ending of Mark, which I don’t consider to be canonical but does summarize well certain early Christian traditions says,

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

Do you know what Old Testament chapter is quoted or alluded to the most in the New Testament? It’s Psalm 110.

The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

Jesus was enthroned at his ascension. He took his seat at the right hand of God as the Lord of heaven and earth. And notice that little bit right there: “until I make your enemies your footstool.” That last bit of the verse is what Paul refers to in our epistle reading this morning when he writes:

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

If the question is, “What is Christ doing now between his ascension and his second coming?” that’s the answer. He is reigning as the Lord of Heaven and Earth and actively putting all these enemies under his feet by destroying every rule, authority, and power opposed to his kingdom.

The reason that the last enemy to be destroyed is death is because death is not fully and finally destroyed until the day Christ returns and those in Christ rise again to eternal life. But that’s what Christ is doing. He is bringing everything opposed to his rule in subjection under his feet, and nothing is more opposed to his rule than death.

Jesus Christ is king now, bringing the world into subjection under his feet. But here’s point number two, which must be said alongside point one.

Jesus is a different kind of king. Jesus said:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

Jesus is a different kind of king. He is not the kind of king who is enthroned with great pomp and circumstance. He is the kind of king enthroned upon a Roman cross. And so, when we think about what it means for him to bring the whole world into subjection under his feet, if we imagine power, military might, and great pomp and circumstance, we’ve got the idea completely wrong.

Our king identified not with powerful rules of this world but certainly not with the tyrants and would-be kings; instead, he identified with the outcast, the forgotten, the imprisoned, the sojourner, the hungry, the poor, the thirsty, and the naked. He identified with them so much that he called them his brothers and said that whatever we’ve done to the least of these, we did it to him.

Think about that for one moment. We often describe our ministry to the poor and needy with language that places us in the role of Christ. We will say we’re “the hands and feet of Jesus.” I assume this comes from the idea of being the body of Christ. But if we take Matthew 25 on its own, we must recognize that when we care for the least of these, we are not being Christ to them. They are Christ to us.

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Or even worse.

Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

Notice who is talking: the king. Our king so identifies with those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned that however we treat them, for good or for ill, is how we treat our king. There’s no ambiguity about this. They are Christ to us, and how we treat them is how we treat our king. I titled this sermon “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” except it’s not a joke. Our king was stripped naked. Our king is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. He has no clothes, no food, no water, no money, no health, and no freedom. And every time we care for someone in the same situation as him, his brothers and sisters, we care for him.

Our king intends to bring the whole world in subjection under his feet. Not with the sword. Not with power. Not with weapons. Not with violence. Remember. He was enthroned upon a Roman cross as he emptied himself and was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Our king intends to bring the whole world in subjection under his feet by pouring his Holy Spirit into his people and enabling them to love others with that same self-sacrificial love. That is why he tells his people to take up their cross and follow him.

The poor and outcast are not there for us to be Christ to them; they are there to be Christ to us. And our king says that how we treat them will have eternal consequences. Treat them like Kings and Queens, and our king will say to you,

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Amen.

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The parable we hear this morning follows the one we heard last week. In that parable, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom. The bridegroom was delayed, and his delay revealed which of the virgins were foolish and which were wise. The wise virgins brought extra oil with them, while the foolish virgins did not. In short, the wise virgins made provisions for the delay, while the foolish virgins did not. As a result, only those who were prepared were welcomed to the wedding feast, while those who were not were denied entry. Even worse, the Lord says:

But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

The final command is not spoken to the virgins but to those listening to Jesus. He says:

Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

In the history of biblical interpretation, this parable is often interpreted as a command to stay vigilant in response to what is known as the delay of the parousia.

I won’t get into this topic now, but suffice it to say that many have argued that the kingdom of God parables containing this notion of a delay or an extended period were reshaped by the early church because Jesus didn’t return as quickly as they expected. So, the idea here is Jesus takes longer to return than we thought, so the early church reshaped or even invented parables on the lips of Jesus to be able to see, “Look, he told us all along that this would take a while.”

There is no doubt that many of the earliest Christians expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. I suspect many of them thought he would return at the fall of Jerusalem, and some might even argue that he did, at least in some sense of the word “return.” But that does not necessitate that these parables, the one last week and ours this Sunday, were reshaped or invented out of thin air.

That is to say, they make sense in their historical context if we don’t assume that WE are the original audience for the parables. So, this is a reminder for all of us, when we read our Bibles (and I expect and hope that we are reading them daily), that before we start asking what a passage means today, we must first ask what it meant in its historical context.

Suppose we apply this principle to last week’s parable and this morning’s parable. In that case, we come away with relatively straightforward and overlapping ideas. The delay in the parable of the ten virgins and the long journey in the parable of the talents are two sides of the same Old Testament idea.

Yahweh, Israel’s husband, was supposed to come back to his land and his people at the end of the exile, but that exile had been delayed and extended. Since then, Israel has been waiting for its God to return, so the question in both parables is: What should Israel have been doing while they waited? ‌

In this morning’s parable, the man who goes on a journey is God, who has entrusted his servants Israel with his “property.” Paul says in Romans about the physical offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

In short, God entrusted his salvific plan to his servants, and he expected them to take what he had given them and invest it back into the world. Notice that, in this parable, the master commends all the servants but one. The only one he does not commend is the one who hid his master’s talents in the ground rather than sharing them with the world.

The imagery ought to draw our mind to Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Israel was not called to hide the light of the world nor to put their lamps under basked. They were called to give light to all who were in the house. They were called to let their light sign before others so that others may see their good works and give glory to their Father in heaven. In short, they were to invest what God had given them back into the world so that it might multiply to the glory of God.

But that’s what it meant. So what does it mean? How do we cross the contextualizing bridge, as we’ve called it in our adult catechesis? We, too, are waiting for the return of our Lord. That’s what I preached on last week. We are not waiting for him to take us away from here but rather to return, bring back the dead in Christ with him, and usher in the new heavens and new earth.

But in between now and then, we wait, and so parables spoken to Israel while she was waiting speak also to us today. From the Parable of the Ten Virgins, we learn to always live in expectation. The Lord might return at any minute. We must always be prepared and always be waiting.

