September 20, 2026, at St. William, St.Agnes, and St. Peter Churches in Naples, FL
Isaiah 55: 6-9 + Psalm 145 + Philippians 1: 20-24, 27 + Matthew 20: 1-16
It is easy to convince ourselves that after keeping the rules, saying our prayers, being faithful and nice we have fabricated for ourselves a great reward, leaving us to assume that what God in God’s goodness has given us, is something we have earned. It isn’t until we see God’s goodness to others, especially to those we don’t like, that we can begin to see the goodness of God for the wonderful miracle that it is, and that goodness is what is revealed with these verses of Matthew’s Gospel.
This story can easily disturb and distract us with questions over what is fair or what is just. When that happens, we miss the real issue at the heart of the story. In a world of competition that has winners and losers, where score keeping and ranking is how we measure who or what is best, this Gospel message is bewildering. While the behavior of the vineyard owner is the focus for Jesus revealing that goodness of God, we can’t help but notice the behavior of those who worked through the day. I have always wondered why they could not imitate the generosity of the owner by taking the whole crew out for dinner. But no, they have to be watching what everyone else gets and deciding that there is something unfair about getting what they agreed to. In our system, they should probably get a bonus, but they don’t.
We hear this story and cringe at what it says about God, and we might feel ashamed at what it says about us because we carry around notions of what is fair and what is not, and this story offends most of those notions. It is easy to agree that the owner can run his business the way he wants to, but his payroll policies make us uncomfortable. The question is greater than just about hours worked. It is something else entirely. If the owner is going to play favorites, we want to be the favored ones. If the owner is going to be generous, we want some of that generosity.
Jesus could have told this story differently with those hired first paid first, avoiding conflict. But he did not because he wanted those hired first to see something. The only way to really see the goodness of God is to see that goodness as it is given to others. The fact is, we are too wrapped up in our own skins, too bundled in our own needs to see truly what God gives us. Perhaps what we might see, sometimes to our shame, is that God treats us all the same, because in God’s eye, there are no favorites, and no one is the best. For what Jesus says to us today is that we are all equally loved by God, the good, the bad, the faithful, the unfaithful, the rich and the poor, the white and the brown, the straight and the gay, the sinner and the saint. Those grumblers speak the most important words of this Gospel when they say: “You have made them equal to us.” That is exactly what God has done.