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Love Song of the Vineyard (Reprise)

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “ Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit ” (Matthew 21:33-34). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Are you familiar with the term “reprise” when it is applied to a song? A reprise returns to an earlier song, often with a change in style or music that lets us hear it in a new way —like “Let It Go” in Disney’s Frozen or “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on the Beatles album of the same name. You might call our Gospel text a “reprise.” Jesus takes up the vineyard song God sang through Isaiah seven centuries earlier and gives it a new setting and a sharper ending. You just heard the original song in our Old Testament reading. The vineyard Isaiah san...
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Seek the Lord While He May Be Found

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless the Lord returns in your lifetime, a day will come when you can no longer gather here with your brothers and sisters in Christ—whether through personal choice, illness, incapacity, the closing of this congregation, circumstances beyond your control, or death. These possibilities remind us that the opportunity to receive the Lord’s gifts should never be presumed upon. Seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near. Now, here’s the thing: most of these scenarios you don’t have much control over or say about. You can take the best care of yourself, but you can still get ill, become incapac...
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The King Settles Accounts

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “ Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants” ( Matthew 18:23). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Having just heard Jesus’ words about winning back an erring brother, Peter asks, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? As many as seven times?” Peter thinks he is very generous. After all, the old Jewish teaching was that three times was enough, and even then, you only forgave someone if he or she first apologized. And generally, it was expected that the sinner had to make it up to you somehow. But Jesus raises the bar much higher: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Some translations render this as seventy-seven times. Others render it as seventy times seven , or 490 times. Either way, it is a lot . But the number is not meant to be counted. It means keep forgiving. Do not keep score . D...
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