And from the Parable of the Talents we learn that what God has gifted to us is meant to be invested back into the world so that it might multiply to the glory of God. That is the basic principle, but there are a few more things I want to point out here for your edification and mine.

First, as servants of God, everything we have comes from God and ultimately belongs to God. He entrusts different amounts of talents to various servants, but the amount entrusted isn’t the point. The point, as we say in our liturgy, is: “All things come from you.” Whatever we have isn’t ours. It belongs to God, and to use the language of the parable, he has entrusted it to us.

Second, what he has entrusted to us, he expects to be invested for the good of his kingdom. One servant receives five talents, another only two. The one who receives five makes five more; the one who receives only two makes only two more. To both, the Lord says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” The only chastised servant is the one who hoards what has been entrusted to him.

Third, God never expects more of you than you’ve been given. Notice that the Lord doesn’t say to the servant who brought back two additional talents, “Why didn’t you bring back five talents like the other servant?” The one who is given five brings back five more. The one who is given two brings back two more. God does not expect more from you than you’ve been given. But he does expect you to take what you’ve been given, your time, treasure, and talents, and invest them into the world to spread his kingdom and increase his glory.‌

That’s the question for us this morning. How are we using what we’ve been given to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory? Some of us are blessed with lots of free time. How are we using our free time to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory?

Some of us are blessed with treasure. How are we using our treasure to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory?

Some of us are blessed with talents. How are we using all the ways in which we are gifted to spread God’s kingdom and increase his glory in this world? ‌

We must wrestle with these questions because, one day, the Lord is coming back, and he expects us to have been wise. He expects us to take what we’ve been given and invest it back into the world for the spread of his kingdom and the praise of God’s glory.

Amen

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Paul begins this morning’s reading by saying, “we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.”

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

By “those who are asleep,” he means “those who have died in Christ,” and this is an immediately relevant topic for all of us. We all want to know what it is that happens when we die, and this type of musing is given increased energy when we are faced with the death of a loved one or friend, as all of us have been with the passing of Deacon Bill.

What I find amusing is that while Paul says that he does not want us to be uninformed about God’s plan for those who have died in Christ, many Christians today speak about what happens when we die in vague and incomplete terms that often sound much more like Plato than Jesus or Paul.

So let’s set the record straight this morning. Let’s talk about what happens to those who are asleep both now and when Christ comes again.

Surprisingly, given what Paul says in the opening verse, he tells us almost nothing about the current state of those who have died in Christ. There is a reason for this, and it gets to the problem of most Christian thinking about life after death. The reason Paul says almost nothing about our state of existence when we die is that his focus, as should be the focus of all Christians, is not on the in-between but on the end of the story.

Paul is not so much concerned about life-after-death as he is concerned about life after life-after-death.

He writes:

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

But this “even so” is a questionable translation. The word is οὕτως. It means “in this way” or “in this manner”. And the preposition “through” probably goes with the verb slept, so we end up with something like:

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way also, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through the Messiah.

Paul’s very first point about those who have died in Christ is not to discuss their heavenly existence but to state clearly and unambiguously that God will do for them what he did for Jesus Christ, namely, they will rise again.

This is the first thing we have to get right. When Christians die or when we think about the afterlife, the first thing we should be talking about is resurrection. The first thing that we should say is that God intends to do for us what he did for Jesus of Nazareth. But we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.

One thing to note here about our existence between death and the resurrection is that while Paul doesn’t say much, he does imply clearly that we are safe with God. The metaphor he uses is one of sleep. Maybe he means that we have no conscience existence between death and the resurrection, like we were just napping. Maybe it’s just a metaphor, and all metaphors fall short. Either way, what Paul believes about our loved ones who have died in Christ is that they are safe with God, and just as importantly, when Jesus Christ comes again, he will bring them with him.

That’s the now for those who have died in Christ. They are safe with Christ in God. In Philippians, as Paul considers that his death might be imminent, he writes:

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Your loved ones, Deacon Bill, and you, when your time comes, will be safe with Christ in God. He will hold you securely in his embrace until that day comes when Christ returns, and he brings the dead in Christ with him.

So that’s the now. But what about the end? What about the last great day? What about the next event on the eschatological timetable?

When I was growing up, the next event on the eschatological timetable was the Rapture, and the idea came from the very verses in our reading this morning.

So let’s say a word about the rapture. If you don’t know what this is, the basic idea is that when Christ returns, he will take all the Christians from this earth and initiate his judgment upon the world. First, it is not a historic Christian doctrine. The idea didn’t exist until about the 1830s, and it originated among American fundamentalists. It is not in the Creed, nor do you find it in any of the writings of the early church. Of course, that doesn’t matter if you can find the Rapture in the Bible, and that leads me to my second point.

Second, the rapture is not found in the Bible. Let’s look at this. If you were to turn to Revelation and ask, “Where is the rapture?” the best answer anyone could give you is that you can find the rapture in the white space between chapter three and chapter four. That means it’s not there. But that’s really okay for those who believe in the rapture because Revelation isn’t the key text. That responsibility falls on our reading this morning, particularly verse 17.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

He’s going to show up, take us with him into the clouds, and then he will take us to heaven, and we’ll be with him forever. That’s what it says, right?

No. Wrong.

The whole movement in this text is not from earth to heaven but rather from heaven to earth. And Paul is trying to describe the impossible, something that humans cannot conceive of, in the only way he knows how. N. T. Wright describes Paul’s language here as trying to describe different colors to a blind person. Paul is grasping at language to describe that moment when Christ finally returns, and all those who are dead in Christ return with him and are re-embodied, that is, resurrected, and those who are alive in Christ are likewise transformed with resurrected bodies, and so he chooses at least two Old Testament images to try and describe this moment.

The first is Sinai. On the third day of Moses going up and down the mountain, the Lord himself is said to come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of the people.

For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

And when he does, there is thunder, lightning, and thick clouds, and there is also the blast of a very loud trumpet.

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.

