Living and Dying in Christ - Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Living and Dying in Christ
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 24^th, A+D 2023
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota

What shall I render to the Lord, for all his benefits to me? 

I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving,                                                                     and will call on the name of the Lord.
I will take the cup of salvation, and will call on the name of the Lord,
I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all his people,

In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. 

 

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. 

You have loosed my bonds.

   A few minutes ago, we heard St. Paul’s famous confession:  “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  Yes, yes, very nice.  But how often do we, the Jerusalem of God, the New Israel, the Church of Christ, really wrestle with the significance of these words?  “To live is Christ” sets up faith in and communion with the Savior as the essential core of existence, the center of our lives.  “To die is gain” establishes that, for all our thankfulness for this life, we Christians hold on to it lightly, knowing that what awaits us on the other side is far better.  Both sides of this bold claim make us uncomfortable.  We are Bible-believing Lutherans, and so we do not reject what Paul says.  But do we linger over these words?  Do we measure our days and our hours against them, to see if our walk fits Paul’s talk? 

   It will be a shame if we don’t wrestle with Paul’s words, a missed opportunity.  Because they are full of wonder, and joy.  And wisdom.  “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” captures and explains the exuberant joy of our Introit this morning, that bit of Psalm 116 which began our contemplation of God’s Word, and which we also sing as an offertory in Divine Service settings 1 and 2.  It also helps us comprehend and internalize the upside-down world of working in the Master’s Vineyard, where what you do and what you receive don’t seem to match, not to human eyes at least.  And yet, despite this mismatch of labor and capital, despite the seeming injustice, Jesus calls us to rejoice, even though the last are first, and the first are last.  

    Our Introit this morning is a divinely inspired expression of the proper thankfulness and optimistic perspective of a Christian, a forgiven member of God’s family, a worker in the Vineyard of the LORD. 

    It surely seems unfair for those who only work an hour or two to receive the same wages as those who work all day.  But being admitted to the Vineyard is the real reward.  Working and living there is a privilege, a gift.  The wise vineyard worker rejoices to be included, and also rejoices to see other underserving workers brought on board, no matter how late in the day.

    But work is hard, and so we struggle to beat back our selfish, “give me what’s mine” attitude.  We live day to day in a world where you must earn everything you get.  So, it’s hard to believe that in God’s vineyard, we work cheerfully because we’ve already received the greatest gift, all that we will ever need.  How can we understand this mystery?

    Work in God’s kingdom is not like working in the world.  Nevertheless, maybe the earthly example of some exceptional people that I’ve run into over the years can help us grasp the concept.  For example, some years ago Shelee and I took an Uber in Chicago.  Our driver was a Lebanese man, and as we crawled through the downtown traffic, we learned he had been a college professor back home.  Now, in America, he was holding down three jobs, two part-time service positions, and driving for Uber in his spare time.  Quite a step down, wouldn’t you think,?  He went from having a prestigious and good-paying job teaching classes at a university, to scrambling and hustling at three jobs to make ends meet, and slowly try to save and get ahead.  You might expect this man would be bitter with his new work reality.  But no, he was cheerful, optimistic, and thankful for his new situation.  Because he understood that hustling at three jobs in America was way better than whatever apparent stability and status he had enjoyed in Lebanon.  Because America is a way better vineyard.  Lebanon, his homeland, surely had a special place in his heart.  But instability, intermittent warfare, sectarian violence, and real physical danger were inescapable there.  He was glad to be in America, working three jobs.  He was thankful to have arrived safely with his family, to have secured a green card, and the chance to live without fear.    

    Over the years I’ve met numerous people who told me similar stories.  Sadly, many countries in Latin America are chaotic, unsafe places to live, despite all their potential and beauty and resources.  So, many Latinos take great risks to find their way into better vineyards, very often into Spain. 

   Spain has problems, but it is still a comparatively modern, wealthy economy.  And, because of her historic colonial ties with Spanish speaking South America, and because of her need for younger workers, Spain makes it pretty easy for any Latino to gain legal residence and go to work.  I met lawyers working as waiters, accountants on construction crews, businessmen working in oil refineries.  Did they wish they could work in the better paying careers they had back home?  Probably.  But their attitude was primarily shaped by gratitude.  Above all, they were thankful to be living in a new place, safe from the crime, corruption, civil unrest and even open warfare that plague their homeland.  What job will I have, how much will I be paid?  Not so important.  I just want to get in, to gain residency and a work permit.  I just want to be admitted into a better vineyard.            

    And here’s the thing: the improvement such folks have experienced, to go from Venezuela to Spain, or from Cuba or Lebanon to the United States, this improvement is nothing.  It is nothing, compared to the improvement you have been granted when the Master made you a worker in His vineyard. 

