Threat or Promise?--September 4, 2026

Threat or Promise?--September 4, 2026

[Jesus said:] “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28)

I know: all this talk of "repaying" people for their deeds sounds rather ominous, like a mob boss promising a vendetta on all his opponents.  You almost can't help but hear these verses, which many of us already heard in worship this past Sunday, in the voice of Marlon Brando's "Don Corleone" character from The Godfather, said with the same quiet menace as the phrase, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

And yes, at first blush, this sounds like a naked threat on the lips of Jesus.  "The Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done," Jesus says. That sentence sure sounds like it is meant to scare us straight or fill us with dread.  And while we are on the subject, it also seems to throw a monkey wrench into a Lutheran's theology that we are saved by grace through faith "apart from works of the law," doesn't it?  Isn't Jesus baldly saying that he is doling out punishments and rewards like a mafioso based on whether they have done enough and shown adequate loyalty?

Well, maybe... but it's worth remembering who it is that says these words... and what other surprises he keeps up his sleeve when it comes to talk about giving out payments or rewards.  For example, this is the same Jesus who, just a few chapters later into Matthew's Gospel, will tell a story about a landowner who pays all the employees the same full daily wage even though most of them have only worked a few hours--or even one hour--and does so under the conviction that this is "whatever is right" to pay them. It is very clearly a story in which we expect bigger rewards for greater work, but in which the repayment is still on the basis of grace, ensuring that everyone can feed their families tomorrow from the wages they received today.  In other words, when Jesus starts talking about "repaying" people might actually look like in God's kingdom, he reserves the right to be more generous than anybody expected.  In the economy of Jesus, even "repaying" people skews toward grace.  That doesn't mean our actions don't matter or that there are no consequences for our rotten choices, but it does mean that Jesus gets to decide what "repayment" looks like, not us.  And he has tipped his hand to the possibility that he is no stingy Scrooge.  

For that matter, Jesus is also the One who insists that his followers refuse to "repay evil with evil," but rather to answer evil with good.  He even grounds that policy in the character of God, insisting in Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount that the One Jesus calls "Father" gives the good gifts of sun and rain to not only the righteous and deserving but also to the unrighteous and unworthy.  Luke's telling has Jesus say, that God is "merciful to the wicked and the ungrateful" as well.  In other words, Jesus seems to believe that God's own character is one that leans toward grace rather than spite.  Whatever it means to "repay everyone," the one doing the repaying has an established reputation for surprising us with goodness, and for not fitting within our expectations of what anybody "deserves." Jesus' words, I suspect, are more a promise than a threat. Ultimately, the Divine Accounting Department is outside of our control, and we are not needed for overseeing payroll on Jesus' behalf.

And I think that is really the thrust of these words at the conclusion of the passage.  Jesus has been talking throughout this section about the call to follow him even at great cost: we are called, like him, to take up our crosses, to lose what we thought was valuable, and perhaps even to surrender our lives.  It will look like are utter fools who have bet on the wrong horse, Jesus concedes.  And there is no avoiding that reality: to follow Jesus will put us on a course in life that the world thinks is either stupid or subversive, and it will reject us accordingly.  But don't you worry, Jesus seems to be saying: the world doesn't render the final verdict.  Jesus does.  And even if the world thinks we have wasted our lives by following Jesus and his way of generosity, love, gentleness, and peaceableness, Jesus doesn't think any of it is a waste.  And he is the one in the position to put things right.  There is nothing that the world can take away that Jesus is not perfectly capable of restoring to us, and there is nothing we give up for the sake of following Jesus that he is not willing to provide in his own way and time.  Jesus is not threatening to "get even" with us in these verses, but promising us that the world's verdict is not the last word.  His will be, and he is generous.

This passage, then, is not meant to tell us that in the end, the Rules of the Game change and we end up being saved or damned based on whether we did enough good or pious dees, but rather to say that when the world calls us losers, weaklings, and stupid people for following Jesus' way of self-giving and suffering love, we don't have to be afraid that the world gets the final say.  "Don't you worry," Jesus insists, "I will make sure you are taken care of. Nothing you lose in this life cannot be restored in my time and way. You will not be at a loss forever."  He means these words as a promise, not a threat.

So we face this day ahead, not in the fear that if we don't do enough we'll be kicked out of the club or damned to hell, but in the confidence that there is nothing we can lose that Jesus is not perfecting willing and able to provide.  We face the day with the promise that the world's verdict is not the one with authority, and that God's is the one that really counts in the end.

How will we live, then, knowing whose opinion really counts... and whose doesn't?  What will we spend our day, our energy, our love, and our resources on, knowing that Jesus gets the final say over the meaning of our lives?  And how can we be at peace knowing that Jesus' way of "repaying" is always surprisingly generous?

Lord Jesus, ground us in your promise, and set us free from our fears.