Now read 1 Thess 4:16 again.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Notice again, the emphasis on resurrection. This is not the rapture. This is the resurrection, and the first imagery Paul uses to try and describe this event is taken from Sinai, from the moment God descended from heaven and came to rest on the mountain with loud thunder and the blast of a trumpet.

The second imagery is more subtle but just as important. Jesus said several times that when he returned, he would come riding on the clouds. This language comes from Daniel 7, where the Son of Man, in his vindication, comes on the clouds not from heaven to earth, but rather, from earth to heaven. He is lifted up to the very throne of God so that the eternal judge can render a verdict. He is coming on the clouds, and so, on that day, when he returns again, we, too, will ride the clouds with him.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Those who are alive will be caught up together in the clouds with Christ and with those who have been raised from the dead, and we will join him in triumphal procession as the Lord himself descends to earth to make all things new and to restore and renew creation.

That is our hope – not life after death, but life after life after death. Our hope is that God will do the very same thing for us that he did for Jesus, that he will not leave us for dead, that he will not let death write the last words of the story of our lives. Our God is a God of life, and our hope is that he will raise us back from the dead.

So if you’re grieving…. maybe over the loss of a loved one recently… maybe over the loss of Deacon Bill… maybe over the loss of a loved one not so recently… it’s okay to grieve, but don’t grieve as those who have no hope.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

And our hope is not disembodied life in the heavenly realm. Our hope is more than that and greater than that. Our hope is that God will do for us what he has already done for Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our hope is that just as God raised him from the dead on the first Easter morning, in the same way, he will also raise us from the dead on the last great day when the Lord descends, the trumpet blows, the living are transformed, and the dead in Christ rise again, and we all, as one resurrected body of Christ join him in triumphal procession into his new creation.

That is our hope.

Amen.

The post Our Hope first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

“I believe in the Communion of Saints.” 

That affirmation in the Apostles’ Creed has been repeated by billions of Christians for nearly 2000 years. 

The Communion of Saints encompasses not only linear time but also two additional dimensions of reality—physical and spiritual. You and I became part of the Communion of Saints through our Baptisms. As today reminds us, we are ALL saints, not by spiritual accomplishments, but by God’s grace. 

What does the Communion of Saints mean to us?  

We probably understand best the PHYSICAL expression of the Communion of Saints. 

Why? Because we physically see, hear, and touch each other. We regularly worship, study, fellowship, and minister with and to each other. In the physical dimension of reality, we are tangible to each other. 

One purpose of All Saints Day is to give thanks for our corporate life together. One can only imagine how empty our lives would be if we didn’t have each other. 

This, of course, raises the question, “What happens to us when we are no longer physically visible to one another?” That time will inevitably come to each one of us. Death separates us from the physical world that we now occupy. 

Does this mean that we are no longer in the communion and fellowship of the Church? Does death have the power to break our fellowship with one another? The answer is emphatically “NO!” 

How can we affirm this truth? We affirm our continuing fellowship beyond death because we stand on the most basic truth of the Christian Faith.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead! Because He lives, we live also! 

But how do we live? What is our relationship with each other after death takes place? Do we continue to be in community with each other as we are at present? 

 When we consider that the Living Jesus Christ is the basis of our community with one another, the answer is “YES!”  

Regardless of whether we function in this life or the next, our common foundation of community with each other is Jesus Christ. In this world, as well as the next, Jesus stands as the recipient of our prayers of praise, intercession, thanksgiving, and petition. We are also the focus of His prayers of praise, intercession, thanksgiving, and petition. This reality expresses an unbreakable bond between Jesus and us. What a beautiful affirmation of our eternal security! 

To affirm this bond, we can turn to today’s reading from Revelation. John has a vision of God’s heavenly community being united with  His earthly one. The first part of John’s vision is set on earth as the 144,000 are sealed from the coming worldly disaster. These 144,000 represent the Redeemed Israel.   

Since this is a vision—and visions are usually symbolic of a greater reality– we can interpret these people as the vanguard of a perfectly complete EARTHLY communion of Saints encompassing every race and culture. How do we see this biblical truth symbolically in the vision of the 144,000? 

First, 12 is interpreted as the biblical number for community. We are given in this vision the square root of this number (12 X 12=144). The square root of this biblical number 12 symbolizes the perfection or completeness of this community. We can recall the 12 apostles or the 12 Israelite tribes, which point to the symbolic completeness of God’s community in biblical language.  

Finally, 144 is multiplied by 1000, which is a biblical way of symbolizing the great worldwide extent and inclusivity of the Communion of Saints. 

This great number is being redeemed from the suffering of this earth. They include literal Israelites—since the 12 tribes are mentioned—and spiritual Israelites because the Church is often called the New Israel. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (2:29), speaks of this New Israel when he says, “He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God.” Thus, Paul is including Gentiles who also have a heart to trust in God’s promises—the promises He first revealed to the Jewish nation, but now is meant to be shared worldwide. 

However, we can go a step further. The lesson from Revelation makes it clear that the Communion of Saints exists not only on earth with the sealed and redeemed people but also in heaven. 

Revelation 7:9 testifies, “After this I looked, and behold a great multitude which no man could number from every nation, from all tribes and people and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” 

This is a vision of the Communion of Saints in heaven worshipping Jesus the Lamb, who sits on the throne representing God’s encompassing presence. We are shown that both in this world and the next, Jesus is the recipient of our prayers of praise, intercessions, thanksgiving, and petitions. All these prayers to Jesus comprise the expressive lifeblood of the Christian Church, which we share. When we pray to Jesus for and with one another, we are experiencing the Body of Christ at its best. We can understand that we are linked to one another both in this life and the next because we are meant to share the resurrected life of Jesus. 

A pressing question for us on this All Saints Sunday is this. Is there some kind of bridge which keeps us connected with our loved ones who have died? 

The Bible is very clear that we are not permitted to communicate with those who have died. Deuteronomy 18:10-11 says, “Let no one be found among you who —consults the dead.” 

In the Parable of Dives and Lazarus, found in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus has Father Abraham refusing to send someone from the dead to warn the family of Dives about their sins. 

Scripture simply does not support communication with the dead. To deliberately seek out and try to talk with our departed loved ones is simply not in God’s will. Anything outside of God’s will is demonic.  

