Date: March 26, 2023

Bible Text: Matthew 20:1-16, Luke 18:1-18 |

Series:

This is the fifth Sunday in Lent, the season of preparation for the feast of Easter and the Resurrection of the Lord. Lent is traditionally a time of self-reflection and other spiritual disciplines like fasting, prayer, study, generosity, and so on. All of this is to focus our attention on Jesus Christ and our living relationship with him.

We are continuing a sermon series for these six weeks on Jesus' claim to be the Bread of Life. Because he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, we take this claim seriously and believe that he can satisfy all manner of human hunger.

So far we have considered hunger of body (food), mind (wisdom), spirit (peace), and love. Today we examine our hunger for justice. For a lot of people, justice isn't something you think about very often. This is especially true if things generally go your way, you aren't oppressed, and no one cheats or robs you. When such things do happen, then one might say, "I want justice for what happened to ME!" Unfortunately, we often fail to consider the need for justice in larger terms, or that it would do us all good if everyone regularly got justice (SPOILER: they don't).

The texts this week are two parables Jesus told that give us an idea of the mind of God on this topic. In one, Jesus promises that God answers cries for justice. In the other, Jesus challenges our notion of fairness with an alternate vision from the reign of God.

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