Redeemer Lutheran Church, DeSoto, MO

Our September 20 Sunday worship service is available on video through Facebook. You may view it without being a member of Facebook. Our social spacing seating arrangement assures minimal risk when you come in person.

The September 27 worship service will be held outdoors behind our sanctuary, weather permitting, with members and friends in attendance. It is scheduled to be streamed live on the DeSoto Redeemer Facebook page. We will post a direct link to the recording here as soon as it is possible after the service.

We are glad to share our worship with you. Click on “Contact Us” above to find out more about our faith family and what we believe.

September 20 Sermon
Jonah 3:10-4:11 | Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30 | Matthew 20:1-16

“Are you envious because I am generous?” That is the most telling line in this parable. Indeed, it is the central point of the story. True, it is a reasonable question to come from the owner at the worker’s response to the wages situation. Or, as we know, looking at the parable, it is a fair question from God to us. And we also know, although we do not like to admit it, that the answer to this question, from us, is too often, “Yes!” Too often, we do in fact begrudge God His generosity. Human beings have always been that way. I don’t know why. Sin, yes, but which one, either Pride, Envy or Greed. We don’t like to share, and our God shouldn’t either.
That is one problem which we have with the Gospel. It is nothing short of a generous outpouring of God’s grace upon all people. It is free to all. We don’t like that. We, like the laborers in the story, especially don’t like to share with those Johnnie Come Latelys, 11th Hour Christians (shouldn’t it be 23rd Hour Christians?). But, that is because we also don’t like to remember that God is also being generous with us!! We don’t deserve what we receive either! It is all a free gift from God’s generous grace. And God has been gracious for a long time, and to some very ungracious people.
Look at Jonah’s lesson for today. That is exactly what is going on. Jonah is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament. It is actually terribly funny. Some Bible scholars believe that it is a satire. But most people don’t read its short four chapters. They get hung up on the “Whale” story. It is an amazing story, and it relates to Jesus’ parable this morning. It, too, is concerned with God’s generosity.

Where we pick up the story today, Jonah is mad, pouting. Why? Because God has forgiven the whole city of Nineveh! When God first calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, at the beginning of the book, Jonah doesn’t want to go. Why? Jonah doesn’t like the people of Nineveh, in fact he hates them. It is the capital city of the hated Assyrian Empire, which has conquered Israel. And, Jonah is almost certain that God is going to forgive them anyway. Jonah sees absolutely no reason for him to go to all of the effort. He would rather see them destroyed with a great heavenly down pouring of fire and brimstone. That, to Jonah’s thinking, is what they deserve!

Jonah even goes to great lengths of getting out of it. He hops the first cruise ship out of port heading in the opposite direction, Tarshish (Spain), finds himself in a terrible storm, aboard a floundering ship, and then thrown overboard, at his own request, and swallowed by a “great fish.” All to be vomited up on the beach next to Nineveh (in other words, if God wants you to be somewhere, you may as well go, He’ll get you there one way or another – and you probably won’t like the other).

Reluctantly, Jonah goes into the city, figures, “Well, as long as I’m here.” He probably cleaned himself up first. He probably looked pretty bad after spending three days in the belly of the whale (Christian apologists have always related this to the three days Christ spends in the tomb).He grudgingly calls the people to repentance, very quietly and unenthusiastically. And figuring that no one will repent, he then goes to find a front row seat for the action. But nothing happens. Jonah doesn’t realize that he was right, God wanted to forgive Nineveh, they repented (in spite of Jonah’s half-hearted cries), and God did forgive them. So, Jonah sulks.

That brings us to the bush (cucumber bush) in the lesson this morning. It is God’s object lesson for Jonah. It grows in a night, dies in a night. Jonah liked it, gets angry at its demise. So much so, that he wants to die. He is a bit of an extremist. Jonah is very small-minded (but God used him anyway). Jonah was upset over a plant, while God was concerned with all the people of Nineveh. That is the difference between God and Jonah, between God and us. God is generous to all of his creatures. Human beings do tend to be envious and petty.

It is the same lesson in the parable in the Gospel lesson. All of the laborers are paid the same. Whether you work in the vineyard, come to faith, early or late. We are paid the same from God’s generosity. All who have faith in Christ are saved. We are the least, the last. We cannot save ourselves. And we thanks to sin, do not even deserve the wages which have been given to us from God. But, God chooses to make us first from his grace. Do not envy this, like the other laborers in the parable, or even Jonah, rather it is something to be glad and rejoice in! God strives to save all of his children. That is after all, the very Gospel itself. We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. That is given to “all who believe and are baptized.” We are saved. We are paid, not what we deserve, but from God’s generosity. Thank God for God’s exceedingly generous grace. That is the Gospel!
Pastor Rose

Our September 13 Sunday worship service is available on video through Facebook. You may view it without being a member of Facebook. Our social spacing seating arrangement assures minimal risk when you come in person.

The September 20 worship service will be held in our church sanctuary with members and friends in attendance. It is scheduled to be streamed live on the DeSoto Redeemer Facebook page. We will post a direct link to the recording here as soon as it is possible after the service.