Those who claim to speak with the dead through psychic means are interacting with demonic spirits who can deceive this person into believing that they are talking with departed loved ones. 

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t authentic moments of memory which can spontaneously come to us. Part of our grieving process is sometimes feeling the presence of a departed loved one in dreams or in association with times and places meaningful to you and your loved one. These associations have strong impacts on our memories. We feel as though our loved ones are right there with us. Those moments can be most comforting, and we can thank God for them, but we are not to be deliberately seeking them. In cases like these, it is God bringing them to our remembrance for healing moments. 

If the bridge between us and the heavenly Communion of Saints is not self-initiated communication with our departed loved ones, how do we describe this bridge? 

Our bridge link with the heavenly Communion of Saints is sacramental. It centers on Jesus, who presents Himself for our remembrance at every Eucharist. “Do this in remembrance of me.” 

John’s vision described in today’s lesson from Revelation reminds us that there is a heavenly community greater than any person can number surrounding Jesus and worshipping Him on His throne. 

This sacramental bridge focuses on the altar, which we see on one side, while we perceive the heavenly throne radiating from the other side. 

The Altar and the Heavenly Throne are linked by Jesus presenting Himself to us in remembrance. 

Remembrance, in the biblical sense, has a very special meaning. It is not simply revealing a person or event from the past. It is God exercising His lordship over time and space to bring His personhood or biblical event into our present moment. This kind of remembrance happens between Jesus and us at every Eucharist, as well as countless other times when we need to perceive His presence. 

The Communion of Saints has both heavenly and earthly forms as we are linked by a Jesus-constructed bridge. The prayers we offer before this visible altar are received by Jesus and united with the prayers of the saints who have departed this life and are at this moment praying before the Heavenly Throne.  

We pray for them, and they pray for us. Jesus gathers these prayers all together as our supreme intercessor and presents them before the throne of God. 

This is how the Communion of Saints functions. It can be described in the words of our Prayer Book as “a fellowship of love and prayer.” 

Today, we give thanks for this “fellowship of love and prayer” because it sustains us not only in this life but also in the life to come. 

For this reason, I believe in the Communion of Saints.  

Amen.

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For the last several Sundays, we’ve been hearing of the challenges to Jesus’ authority by Temple authorities. They may have thought something like this: “This small town upstart comes in here, to Jerusalem, and thinks he can just turn things upside down as if he owned the place. Who does he think he is? They call him ‘rabbi’, but exactly where did he study the scriptures? The Nazarene Podunk Synagogue?“

Since our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the powers that be were extremely uncomfortable about their hold on power and influence over the Jewish nation. The different religious and political factions, such as the chief priests, the elders, the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, and even the Herodians, were normally adversarial to each other, but now they were threatened by someone whom they saw as the common enemy. Their hold on power and prestige was slipping away.

Saint Matthew dedicates chapters 21, 22, and 23 primarily to the attacks of these groups, individually or in concert, to our Lord. The parables of the Two Sons, the Evil Tenants, and The Wedding Feast were all aimed directly at these groups, and they felt it. Jesus came to Jerusalem to rock the boat and cause the climax of history to come about on Calvary. The established leaders were in for a fight for which they were ill-prepared.

It’s easy to read these chapters and think about how vast and deep the corruption was in the Temple. It’s easy to read these parables and duels of wit and think about how bad the Temple authorities were and miss the lessons for our own lives.

This morning’s Gospel makes me ponder what it is that I cling to that belongs to God. It’s a question we all need to ask ourselves.

When I first became a Christian, I was often bothered, worried, and annoyed about the Tithe. I was just a “3-Striper” in the Air Force with a wife and 3 kids. How was I supposed to follow the Tithe Rule? Our big treat was frozen pizza night once every couple of weeks, and I was supposed to take a 10% pay cut? At some point in our walk in the Lord, we noticed that we were finally “honoring the tithe.”

After that time, I heard a message on the radio about tithing. This particular preacher, I can’t remember his name, suggested that we need to honor God with all our being and that the tithe was a mere representation of that honor. He even went on to say to please NOT give 10% to the church. He said that any number returned to God would be an indicator of our love for Him. He’d much rather we give 9 % or 15% or 50%, anything but 10%, because 10% was merely an attempt to follow a rule and NOT an expression of our love for God.

That was a few years ago. Around that time, Keith Green had a song called “To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice”, a title taken from 1 Samuel 15:22.  A lyric that still haunts me occasionally is:  

“To obey is better than sacrifice.

I don’t need your money

I want your life

And I hear you say that I’m coming back soon

But you act like I’ll never return.”

Later it continues…

“To obey is better than sacrifice

I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights

Cause if you can’t come to Me every day

Then don’t bother coming at all”

…Simple, strong, and convicting lyrics.

Thinking about those poor Pharisees and Herodians we heard about today who brought the proverbial “knife to a gunfight” when they tried a Catch-22 ploy with our Lord, I often thought, why didn’t they counter with the question, “What then belongs to God?” I now realize that they knew but hadn’t yet realized that  EVERYTHING belongs to God.

They knew from their studies of the scriptures that God had created all things (seen and unseen). So, they could not ask that question, certainly not in public or even to themselves. They knew in their heads but not in their hearts. They refused to be liberated from their bonds of covetousness and greed that perhaps we’re all born with. Being freed from those innate bonds takes a miracle. Acceptance of that miracle takes a leap of faith. That miracle is manifest in our Lord Jesus, that “upstart small-town rabbi who wants to crash into our lives and turn things upside down. Who does he think he is anyway?”

Can we start to see ourselves (at least sometimes) in those poor misguided Pharisees and Herodians who resisted Christ on so many occasions?

Have we come to realize and not just know that “All things come from you, O Lord, And of your own have we given you”? This is a truly liberating realization… It’s ALL His. He lets us enjoy His blessings; He abundantly blesses us in the love that He has for us in Christ Jesus so that we can, in turn, love Him back, as well as His children, with the overflow of His love. 

