St Matthew 20:1-16/1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5/Exodus 17:1-7
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
When a fish dies the first thing the other fish do is eat out his eyes. There is no mercy, no compassion, no remorse in the fish bowl. It is every fish for himself. And every fish is quite glad to get at the other’s eyes, even if the other was his own brother or child or mate. The ecology is balanced and fair. Everything competes. Everything is food. To mix the metaphor, if you swim in that bowl you know right where you stand.
Part of what hinders us from the joy of the Gospel is our constant concern for ourselves; for our own advantage over others. We regularly apply a double standard to everything and everyone around us. We want the house clean, but we want to live like pigs. We want to enjoy illicit pleasures of the flesh, but want our wives to stay home and be faithful. We are disgusted with others even while making excuses for ourselves.
Repent. We are such phonies. There is nothing so humbling as an honest look at one’s own labor and heart. For we’ve never given enough. We’ve always held back. Our motives have never been quite pure or selfless. Our Old Adam has searched for a loophole and sought to trap God with the Law. There is no sadder sentence in Holy Scripture than our Lord saying, Take what is yours and go your way. What is ours is sin. Our way is eating the eyes out of our friends.
But we are not fish. We are men. And the One through whom all things were created came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. For us men and for our salvation He was made Man. And as soon as we men got the chance we strung Him up on a Cross and ate out His eyes.
This is what fallen men do. They are no better than fish. Yet in that horrible, violent act of betrayal He turned the tables. He became one of us, but not like us. For He is without sin. He gave of Himself willingly. He did what no fish and no man, according to the fall, ever does: He sacrificed Himself for the good of those who hated and destroyed Him. He was the first, but became the last. He gave Himself for our Food that we would have His place. Our eyes, our hearts, and our souls, are safe.
It is not fair. It is grace. It is undeserved, unearned, and unexpected. It is compassion, kindness, and generosity that exceeds imagination. It is not the way of the marketplace or of the vineyard or of the fish bowl. But it is the way of God. Let not your eye be evil because He is good. His mercy is His to spend as He sees fit. The God of Abraham in the Flesh of Mary loves to forgive. He loves to be generous. He desires to accept sinners not according to what they have done, but according to His own perfect mercy. It is not fair, but it is righteous.
Therefore, those who believe in Him reap where they did not sow and are paid wages beyond their worth. Even while they escape the heat and burden of the day! For He is generous even with His own Son, even to the point of the Cross, even to sworn enemies and traitors! For it was early in the morning that Christ Jesus was bound and delivered over to Pilate. At the third hour He bore His own Cross to the Place of a Skull. From the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness covered the earth while the Light of the World was delivered up to death. The parable is not about the laborers in the vineyard or socialism or unions. It is about Jesus. His Cross and Passion, His suffering and death.
And dearly beloved, it is now the eleventh hour! Truth be told, we have wasted the day. We have not behaved as we should have. We’ve whittled away the hours seeking some slight advantage over our brothers, engaged in petty politics for self-preservation, seeking the best seat in the assembly.
But here comes an offer beyond compare: be paid for labor that you did not perform. Receive what is right for the perfect Son who bore the heat and burden of the day of the Father’s wrath on your behalf. Reap where you did not sow. Lose the past. Lose yourself. Benefit from mercy. Come into the vineyard of grace and be treated as the King’s own beloved child. Eat and drink without money or effort. Live by faith.
For you too were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. The waters that crushed Pharaoh’s army rolled off of Jesus’ back in the Jordan and into the font to drown the Old Adam in you. It is no fish bowl. It is a cleansing bath. A washing of rebirth and regeneration. A grafting into the fruitful Vine, which is Christ.
And the great cloud of witnesses now surrounds you. And St John the Baptist is not worthy to loose your sandal strap, for you are in Christ. He has raised you out of that watery grave to life, for free. Pharaoh’s chariots are rusting at the bottom of the font. And you have been brought into a land flowing with milk and honey led by your Joshua. Beloved, His Word has accomplished what He sent it to do: rescue you. It does not return to Him void.
Thus you are here. You could be anywhere, including still in bed. But He has brought you here. It is no accident or coincidence. He follows you even as He followed Moses in the desert. He loves you. He dotes on you. He watches over you. He wants what is best for you. He has brought you here today to give you a spiritual food to eat and a spiritual drink to drink. That food and drink is Christ. The same as it was for Moses.
Not fish eyes, but the choicest parts, the very essence of God made Flesh, crucified and raised, to be your Redeemer. It is His Body and Blood, given and shed to be Food for you. He comes from outside of you. He places Himself inside of you through your mouth. He joins His Flesh to your flesh. He then changes you from the inside out. So that what goes into your mouth – His Body and His Blood – comes out again in thanks and praise and confession. Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.
For you are made clean, pure, and holy, by what comes from outside of you – from the Rock, from Christ, from His side: the purest water and the choicest vineyard. You were last, but now you are first. It is not fair. It is grace. It is the way of God, the way of righteousness. And it is good. Come. Be forgiven. Receive what you did not earn, but what He earnestly desires you to have: Himself; an imperishable wreath. Live outside the fish bowl in mercy and in love.
