- Psalmody: Psalm 18:4a, 5a, 6a, c, 18:1-2a; Psalm 9:9b–10, 18–19a; Psalm 130:1–4; Psalm 92:1; Psalm 31:16–17a
- Lection: Daniel 9:2-10; 1 Corinthians 9:24—10:4; Matt. 20:1–16
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Divine Service, we make use of ordinaries and propers, words given to describe the parts of the liturgy by which we are blessed every time we gather. Ordinaries are all the parts that ordinarily show up in their exact same form, week-in and week-out. The Preparation, The Kyrie, The Gloria in Excelsis, The Nicene Creed, The Offertory, The Lord’s Prayer, andThe Words of Institution are all examples of ordinaries. They occur in every Divine Service in the exact same form. The propers, on the other hand, are the parts that are different from service-to-service, parts that are proper to that particular day in the Church Year. Every Sunday, we have a different Introit (and other psalmody); a different Collect, Prophecy, Epistle, and Gospel. Thanks be to God that all of these parts are either His Holy Word being spoken, chanted, or sung verbatim or they are solidly based upon what He has said. So, whether an ordinary or proper, we are richly blessed with hearing and thinking upon God by being given and responding with Holy Scripture, which means the more we labor in listening to every word in the Divine Service and inwardly digesting it, the more blessing we shall obtain. The Lord gave the Word and now having the benefit of two millennia of a great company of preachers, we have a blessed annual cycle full of well thought out selections for each and every Sunday that make the rhythm of the year one to our great spiritual benefit.
For instance, consider where we are on this day and how its propers are quite distinct from what we heard over a January filled with the Epiphany season. Our Introit is not one, like it was, of resplendent Light and rejoicing. Our alleluias are gone from gradual and song, and we entered this Pre-Lent Divine Service by the words The sorrows of death compassed me, The sorrows of hell compassed me about. These words of God bring to mind the dark tragedy and effects of our sin, and our forefathers chose them here on this Sunday to be used by the Church for a purpose. It is “Pre”-Lent and yet words from our own mouths, words from the mouth of God and His prophets and psalmists, confess and teach us where we are in the spiritual year and where we’re headed. Septuagesima means 70 days, for we are now within 70 days of Easter. We shall celebrate that great High Feast day with sincerity and truth; sincerity in acknowledgement of our sins; truth in the One Who has gained the victory for us by His own death, burial, and resurrection. The 70 reminds us of the 70 years the people of God spent in Babylonian exile due to their sin and unfaithfulness. Thus, these annual days of Pre-Lent, Lent, and Passiontide, these 70, prepare us well for our needed and regular renewal that shall come upon arrival at the Paschal Feast of Easter. These preceding days are a time of intensified reflection and self-examination, for who knows what we have allowed to seep in since we last celebrated the Lord’s Resurrection? Many long months and temptations have passed. Yes, we are to purge out the old leaven of malice and wickedness that seek to spoil the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth bestowed by Christ, our Passover, Who was sacrificed for us. We are to do this, not in a constant penance of sorrow as if we shall burn off iniquity by our pure efforts. It is God Who purifies, Who sanctifies, Who justifies, and His call is clear for those who have ears to hear. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise. For, indeed, we are to answer God’s call to labor in righteousness, and to do so while rejoicing always in the Lord that all our efforts are done with His righteousness freely and fully given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ.
His call on this Septuagesima Sunday is one made to His Church that is to be renewed again in 70 days. How might we begin preparations within ourselves? The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Consider first that we have a great Creator, Maker of heaven and earth, Whose praises are right to be raised early in the morning as He so graciously gives the day. It is He Who never sleeps nor slumbers, but comes early to call us out of slumber to the brightness and heat of the day, in which He promises to sustain us. He calls us to be a part of what is His and to not shirk away from the reality that His kingdom set in a fallen world calls for diligent and pain-staking labor; good labor. Yet notice that the godly life of regular renewal that He calls us into isn’t one of merely-grueling labor such as ditch-digging, nor is it confined to the daily necessities of laboring in a garden to gain bodily needs. Our gracious Landowner possesses and calls us to come labor in His vineyard from which come grapes not of wrath, but of wine that is for feasting and the gladdening of men’s hearts. Whatever the labor is that God calls us to, and especially that of godly living as directed by His good Word, is a labor that is joyous for the living heart, for it is done at the call of the Almighty and for the good that He seeks for us and all who trust that every bead of sweat that drops unto His holy ground is labor, toil, and effort very well spent.
We also consider the warning in the landowner’s words and observations within the parable. Three times comes the word idle. He went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle… [A]bout the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’ The word idle doesn’t imply a well-deserved moment in which a hard worker takes a break and is simply idly resting until breaktime is over. This idle in the parable is synonymous with being unwilling to work. It is synonymous with lazy. Why have you been standing here lazy all day?, the Landowner asks. The Scriptures teach against the dangers and wickedness of laziness, of the expectation that others will tend to our needs when the ability is given and expected by God for us to do so for ourselves. The elderly, the disabled, the orphaned are to receive out of our able-bodied abundance their sustenance and aid by charity, but the able-bodied who refuse to work are a detestable sight in the eyes of the Lord. St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians chapter three, For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. Thus, the Lord provides daily bread for us through labor and righteous charity, but it is not to be had through laziness. This stands as a true and severe real-world warning against the deadly sin of sloth. May our good Landowner ever call and protect us from this and from those who seek to take advantage of us through their laziness.
Which returns us to the glorious grace shown by our Lord Jesus in this parable. All of the laborers throughout the day are called by the Landowner going out early, at the rising of the sun, to find laborers for His vineyard. It is His desire to have us come and be about His business of repentance and forgiveness, labor and reward, life and joy, though indeed passing through burden, heat, and trial, all which He Himself expects and ultimately rewards, even in this life. The call, the justification, is not earned, but given freely; given freely to contrast and purge laziness from among us, so that sin and idleness are turned away from and honest labor is embraced in all godliness. The denarius granted to all the laborers shows that lives spent in honest effort that seek to lay hold of godly fruit in the midst of great toil come with even temporal rewards to be spent on our and others’ good. There is goodness in God’s commands, in His Church, in His vineyard, in His labor; goodness that shall be had according to His good will to give it.
Let us not despair or grow weary in doing good; doing good without and within. Those who grow faint, as all us fallen creatures do, shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint, for it is the Lord Who gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. And He does it in the vineyard of His Church where we receive His eternal gifts that gladden the heart. The Lord calls us and grants good labor, labor of love that awaits our faithful efforts within it, whether it be in the heat of a 70-year exile or in the latter-hour 70-day preparation for renewal that awaits us at the celebration of Christ the crucified being raised from the dead for our justification. So, can we learn to bear the burden of the day? Can we learn to live and labor together in purposeful work that seeks the joy of the Gospel by seeking to live every moment according to God’s Word in accordance with the good order and labor inherent to His vineyard? Can we learn to love His Church, His vineyard and the other laborers within it with dedication and labor of our own that is befitting His good and gracious call? May these be our hearts’ desire and may His blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel, ever call us out of sin and idleness into the rewarding labor of His joyous vineyard that shall have no end!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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