As children of God, we are called and gifted to share this Gospel of liberation with the world. Resisting that call and discarding His gifts makes us as guilty as those who resisted Him 2,000 years ago. Amen

The post The Things That Are God’s first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

This morning, Isaiah prophecies a feast upon the mountain of the Lord, the Psalmist’s cup overflows, Paul commands us to rejoice, and Jesus tells a parable about a wedding. The common theme here is that a party is going on, so we should get on board.

I hear from a few of you each week who graciously say, “I thought you were preaching directly to me.” I assure you. I am never preaching at any of you. If there is anyone in that building I am preaching at, it is me, and that is especially true this Sunday. If the sermon happens to help you as well, that is a bonus.

Those who know me well know I have been frustrated lately. I will not get into the specific reasons because this is not the appropriate time for that conversation. Nevertheless, I have been frustrated. I have been anxious. I have been nervous. Some of it has to do with Synod. Some of it has to do with this church. Some of it is personal. All of it concerns money, which is probably my least favorite topic to address. I do not know how to say that our annual giving is down for the year without sounding like I am asking more from you, but I assume you are already giving what you reasonably can. I do not know how to convince the diocese that spending money for the kingdom of God is good but also has to be paired with wise stewardship of God’s gifts. And it feels like all these things and others are coming to a head, and I am a wreck because of it.

And then, I sit down to sermon prep, and I see verses like this:

Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So what is it the Lord is telling me through these verses?

First, I should always be celebrating, or to put this more broadly, Christians should always be celebrating. We should always be rejoicing because our joy is not based on our present circumstances but on the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This logic is why Romans 8 is so important. Without it, Philippians 2 is unreasonable and perhaps even unethical to say to anyone going through difficulties and hardships in their life. If all we have to say to people is, “Rejoice, the Lord wants you to be happy, not sad, so put a good smile on and soldier on,” we not only unfairly gloss over the pain people experience now but also fail to put that pain into a proper redemptive perspective.

As he does on two separate occasions, Paul can only say that he rejoices in his sufferings because his perspective is on his finite, present moment. Paul’s perspective is eternal and theological. He believes that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the Love of Christ Jesus our Lord. And so, with Paul, we should not be fixated on our present experience. I am not saying that we should negate them or gloss over them. I am saying we should place them in their proper context, which means that whatever is going on today, this week, or even this year, the end of our story is always eternal, resurrected life with the triune God, and if that is not a reason to rejoice, then what is?

So, if life is weighing you down, if you have been like me for the past several weeks, maybe even months, and you feel like there is this black cloud following you around, if you find yourself constantly grumpy and agitated, spend some time reminding yourself, or hang around with people who will remind you that despite whatever may be happening in our present there is nothing in this finite moment that can keep you from eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of this, Christians ought to be the happiest, most celebratory people on planet Earth, not because our lives are perfect, but because we put our lives within the context of our life with God in Christ.

Second, I should bring all my anxiety, worries, concerns, and fears and lay them at Christ’s feet. Or, more generally, all Christians should bring their anxiety, worries, concerns, and fears and lay them down before the throne of God. Paul says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

When I had a particularly bad day, I did two things. First, I came to church. I showed up here on Wednesday morning not to preach, celebrate, or even be the pastor. I sat in these pews you are sitting in now and listened to the liturgy, the sermon, and the celebration of communion, but mostly, I prayed. You don’t have to do that here. You can do that at home. You can do that in the car (albeit with your eyes open). You can do that at your desk at work for a few moments. You can do that in the park. Regardless of the where, the most crucial part is that in everything, in all the finite moments of our lives that can bring us so much worry and concern, we bring those moments to God and say, “God, you know what to do with this. I do not. Help me.” ‌

So, the first thing I did was pray, but the second thing I did was ask other people to pray for me. You need to find, whether they are in this room right now or not, several people who you know that if you say to them, “Please pray for me about X,” they will stop right then and there and lift you up before God. Being a Christian is not an individual activity. Being a Christian is a group project, and it is one that we are engaging in together here at St. Dunstan’s. That is what this is. That is what a local church is. It is not the place that we gather together to hear the pastor preach, heaven forbid. A local church is the primary place where we gather to be Christians together. We pray together. We study the Bible together. We celebrate communion together. We eat together. And we should be experiencing life together as a Christian community, sharing each other’s burdens as best as we are able, and most importantly, lifting each other up to God in prayer.

We pray and lift each other up in prayer because prayer is the path to peace. Notice what Paul says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

If you are worried, if you are fearful, if you are anxious, prayer is the path to peace. The peace of God, which surpasses all our human understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus if you bring your fears, anxiety, and worry to God and lay them down at his altar. To be clear, that is not to say that Christians should not seek professional help in dark moments. They absolutely should. God often works through what appears to be purely natural means. Nevertheless, while we seek professional help or even help from friends, prayer must be a vital part of the process. It is God, ultimately, who will protect your heart and mind.

So, if you are like me and feel you have had a bad couple of weeks, maybe a bad couple of months, I want you to do two things. First, I want you to spend time each day trying to rejoice. Try to give thanks every single day that our lives are not defined by finite moments but rather by our eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Second, when you try to rejoice, and especially if you are unable to, I want you to take all your anxiety, worry, and fear and lay it at the feet of Christ in prayer. Tell God everything on your heart and mind, and his peace will guard both. Today. Tomorrow. And forever.

Amen.

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Last week we were reminded that simply coming to church and saying our yes to God and his call for us to work for his kingdom is not enough. The son who does the will of his father is not the brother who says yes and then refuses to work in the vineyard, but rather the brother who initially said no, but then went to do the work.

Today’s Gospel reading, which follows immediately after that parable of the two brothers in Matthew’s Gospel, strikes a similar theme but asks the next logical question.

What happens when we do not do the work that God has called us to do?

Now, in Mathew’s Gospel, Jesus admittedly takes things a bit further. He draws on the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5 not only to say that those responsible for the vineyard have failed in their vocation but also to say that, even worse, they have actively conspired against the vineyard owner. The vineyard owner has been sending them servants to collect the fruit he is owed from the vineyard, but those responsible for the vineyard have beaten and killed those messengers, and now, at last, he is sending them his son, whom they throw out of the vineyard and kill in order to gain his inheritance, i.e. the vineyard.

