Preparing for Worship - September 24, 2023

This week’s psalm is Psalm 27:1-9. David knows that “the Lord is his Light and his Salvation.” David is not “afraid,” though “evildoers” and “foes” and even “armies” are opposed to him. He prays that he may be able to keep coming to the Lord’s “tent,” His house, “to sing and make melody to the Lord” and to pray for His “sheltering” protection “in the day of trouble.” He trusts that the Lord will “hear” and “be gracious,” as He is “the God of his salvation.”

God speaks also through Isaiah in our Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 55:6-9. We, too, are called to “seek the Lord” and forsake our “unrighteous ways and thoughts,” and He will “have compassion and pardon us.” His “thoughts and ways” are always better and “higher” than ours, as we keep calling “calling upon Him” and listening to His Word.

We especially see the “higher” ways of the Lord in the parable that Jesus tells in the Gospel lesson, Matthew 20:1-16. A man hires laborers to work in his vineyard at a certain wage; and as the day goes on he hires more workers. Some worked only one hour, where those hired first had worked 12 hours - yet they all received the same wage, the original agreed-upon wage. How unfair this seemed to those who worked the most. They thought they deserved more pay, though they received exactly what was promised. We might tend to agree with the workers who “bore the burden of the whole day and the scorching heat” until we realize that, in context, Jesus is teaching about receiving salvation and eternal life. No one can earn or deserve that not matter how hard we work and try to do the right things. We are saved only through the “generosity” of our Lord in sending Jesus to do His saving work for us. It is His gift to us, and when we finally are brought to trust in that, the undeserved grace of God for us, we can only rejoice when others receive that gift of grace, too, at whatever point in their lives.

The Epistle lesson, Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30, begins a series of readings from another of Paul’s letters. Philippians 1:7 tells us that Paul is in prison because of his Christian faith, as he writes this letter; yet it is called his Epistle of Joy, because he sees how the Lord is working this all out for good. He is having opportunities to witness to many people he could not have reached out to otherwise, and his fellow believers in Philippi are gaining “confidence” in “speaking the Word of Christ without fear.” Paul does not know what the future will bring, but he is confident that he still has more fruitful labor to do in sharing the Gospel. He knows that he will be OK, in life or death. He says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” In the meantime, he encourages the believers in Philippi (and us, too) to “strive side by side for the faith of the Gospel” without fear, “believing in their salvation, and that from God.”