We are glad to share our worship with you. Click on “Contact Us” above to find out more about our faith family and what we believe.

September 13 Sermon
Genesis 50:15-21 | Psalm 103:1-13
Romans 14:1-12 | Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness: It is something which is really needed in the world today. It is at the base of many of today’s problems and issues. Just take a look at the news. There is a lack of forgiveness permeating too many areas of life. That leads to the question of St. Peter this morning:

“How often should I forgive?” If you remember from last week, Jesus had just been talking about what to do when you can’t work things out, Matthew’s famous “Discipline of Members” lesson, or what to do when someone keeps sinning against you. In light of that, Peter’s question is a fair one. A question which we don’t often hear. Usually, the question you hear is, “Do I have to forgive them?” Sometimes followed by the word , “Again?” If they asked for forgiveness, and repented, then the answer is yes.
But, did you notice that Peter already anticipates an answer, “Seven times?” That may sound strange, putting an actual number on it. But, it wasn’t strange in this period of time, and Peter is actually being very generous. Jewish law stated that you only had to forgive a person 3 times. That’s it, 3 times, then you could hold it against the other person for the rest of your life!! But, if Peter is generous, Jesus is magnanimous, “77 times,” or, to make it even more outstanding, it can also be read 7 times 70 = 490 – numbers weren’t that firmly defined back then, at least in terms of language. (And in Greek, you can put the words of a sentence in any order that you want. True, there is a common word order, but you can put them anywhere that you wish. It can be confusing.). 77 or 490, that is a lot of forgiving. Ironically, there are still people out there, who with a clear conscience, are keeping count on either number 77 or 490, just so they can cry out, “That tears it, I’ve done what I had to do, now, I don’t have to forgive you anymore!”
Obviously, they have missed the point of the whole teaching. It is not a matter of keeping score. It is a matter of endless forgiveness for those who turn around, repent, to repair the relationship. It is a lesson to keep on forgiving, not to place one’s self in God’s place as judge (to quote Joseph in the Genesis lesson today), but act as God’s agent of reconciliation in the world, where we are. And Joseph knew a lot about forgiving when it came to his brothers (someday, I’ll tell you about mine). Indeed, Joseph is about the only person in the OT who is considered a saint! However, his brothers were not of the highest character, selling their little brother when he was about 12 years old to their cousins the Ishmaelites. Then he gets sold again, and imprisoned. But God guided his life, so that he ultimately saved his family and the land of Egypt. And in the lesson today, after the death of their father, Jacob, (whom they have already buried – “Realizing that their father was dead,” they aren’t the brightest), they realize that if Joseph wants to get even with them, no one can stop him. The only person above Joseph was Pharaoh, and he would support Joseph. So, they come and beg forgiveness. They realize that they have been out of line, and now they are sorry about it, really sorry about it. They repented. “Do not be afraid,” only said to those who should be. And Joseph tells them this twice! Yes, he could punish them. But instead, he forgives them. Joseph realizes that all that he went through was the way that God planned to save his family. And he took care of his family. Where there is repentance, we must forgive. And, on the flip side, to quote an ancient Church adage, “Without repentance, there is no salvation/forgiveness.” It is the Office of the Keys again, the power to bind and to loose, in heaven and on earth.

That brings us to the parable. One slave is forgiven a lot, but would not forgive a little. Owed 10,000 talents. A talent was worth about 15 years’ wages for the average worker, that’s 150,000 years worth of labor! No one owed that much! No master would ever entrust that amount of money to any servant! No master had that much money! It would be about the Gross National Product of Israel at that time! Jesus is using hyperbole in the story. It is a story of extremes. The slave (and his family – they would be locked up too for the debt, and sold) is about to be imprisoned. But, he pleads and is spared, forgiven the debt (and that is a lot of forgiveness).

The other slave owed him 100 denarii, 100 days wages. That is very little in comparison. But the first slave has him jailed. Hearing about the incident, now his master has him jailed until he pays the whole debt, in reaction. It is going to be a long time in prison for him and his family.

The parable shows us that there is a connection between our forgiveness of others, and God’s forgiveness of us. We hear of it also in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We say it all of the time. There is a tie in our relationship, God and each other.
This can apply to ourselves as well. Many people don’t forgive themselves for the little things which they have done, and often those are things which couldn’t be helped. We are all in bondage to sin (to quote Luther), and cannot free ourselves. But, God has freed us!, through Christ’s death and resurrection, and our faith in him. We are now joined to him, and no longer to sin and death. Having been forgiven a lot, our sinfulness, we are now able to forgive others as well. Freed from our debts, we now proclaim the one who freed us, by sharing his love, and forgiveness to all who call upon his name, even those who may be indebted to us. We are given the Power of the Keys. We are entrusted with them. We can now share the wealth of God’s grace with those who ask for it. In so doing, we can unlock the chains which may bind the conscience of others. “As Christ first forgave us, so now, we must forgive.”
Pastor Rose