I don’t want to dwell here this morning, but I want to remind you that this parable further proves that Jesus understood Israel’s long story to be climaxing in himself. Throughout Israel’s history, God had sent them prophets, but now, at long last, he was sending them his son, and everything would depend on how they treated his son. Israel’s story comes to an end, quite dramatically, with their rejection of the Son, whom they will take outside the city and kill.

But rather than focusing on Jesus’s parable of the vineyard, I want to take a step back and look at Isaiah’s version. I won’t read Isaiah’s version again since you have it printed in your insert, but suffice it to say that the parable compares Israel and Judah to a vineyard. The opening verses of the song retell all that God had done for Israel, and in fact, later versions of Isaiah 5, like the Targums, expanded the description here to get even more specific about what God had done for them. In short, the vineyard owner had done everything he could for his vineyard, and yet:

… he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

For context, wild grapes were sour, inedible, and useless for making wine.

The Lord then asks:

What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

And then comes the judgment:

And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

And in case it wasn’t clear what this was all about, Isaiah tells us:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

Israel had been called for a specific vocation. Not only were they to be the means by which God would set the world to rights, as we have been discussing in our Romans course in Adult Catechesis, but they were to be the means of bringing God’s justice and righteousness to fruition in the world. But when the vineyard owner came looking for that fruit, what he found instead of sour grapes, he found bloodshed and an outcry from those who were being wronged.

In Isaiah, because of this, because of Israel’s failure in its vocation, the vineyard is to be destroyed. On the lips of Jesus, because vineyard tenants had been unfaithful in their vocation and even adversarial to the vineyard owner, the vineyard is given to other tenants. Nonetheless, the point is the same: failure in our vocation may result in judgment.

Now let’s push this a step back to the two brothers. One says, “Yes,” I’ll do the work, but then doesn’t go. The other says “No,” and then goes to do the work anyway. The one who does the will of his father is not the one who says yes to his vocation but then refuses to do the work but rather the one who actually does the work of the kingdom.

By being here today, I assume you’ve all said yes to the vocation of being God’s kingdom people and bringing God’s justice and righteousness to fruition in this world. So, what I want you to do is take a few moments as I’m speaking, and I want you to imagine your perfect life in Christ. What I’m asking is for you to picture what it would be like if your walk with Christ, if your work in the vineyard, was firing on all cylinders. Imagine your prayer life. Imagine your Bible study time. Imagine the poor and needy that you would help. Imagine your involvement at church. Imagine the people to whom you would witness and show Christ’s love. Imagine all of it. Imagine what your perfect life in Christ looks like, and while you hold that thought in your mind, I want to read one verse again.

What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?

God is asking Israel what more he could have done for them to enable them to be the people he intended them to be, and the answer, of course, is nothing. God had already given Israel everything that it needed to fulfill its vocation, and that’s even more true for us who have the gift of the Holy Spirit. So ask yourself, given that God has already done for you and given to you everything that you need to experience your perfect life in Christ, “What is it that keeps me from being the type of Christian I want to be?”

If God’s already given us everything that we need, then I suspect the answer is “us.” We’re the problem. We’re the ones keeping ourselves from experiencing that full life in Christ. He’s already given you everything that you need. He’s given you hours in the day. He’s given you his Holy Word in your own language. He’s given you this church as a wonderful community of committed disciples. He’s given you access to Bible studies and study Bibles and prayer groups and more opportunities to serve the needy and the lost than you could ever possibly imagine, both inside and outside the church, so what is it that keeps you from being the person you imagined moments ago? What is it that keeps you firing on all cylinders in your walk with Christ?

Is there some sin that’s weighing you down? If so, be done with it. Is there some hobby that consumes the hours in the day you should spend working for Christ and his Kingdom? If so, move on from it. Are you older, maybe feeling weaker and less able than you were before? Then fall to your knees (or sit comfortably on your couch) and pray. Pray for others by name. Pray for me. Pray for this church. Pray for our youth. Pray for God’s righteousness and justice to come to fruition in this world. If you’re young, use the time and energy God has given you to work the vineyard and bring God’s kingdom to this earth.

No matter what stage of life you are in, please understand this simple truth: it likely that the only thing keeping you from that life in Christ that you imagined is you. You make the decision each day about how you will spend your time, how you will spend your treasure, and how you will spend your talents. The problem is us. The problem is our selfishness and our infatuation with the world and its temptations. The problem is the mundanity of life that lulls us to sleep and keeps us from working in the vineyard despite how enthusiastically we might say yes on Sunday mornings.

You are what keeps you from that full life in Christ that you imagined. For his part, God has already given you everything you need to care for the vineyard of your life. The owner of the vineyard has given you all that you need, and he expects your life to bear good fruit.

Amen.

The post Stories of a Vineyard first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

Our parable this morning reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul. We have been studying the opening chapter of Romans in our Adult Catechesis course, and in Romans 2, Paul says this: 

​For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

In this section of Romans, Paul argues that Israel is under equal indictment alongside the Gentiles. Merely receiving and hearing the law was not enough to make someone righteous. Israel would have had to keep the law, but it had not. 

Likewise, in our parable, Jesus talks about two brothers whose father asks them to work in the vineyard. For context, Jesus is about to tell another parable about a vineyard; in this case, the vineyard is Israel, and the work of the vineyard is Israel’s vocation. Jesus may not mean the same thing here, but it is worth remembering that referring to Israel as a vineyard does not begin with Jesus but instead goes back to the prophet Isaiah. 

‌Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

Either way, back in Matthew, the vineyard owner tasks his two sons with working in the vineyard. One says yes, while the other says no. In a turn of events, however, the one who said no goes to work in the vineyard, while the one who said yes did not go. So Jesus asks, 

Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is indicting the religious establishment, so we would do well to sit up and notice what he says. Jesus is concerned about people who give verbal assent to the kingdom of God but do not go out and follow Jesus in the way of righteousness. It is easy to stand up in church and say “yes” or “amen” to everything we are supposed to say in the liturgy, but saying that yes is not the same as going out those doors and doing the work of the kingdom. The one who does the will of God is not the one who gives his assent but then does not do the work, but rather the one who says no, changes his mind, and then goes out to do the work after all. 