In the Name of the Father and X of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
When a fish dies the first thing the other fish do is eat out his eyes. There is no mercy, no compassion, no remorse in the fish bowl. It is every fish for himself. And every fish is quite glad to get at the other’s eyes, even if the other was his own brother or child or mate. The ecology is balanced and fair. Everything competes. Everything is food. To mix the metaphor, if you swim in that bowl you know right where you stand.
Part of what hinders us from the joy of the Gospel is our constant concern for ourselves; for our own advantage over others. We regularly apply a double standard to everything and everyone around us. We want the house clean, but we want to live like pigs. We want to enjoy illicit pleasures of the flesh, but want our wives to stay home and be faithful. We are disgusted with others even while making excuses for ourselves.
Repent. We are such phonies. There is nothing so humbling as an honest look at one’s own labor and heart. For we’ve never given enough. We’ve always held back. Our motives have never been quite pure or selfless. Our Old Adam has searched for a loophole and sought to trap God with the Law. There is no sadder sentence in Holy Scripture than our Lord saying, Take what is yours and go your way. What is ours is sin. Our way is eating the eyes out of our friends.
But we are not fish. We are men. And the One through whom all things were created came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. For us men and for our salvation He was made Man. And as soon as we men got the chance we strung Him up on a Cross and ate out His eyes.
This is what fallen men do. They are no better than fish. Yet in that horrible, violent act of betrayal He turned the tables. He became one of us, but not like us. For He is without sin. He gave of Himself willingly. He did what no fish and no man, according to the fall, ever does: He sacrificed Himself for the good of those who hated and destroyed Him. He was the first, but became the last. He gave Himself for our Food that we would have His place. Our eyes, our hearts, and our souls, are safe.
It is not fair. It is grace. It is undeserved, unearned, and unexpected. It is compassion, kindness, and generosity that exceeds imagination. It is not the way of the marketplace or of the vineyard or of the fish bowl. But it is the way of God. Let not your eye be evil because He is good. His mercy is His to spend as He sees fit. The God of Abraham in the Flesh of Mary loves to forgive. He loves to be generous. He desires to accept sinners not according to what they have done, but according to His own perfect mercy. It is not fair, but it is righteous.
Therefore, those who believe in Him reap where they did not sow and are paid wages beyond their worth. Even while they escape the heat and burden of the day! For He is generous even with His own Son, even to the point of the Cross, even to sworn enemies and traitors! For it was early in the morning that Christ Jesus was bound and delivered over to Pilate. At the third hour He bore His own Cross to the Place of a Skull. From the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness covered the earth while the Light of the World was delivered up to death. The parable is not about the laborers in the vineyard or socialism or unions. It is about Jesus. His Cross and Passion, His suffering and death.
And dearly beloved, it is now the eleventh hour! Truth be told, we have wasted the day. We have not behaved as we should have. We’ve whittled away the hours seeking some slight advantage over our brothers, engaged in petty politics for self-preservation, seeking the best seat in the assembly.
But here comes an offer beyond compare: be paid for labor that you did not perform. Receive what is right for the perfect Son who bore the heat and burden of the day of the Father’s wrath on your behalf. Reap where you did not sow. Lose the past. Lose yourself. Benefit from mercy. Come into the vineyard of grace and be treated as the King’s own beloved child. Eat and drink without money or effort. Live by faith.
For you too were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. The waters that crushed Pharaoh’s army rolled off of Jesus’ back in the Jordan and into the font to drown the Old Adam in you. It is no fish bowl. It is a cleansing bath. A washing of rebirth and regeneration. A grafting into the fruitful Vine, which is Christ.
And the great cloud of witnesses now surrounds you. And St John the Baptist is not worthy to loose your sandal strap, for you are in Christ. He has raised you out of that watery grave to life, for free. Pharaoh’s chariots are rusting at the bottom of the font. And you have been brought into a land flowing with milk and honey led by your Joshua. Beloved, His Word has accomplished what He sent it to do: rescue you. It does not return to Him void.
Thus you are here. You could be anywhere, including still in bed. But He has brought you here. It is no accident or coincidence. He follows you even as He followed Moses in the desert. He loves you. He dotes on you. He watches over you. He wants what is best for you. He has brought you here today to give you a spiritual food to eat and a spiritual drink to drink. That food and drink is Christ. The same as it was for Moses.
Not fish eyes, but the choicest parts, the very essence of God made Flesh, crucified and raised, to be your Redeemer. It is His Body and Blood, given and shed to be Food for you. He comes from outside of you. He places Himself inside of you through your mouth. He joins His Flesh to your flesh. He then changes you from the inside out. So that what goes into your mouth – His Body and His Blood – comes out again in thanks and praise and confession. Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.
For you are made clean, pure, and holy, by what comes from outside of you – from the Rock, from Christ, from His side: the purest water and the choicest vineyard. You were last, but now you are first. It is not fair. It is grace. It is the way of God, the way of righteousness. And it is good. Come. Be forgiven. Receive what you did not earn, but what He earnestly desires you to have: Himself; an imperishable wreath. Live outside the fish bowl in mercy and in love.
In the Name of the Father and X of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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