The Joshua Victor Theory

Sermon Outline 1. The irregular behavior of the master of the house: a) went himself to the marketplace 5 times in one day to hire workers, though he had an employee, b) pays the wages in reverse, creating a stir among the workers, c) pays an equal wage to all. 2. Reasons? a) not because he underestimated his needed workforce, but out of his compassion to hire all the workers and give them the dignity of a living wage. Day-laborers were like the unemployment line. Personal visit to the unemployment lines 5 times. Even at the last hour of the day some were still waiting for work—didn’t want to return home to a hungry family empty-handed. b) could have done in normal order, everyone would have gone home happy—but to show the first workers his generosity and teach them about grace. c) the master was free to do with his own as he pleased. Didn’t need to go out at the 11th hour, but had compassion for the unemployed. What dignity did it give them? Last call. 3. God’s incarnation in Jesus, w...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The story of the prodigal or lost son is probably one of the most familiar parables Jesus taught. A son rejects his living father as dead, wants to cash out his inheritance now, and run off with the money to party and live life to the fullest. The parable is about that ever-so-difficult homecoming when the lost son returned broken and empty-handed to beg for food and a place to stay from the father he’d disowned. Today we’ll consider how the father and the older brother each reacted. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The lost son was lost when he squandered all his father’s inheritance in wild living. Then he returned to his home and to his father, but when he arrives, in another way he’s still lost. He doesn’t know his own father. So he comes on the grounds of his own merits. But he realizes that he’s shot any merits he’s had to oblivion. He’s a l...