The liturgy can lull us into a sense of checking boxes. I have discussed this in a somewhat different context, but the metaphor also applies here. The liturgy has everything that we need for a healthy diet of Christianity. It is a well-balanced meal to which we give our assent by repeating the words and, most powerfully, by saying Amen. 

And then it ends. 

And then what?

The last words of the liturgy are “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” to which you all reply, “Thanks be to God.” You give thanks that God had fed you and called you to work in his vineyard for his glory and the good of others, but what happens when you leave here? I am not a prophet, so I cannot see through some spiritual window into your soul to know what is going on there, nor do I know what you do with the other hours of your week once you leave this place. What I do know, however, is that what matters is not the “yes” you say in this space but rather what you do when you walk out those doors. Only you know which of these brothers you are. Alternatively, maybe you feel like a brother who is not mentioned here. You say your yes, and you work. That is obviously the best option here, and I know many people like that in this congregation. 

However, that may not be you. Maybe you say your yes on Sunday, and then you sit there Monday through Saturday wondering what exactly you do for the kingdom of God. If that is you, I want you to know that today is the day you can change your mind. You can do an about-face and work in the vineyard, too. Whether through this church or an outside parachurch organization, there is plenty of work to be done in this vineyard of the Kingdom of God.

Moreover, you do not need to work for the kingdom through a church or organization. You can do it yourself by simply loving others with self-sacrificial love in the name of Jesus. So, there is no reason to wait. If something is going on at church and you want to serve, great, but there are numerous opportunities to share and show the love of Jesus in our daily lives. 

If you are asking yourself what this looks like, then I want you to take the insert in your bulletin with the Scripture lessons on it and look at the reading from Philippians 2 because Jesus is the model. Paul writes: 

​Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

If you want to know what it means to work in the vineyard today, that is the model, and the result is glory. 

‌Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

However, before we get to the glory part, we must do more than say yes when we gather in church. We have to say yes and then go out and do the work of the vineyard, which means not acting with selfish ambition or conceit. It means treating others as more significant than yourself. It means caring for and looking after others as you look after your interests. It means emptying yourself, becoming a servant of all, and being obedient even to the point of death. This is the work of the vineyard, the work of the kingdom. To say yes to this calling in this space and then go outside those doors and fail to do the work is to be on the wrong side of this parable. 

May we always be found doing the will of our Father, both in this space and outside our doors. 

Amen.

The post The Will of the Father first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

Like every passage in the Bible, in today’s Gospel reading, context is king. The first word in our reading is “for” because Jesus intends this parable to explain what he has said moments ago. Our English Bibles put a chapter break here, but that break is artificial. At the start of chapter 20, Jesus is continuing his discourse from the end of chapter 19.

At the end of that chapter, a wealthy young man asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

We all know this story, and it ends with Jesus telling the young man to sell all he has and give it to people experiencing poverty. But…

When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

​Jesus then tells the disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the disciples are astonished and ask, “Who then can be saved?”

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”

They ask this question because of how they understand God’s blessing to work in the world, i.e., those whom God favors, he blesses with material wealth. So, if it is as impossible for a divinely blessed, rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is to fit a camel through the eye of a needle, then who possibly could be saved? To be clear, Jesus presumably is referring not to all wealthy people but specifically to those who love their money more than him, like the rich young man.

Jesus then responds to their amazement by saying that with man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. If this were our text for this Sunday, I would probably preach for 15 minutes about God as the initiator of human salvation and waxing eloquently about how the first move is always from God to us and never the other way around. However, I will save that for a different Sunday.

Peter seems to seize on this moment. He just heard Jesus tell the rich young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor, and then he would have treasure in heaven. So, if Jesus values poverty, particularly poverty by choice for the benefit of others, then Peter thinks to himself, “What about us? We must have all kinds of riches heading our way.” So he says to Jesus in verse 27:

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

‌Jesus replies:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit 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 children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

Peter is probably rubbing his hands. It may not be right now, but Jesus said he will be rich when it matters. And then Jesus says one more thing.

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Our parable this morning is intended to explain this last verse. It explains why Jesus, as Peter and the others are already counting in their heads the hundredfold blessing they are going to receive, says, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

I will not rehearse this morning’s parable in detail since we all heard it minutes ago, and it is printed on the insert in your bulletin. Suffice it to say that the master of a house hires laborers at different times of the day to work in his vineyard. When it comes time to pay the workers, the master of the house tells his foreman to pay first those he had hired last. Even though they had not worked the entire day, those hired last received a full day’s payment. Those who had worked the entire day, seeing what those who had only worked part of the day had received, expect to receive even more. They, too, receive a full day’s payment. They are like Peter, looking around at others, like the rich young man who had walked away from Jesus, and they, too, are already counting the extra blessing they will receive. As we might expect, those who had worked the entire day complain, but Jesus replies,

But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

And then, referring back to the last verse of the previous chapter, he says,

So the last will be first, and the first last.”

I want to make a few points regarding this parable and its context.

First, we are not the arbiters of God’s grace. Some people are called into the church from a very early age. My children were baptized as infants. Some people do not repent and turn to Christ until their deathbed. Some people seem to us like good people, the kind of people we would expect to be recipients of God’s grace, while some people might seem to us to be the wrong kind of people, and while we might never say it out loud, internally, we might wonder if they are the right kind of people to receive God’s grace. Thanks be to God that we do not make these decisions about others or ourselves. God’s grace is for all people, and he is free to dispense it as he pleases without input from you or me. We do not earn it. We do not control it. We have no say in who receives it. God is the one who decides who receives his grace and when they receive it.

Second, God’s grace is divinely equitable. That is to say, we might not think the way God dispenses grace is fair, but it is not up to us. The master in this parable treats everyone the same. The reward, which includes in context at least entrance into the kingdom of God, is not based on how long one has worked for God, how much one has sacrificed, or how much one thinks he or she deserves. Everyone in the story gets the same reward for their work regardless of how much work they have done. From our human perspective, we might question the fairness of an employer who pays everyone the same regardless of how much they work, but the fairness of God’s grace is not measured by our standards but by his.

