Septuagesima Sunday

Sermon— St Matthew 11:16-24

[Jesus said] “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,

“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

We might say sometimes, that a person is impossible to impress. Even though the person is being shown important and interesting things, he or she always wants to see more, always wants something even more important or interesting. Impossible to impress.

Jesus is expressing frustration early in our text. It could be said that His listeners are impossible to impress, in the sense of hearing something important to them and accepting it. His illustration is for the purpose of making that point. They are like characters out of children’s song in the marketplace about whom a speaker laments that even having played the flute for his audience, he hasn’t been able to get them to dance. Having sung a dirge (or funeral song), he hasn’t been able to get them to mourn. What more can he do?—that’s kind of the idea. What will impress them?

Jesus points out that His audience’s inability to be impressed can be illustrated in the fact that John the Baptist’s stern adherence to the Law (illustrated in his not eating and drinking) offended them; they weren’t impressed with his not eating and drinking. Jesus’ more easygoing approach (illustrated in eating and drinking) still offended them. They cannot be impressed!

And their inability to be impressed is a real problem for them, considering what Jesus is trying to impress them with. He isn’t merely a flute player trying to make them dance, or a singer trying to make them mourn; He has something much more important for them. In fact, it’s so important that they face a real problem should the present situation continue. Jesus is talking about the day of judgment. God has been trying to impress upon them an urgency for some time. Jesus compares their city to notorious cities of the past (Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom), saying that as difficult to impress as those cities were, had they seen what these people have seen from Jesus’ ministry, they certainly would have been convinced. But these that Jesus is talking with now; they’re just not willing to hear what God is telling them.

The prophet Jeremiah was experiencing the same frustration in our Old Testament lesson. He knew what he was facing, being sent to speak to God’s people. “I don’t know how to speak,” he’d said to the LORD. The whole section is about the prophet receiving the encouragement he needs from the LORD so that he will no longer be afraid of the people to whom he’s supposed to speak. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”—the LORD says to him. He needed that much encouragement. He needed the LORD to say a little later: I have put my words in your mouth.

He was facing the same apathy (if not outright hostility) from his would be listeners that Jesus is facing in our text. He would be speaking to a people that up to this point had seemed impossible to impress. Yet God is telling him in the lesson, “I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” God will be with the prophet, giving him strength, and patience, and eloquence to bring His message to people not easily impressed, not easily accepting of the message they need.

Isn’t it the same sort of thing in our Epistle lesson? St. Paul is telling his readers, Don’t be like your forefathers in the wilderness who weren’t sufficiently impressed with the Gospel even though it was so near to them. God was present with them in the cloud—moving along with them on their journey from Egypt to the Land of Promise. He caused the sea to part before them so that they could escape pursuing Egyptian soldiers, and emerge dry and safe on the other side. They were eating and drinking the spiritual food from Christ Himself. Even with all of it they were impossible to impress. They were still bent on pursuing their own way to their destruction.

Will you be impossible to impress like they were; that’s kind of the question before you today, isn’t it? What could cause it to be so (you want to know so you can avoid it)?

A number of people are employed to work in a vineyard in our Gospel Lesson. The ones hired in the very beginning start out impressed, huh? The vineyard owner makes them an offer that gets their attention. He will sort of rescue them from idleness (sitting around in the marketplace), and pay them a certain amount that’s suitable to them (They’re excited about it in the beginning). They have been able to be impressed, or convinced that what’s been offered to them is to their good.

We could think about Baptism in that way (or about a person coming to faith through hearing the Word). Through Baptism, through the Word, the Holy Spirit, like that land owner, makes a certain offer to a sinner that gets his attention. God will forgive his sins because Jesus died for Him. Though he’s guilty of falling short of God’s glory, God will consider him innocent, fit for His eternal kingdom through this sacrifice Jesus has made for him. And that makes an impression on the person. He will cling to Christ for forgiveness and salvation. He is suitably impressed. What could ever get in the way of that?

You know that parable sees many more hired throughout the day, and equal payment made to all at the end (though these hired first have been there several hours more than others). All get the same. The ones who have been hired first, then, are angry because they think they deserve more.

We could say that they have come to a point at which they are no longer impressed. What has been given to them (that seemed great in the beginning) doesn’t seem so good anymore. They’ve become resentful of the treatment they are receiving, envious of others. They might even have begun to think of how nice it would be to have more of the world’s good things than they have had up to this point.

We asked, what could cause you to become impossible to impress like were Jesus’ audience? What could make you unwilling to hear God’s Word with a believing heart?

The long day in that parable, in which the workers were in the vineyard, can be compared to the long time of our lives in this world. St. Paul and the other apostles wrote letters to the congregations encouraging them in the Christian faith because of what happens to people during the course of long lives in this world.

You experience all sorts of things, don’t you? You might have experiences like those earliest hired workers in the parable, that make you envious of others, unsatisfied with what God has provided for you in this life. You might have been affected by tragic events that caused you to question God’s love for you. You might have become tired of feeling like an outsider in this world, as it moves further away from God’s purpose and will, and thought sometimes, why can’t I decide for myself on things? Every moment of your life God has been trying to impress upon you an urgency, that you repent of your sins, and believe in the grace He provides in Christ. But all of those things we just mentioned have gotten in the way of it.

Any time you have heard God’s powerful Word and been clinging instead to envy of others, doubting of God’s love, desiring to be able to embrace the world’s ungodliness, Jesus could rightly have said of you, that Tyre’s, and Sidon’s, and Sodom’s ability to be suitably impressed by God’s Word was greater than yours. You could have been among those of God’s people in the wilderness—the ones with whom He wasn’t pleased, and who were overthrown there. You could have been among Jeremiah’s audience of whom he was so afraid.

But praise be to God, you have a Savior from all of it. In the eyes of the Divine Judge Jesus became known as the one impossible to impress. He became your envy and dissatisfaction. He became your doubt. He became your worldliness. He became it in the sense that your charges were applied to Him instead of you. He offered Himself in your place, so that you might have what He always had—innocence, perfection before God. You needed it in order to be in heaven.

He distributes it to you this morning at the altar in Holy Communion. He earned it for you at the cross; but here, at the altar He gives it to you to place upon your lips—this payment made for your salvation.

You were suitably impressed in your Baptism or in your hearing of God’s Word. The Spirit impressed upon you that you’re a sinner in need of God’s grace. He put faith in your heart; faith that clings to Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

You tread a long path in this world day by day, though. You’re tempted to leave it all behind, grabbing instead the world’s approval, the world’s possessions, the world’s point of view. So, your Savior feeds you here each week. He invites you over and over, to come to Him and have God’s grace and His kingdom. And it will be worth the wait. It will be worth the struggle. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

The Word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Then I said, “Ah, LORD GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

1 Corinthians 9:24–10:5

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

St Matthew 20:1-16

[Jesus said], “The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’

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