    When Christ your Savior baptized you and drew you to Himself and into His Church, He gave you the best gift you could possibly receive.  In every other vineyard, you would be a dying sinner, living under the illusion that by working super hard, you could secure a bright future for yourself, you could gain God’s favor.  But only in the Vineyard of God are you given the whole enchilada on the first day.  When the Holy Spirit converts a sinner into a believing disciple of Jesus, when, by the washing of water with the Word, God the Father adopts you as His child, nothing is held back.  Joined to Christ by faith, covered by His righteous robes, the words the Father spoke to Jesus at His Baptism in the Jordan are applied to you:  “Now you also are my beloved child, my son, my daughter, with whom I am well pleased.”  Rejoice, you have been chosen to join in the work of the vineyard, the work of hearing and singing and sharing and rejoicing in the harvest of souls that God is achieving. 

   In the first century world, being hired to work by a master meant being included in his extended family.  Being called to work in the LORD’s Vineyard means to be brought under the rule and reign of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who lived, served, preached, suffered, died and rose again, in order to make possible our inclusion in the family of God.  To be hired into the Vineyard is to be included in all the blessings won by Christ.  Or as Paul said, “for me, to live is Christ.” 

   To be hired into the Vineyard Jesus speaks of is to be rescued from the “get-what-you-deserve-by-your-works” kingdom of Hell, and to be transferred by the grace of God into the “get-what-Jesus-has-freely-won-for-you” kingdom of Heaven.  Paul, who had been a persecutor of the Church, saw with great clarity the radical and underserved salvation Christ had given to him.  So, Paul worked tirelessly and joyfully at the task he was given in the Vineyard, the task of being Apostle to the Nations.  Paul was sent to carry the Good News of the Vineyard to many peoples and places, to create branch offices of the Vineyard by founding Christian congregations all around the Mediterranean world.  Our congregation is a descendent of Paul’s mission work and writing.      

   No one else has been given the job Paul had in the Vineyard.  But every baptized believer has tremendous reasons to be cheerful and optimistic, whatever the circumstances of our day to day work in the Vineyard.  Every Christian has been given important work.  Whatever your place in life, by your faith in Christ, your work is a holy calling.  Through you, and all Christians, the Holy Spirit is working out His Mission, through the work and words of Paul, and through the loving and faithful lives of His people. 

    And yet, this is still not the best.  “To live is Christ,” so there is great joy in Christian living, even in the midst of the struggles and trials.   And yet, “to die is gain.”  And so the Psalmist, in the middle of celebrating his place within the people of God, sings out: “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints,” His holy ones.  Workers in God’s Vineyard whistle while they go about their work, happy to be included in God’s great enterprise, happy to be saved, declared holy.  And happy to serve.  At the same time, God’s workers keep one eye on the future, on the eternal promise of Christ, that all who believe in Him have already passed from death to life.  Now physical death is but a transition from this vale of tears to the eternal and sinless future that awaits all who trust in the forgiveness and love of Jesus.    

    Your heavenly Father loves to have you in His Vineyard, and He loves to see you working at the tasks He has given you.  But the day that your contract here expires, and you are transferred to the other side of the Vineyard, to the Department of Heavenly Glory, that day is even more precious to God.  Another soul, delivered from suffering and temptation and the sin that clings, bonds loosed forever, now set eternally free to rest and rejoice in the nearer presence of Christ. 

     To die is gain, and this reward, this blessing, is also already yours.  For when God put the seal on your welcome into His Vineyard, when He baptized you into His Holy Name, He connected you in a mysterious but real way to the death and resurrection of Jesus.  You do not need to fear death, for Jesus has already defeated death, for you.  As faithful workers, we know well that this life is precious, and we rightly celebrate life, especially by extolling Christ.  And yet we also look forward, beyond this life, and beyond our physical deaths, knowing that because Jesus rose, we who are joined to Him will also rise from the dead. 

    In the original Vineyard, the Garden of Eden, our first parents listened to the Serpent’s lies and began to question whether their wages were fair.  Adam and his wife began to suspect the Master was holding out on them, and they tried to take what had not been given them.  Their foolish sin caused God to eject them from that blessed Vineyard, and also messed up every earthly vineyard, every job, every relationship that followed.  Unhappy work, strife, sin and death dominated this world, all the way up to the night that the New Adam, Jesus Christ, prayed in another Garden.  The next day, the Friday we call Good, He drank all the wages of the sin of Adam and all his descendants, draining the Cup of God’s wrath to the dregs. 

    So now, in Christ Jesus, you are set free from sin, and invited to live and work in God’s New Vineyard.  You have been given the hidden wisdom that the way to overcome sin is not through your work, but through the finished work of God’s only begotten Son.  Through Him, you have been included in the family of God.  You have been sealed in the promise that living in Christ, your death will turn out to be gain.  You are safe in God’s Vineyard, even in the midst of this sin-filled world. 

    So rejoice.  Take up your assigned tasks, and sing a happy tune.  Lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord!  Offer to Him the sacrifice of thanksgiving, for your bonds are loosed.  Call on the name of the Lord, the One who has called you His beloved worker, His holy child, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.