Third, and as a result of the first two points, therefore, we are not to serve with rewards as our ultimate goal. This is a little tricky, but place yourself in the shoes of the vineyard workers for a moment. Why were they grumbling at the end of the day? They were grumbling because they expected to receive more. The issue wasn’t with the master of the house setting wrong expectations. The issue wasn’t that other people had been blessed beyond what was, by our reckoning, appropriate for the amount of work they had done. The problem was their expectations about what God would do for them because of their hard work, as it was for Peter.

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

The call to follow Jesus, as we see in the immediately following scenes, is the call to serve others, even to the point of death. In what follows, Jesus predicts his death for the third time, and then the mother of James and John comes to him, presumably at their behest, and asks for her sons to sit at his right and left hand in his kingdom. You see, the disciples, throughout the beginning of this chapter and the end of the last one, are concerned about what they will get and what their reward will be. That is not what Jesus wants them to be doing.

Jesus does not want them focused on how many treasures they are storing up in heaven, which, in case it is not apparent, is simply another form of the struggle the rich young man had. That does not mean there are no rewards waiting for them just beyond the horizon. Jesus clearly says there are. Nevertheless, we are not the arbiters of God’s grace; despite what we may think, his grace is divinely equitable. When all things are sorted on the last day, we may very well be surprised when we see that the last, by our reckoning, were first by God’s, and vice versa. So, do not focus on what you are going to get. Instead, focus on serving. Focus on being as faithful to the task God has given you as possible, and trust that God will work it out in the end. And no matter what, as Jesus says, do not begrudge his generosity.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

​That generosity is our only hope.

Amen.

The post Last First, First Last first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

In our Adult Catechesis course, the Story of the Bible, we began by talking about worldviews. Everyone has a worldview. Actually, you probably have several because worldviews aren’t typically consistent in any one person. Our worldview is how we make sense of the world. It’s basically the stories that we tell ourselves (stories that were first told to us by others, typically) about how the world works and our place in it. Our worldview determines how we find meaning, purpose, and value, which gives direction to our lives.

To think about our worldview, I proposed five questions:

For this morning, on the first Sunday of Advent, I want to think for a bit about that middle question.

In Romans 13, Paul is wrestling with this question. he has summarized all of human history down to two periods: one of dark and one of light, night and day. He says in verse 11, and you can see here how he’s wrestling with this question of “when are we?”:

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Then he says in verse 12:

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Part of being a Christian is recognizing when we are and living accordingly. We’ve divided the story of the Bible into five acts in our adult catechesis course, and part of the point of that is to help us understand that living biblically, or living appropriately within the story of the Bible, means recognizing where we are in that story. If we’re supposed to be in Act Five, but we’re living like we’re in Acts One through Four, we’re not going to be living rightly or living biblically. We have to know when we are.

Similarly, Paul is saying at a moment in history where the darkness that preceded the coming of Christ is far gone, and the new day that has dawned with his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension is shining its light on the world. And so we have to make a choice.

You see, most of us go through our lives believing these incredible truths about Jesus Christ and what he has done, about how the world has changed, is changing, and one day will change forever because of Jesus. But then what happens? What happens when we go back out these doors and into the world? For many of us, we live the new day hasn’t dawned. We live like it’s still nighttime. We live like Jesus didn’t come. And Paul is talking specifically about sins, but this where I want to jump over to Matthew 24 because the imagery there is a bit different.

Noah isn’t mentioned much in the New Testament, but he is mentioned here. The days of the coming of the Son of Man, a topic we won’t get into at the moment, is compared to the days of Noah.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Whatever Jesus means by the coming of the Son of Man here in Matthew’s Gospel, his comparison to Noah isn’t about sin. It’s actually far more terrifying than that. Just ask yourself, based on Matt 24:38, what were the people doing before the flood came?

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,

To put that in other terms: they were getting on with life. Life was normal. Jesus isn’t talking about gross sin, which is certainly a danger to people of the light and antithetical to our claim that the world’s true light has come in Jesus Christ. He’s talking about the danger of normalcy.

I know this as well as anyone, so this is another one of those sermons that are an exercise in public self-indictment. I am always preaching to myself, and if it happens to help you all, that’s great too. It’s very easy to walk back out those doors and return to a life that, by all worldly and cultural definitions, would be a normal life. But there’s something dangerous about that normalcy, not the least of which is the fact that this normalcy is defined by our culture and not the kingdom of God.

But you know what time it is, brothers and sisters. You know that the hour has come for you to wake out of sleep. I think here of Hume awakening Kant from his dogmatic slumber. The sleep Paul refers to isn’t physical sleep. It’s one of the mind. The malaise we all feel when we are comfortable. It’s the repetition in our lives that lulls us to sleep and never once gives us the chance to ask the question:

Am I living like the new day has dawned, or am I living the same life I would be if Jesus had never come and there was no kingdom of God? This is the question I want you to wrestle with this morning.

Would your life be any different than it is right now? If your honest answer to that question is, “I don’t think my life would be much different. I’d probably still have the same job, the same hobbies, and spend my time the same way,” then now is the time for you to wake out of sleep. For there is no important event in the history of your life or anybody else’s life other than the coming of Jesus Christ, which we anticipate in this Advent season. And if his coming is the most important event in your life, then you need to live like that is true.

Let us walk properly as in the daytime.

You need to walk properly as in the daytime because that’s what time it really is, and when we live like people of the darkness, whether that’s by sinning or by being lulled back to sleep by the normalcy of our lives, by eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, our lives say to the world that the light of the world hasn’t come. That Christmas never happened. That there is no new day.

But that new day has come. With the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, a new day has dawned on this world. Much of the world is still in darkness. There is more light to come. But the light is here, and if call ourselves people who have seen that light, if we expect others to believe us and to see that light too, then we must live like it. We must wake out of sleep. We must cast off works of darkness and put on our Lord Jesus Christ, for our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed, and when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, he is bringing his salvation to those who walk in his light.

Amen.

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