Mt. Heights Healthcare
Facility
September 26, 2014
Life for His Children 09262014
Good Afternoon, my name
is Ray Foss. My wife is Pastor Ruth Foss at Stetson Memorial United Methodist
Church in Patten, just down the street. I’m so happy to join you again today to
bring the Good News of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ and a word about our
salvation bought by His sacrifice, on the cross.
Let us be in the Spirit
of prayer.
Almighty God, we thank
you for the blessings of this day and this opportunity to gather to worship you
and to share this message from Holy Scripture. We pray that you would speak to
us through these words, that Your Spirit would inform my speaking and the
listening to these words. Teach us what You would have us learn. Speak to our
hearts, not just our minds. We pray this in the name of our risen Lord and
Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
The first reading is from
Exodus 16:2-15, and I’ll be reading from the New International Version (NIV). This was just after the Jewish people
had been saved from slavery in Egypt and after God had made a way for them to
walk through the Red Sea on dry land. Listen to what happened next. . .
“2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought
us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain
down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for
that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will
follow my instructions. 5 On the
sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the
other days.”
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you
will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we,that
you should grumble against us?” 8 Moses
also said, “You will know that it was the Lord
when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you
want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You
are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”
[. . .
]
13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of
dew around the camp. 14 When
the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the
desert floor. 15 When
the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not
know what it was.
Moses said to them, “It
is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”
God
provided for them, all the food they needed. And not just that day, that week,
God provided for forty years. The Jewish people never planted, never stayed in
one place. This desert wasn’t home. They were journeying for forty years toward
the Promised Land.
The
second reading is from Matthew 20:1-16.
Matthew 20:1-16New International Version
(NIV)
“The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who
went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He
agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
(That was the normal pay for one day).
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others
standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He
told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is
right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and
about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About
five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He
asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and
work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to
his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the
last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon
came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those
came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them
also received a denarius. 11 When they received it,
they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These
who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them
equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the
day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to
you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take
your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave
you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want
with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.””
These pieces of scripture
offer us hope in God’s provision now and eternal life at the end of this life.
We are connected to these
stories. Can you see yourself in these stories. Do you recognize yourself wandering in the desert? Do you see
yourself working in the vineyards, in the potato fields gathering in the
harvest, or just trying to be faithful to God’s call to your life? Do these
words make sense to you?
I know I can relate, and I’m
not always happy about that, as a man, as an American, as a person who claims
the name Christian, in a country and a world that is far from being “Christian”.
We are challenged in our
time and place, in the 21st Century, in this land of abundance. Do
we see the harvest as the work of our hands or as gifts from God. Do we grumble
in a place of bounty, are we jealous of others who seem to get paid without
working as hard as we do, who get a hand out from the government maybe? Do we
even know what the coin represents?
We are like the story of
the grumbling people in Exodus 16, who so recently were enslaved in Egypt, who
walked through the Red Sea, who were led to freedom by God, who now were not
satisfied.
We are like the laborers
in the fields in Matthew 20, especially like those called first, envying our
neighbors, not working in this life, wanting things simple, as if given to us. Not
wanting to work to gather in our neighbors, to share the Good News with them.
We are like the older
brother in the Prodigal Son story (Luke 15:11-32), wondering why the Father slaughters the fatted calf for the younger
brother, when we had been faithful all along and never had so much as a goat
slaughtered for us.
God is the same as in the
story of Moses, the people grumbling, not understanding. God providing manna
and quail, water in the desert. God provided for His people, for His chosen
children, given them all they needed, asking only that they followed, that they
trusted in Him.
The same was true of the
people coming out of the fields, wanting to be paid, like Adam, sweating for
his food (Genesis 3:19). But they forgot about grace that they did not earn
salvation, that they chose to enter the fields, in response to God’s gifts.
They all misunderstood,
like us needing the lesson, God provides for our needs. We must trust in His
promise. We are all saved by grace, not by our works, that we are gifted to be
giving, to work in this life. (Ephesians 2:1-10).
We are to be working, in
the fields, in the vineyards, by the seas, wherever God plants us, when we say
yes, but God is the owner, the Creator of all that is. These are God’s fields,
His vineyards; we are to be yoked with Christ, sharing the load with us.
The wages the same, at
the end of the day, life for each believer, grace to sustain us, life at the
end no more and no less, the same whenever grace finds them, loved like all the
rest. None of us are better, none of us worse, the same gate to heaven, through
the sacrifice of the cross.
We are to be working, our
oil ready, our lamps burning, when the day ends, when the bridegroom comes; but
we must be joyful, for each new believer, even those who come at the eleventh
hour. For there is joy in heaven, as each one believes, like Clarence in the
movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, reminding us of the praises in heaven, for each
new life. How a bell rings when a new angel gets his or her wings.
We all receive the same
wages when the work is done and we are gathered home, for the wages were paid
by Christ and we receive the free gift of salvation.
That is the same as the
manna and quail the Jewish people were gifted for forty years in the desert.
They never planted crops for forty years. God provided for their needs. He
still does today, and He will gift us richly if we believe and if we follow
Jesus.
We don’t earn our way
into heaven. Our works, our fruit, by ourselves is not so pleasing to God as
the offering Christ made. We are to be workers in the vineyard, in the fields,
sharing the Good News of life in Christ who bought our salvation with His blood
on the cross.
We are to be joyfully
serving, knowing that the wages the owner will pay us on the last day are the
keys to the kingdom, the gate of salvation, the doors of paradise at the end of
this walk.
That is the joy in these
stories, the common stories of our faith, of God’s faithfulness to us, God’s
provision for us, even when we doubt, when we grumble, when we stray, when we
judge someone else’s walk. God alone is faithful, His promises are true, our
joy needs to be shared, to the ends of the earth.
Amen!
-----
September 26, 2014
Matthew 20:1-16
“The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard” (NIV)
Exodus 16:2-15
“Manna and Quail” (NIV)
Genesis 3:19
“. . . By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food
until you return to the ground, since from it you were
taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Ephesians 2:1-10
“Made Alive in Christ” (NIV)
Mark 4:26-29
“The Parable of the Growing Seed” (NIV)
Matthew 13:36-41
“The Parable of the Weeds Explained” (NIV)
and
sermon, “Life for His Children (redux)
Stetson
Memorial United Methodist Church
Fourth Friday of the month service at Mt. Heights Health Care
Facility
and
edited September 15, 2014
Life for His Children – v2
edited September 15, 2014
Life for His Children
September 15, 2014
Life for His People
and
sermon, “Life for His Children”
by
Raymond A. Foss
Portage
Congregational Church
Portage,
ME
September 21, 2014
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reserved. Contact me at Ray Foss for usage.
See all 36,710+ of my poems at www.raymondafoss.blogspot.com
Poetry Where You Live.
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