September 20, 2026

Pentecost 17A, Lectionary 25

Matthew 20:1-16 (and Exodus 16:2-15)

Epiphany, Winnipeg

I can understand those ones who worked all day, and maybe you can too. It makes perfectly good sense, because it’s just normal that people are paid by the hour or paid by the work they do. Someone who works one hour should make one eighth of what a person who works eight hours should make, right? The one who works more receives more. It’s the way of the world. It makes sense.

Of course, somewhere along the way it stops making sense, and we see how it all falls apart and is not, in fact, true. Someone who, I don’t know, maybe has a company that builds electric cars and another company that makes satellites, does not work a hundred thousand times harder than someone who works two full-time jobs to feed their kids. I probably don’t work two or three times harder than them either. But the idea, in the normal word, still seems to make sense: we’re paid according to the work we do, even if there are exceptions that we just think are the way things are. The anger of the workers in the story makes a perfect kind of sense.

I have lived in this story. When I was, I don’t know, maybe eight or nine years old, we were visiting the family farm where my mom grew up. Uncle Norman was hauling grain that day, so he asked my cousin and my brother if they would like to help him with the days work. I think they were shovelling grain or something, one of those farm things that an eight-year-old kid from the city knew nothing about. My brother and my cousin worked for quite awhile, and somewhere near the end of the day Uncle Norman asked if I’d like to help with the last bit of work. That last bit of work might have involved a shovel, but all I remember is that I didn’t have to do much more than ride into town in the grain truck with my uncle.

At the end of the day Uncle Norman gave my brother and my cousin and I each two dollars. I was thrilled! Those other two said, “ This last one worked only one hour, and you have made him equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!”

Well, they didn’t put it quite like that, but you get the point. They were miffed. Ticked. Peeved.

And while they grumbled, I was just so glad to have all that money that my uncle had given out of his own generous hand.

Now it’s just a story that Jesus tells to stir up and even confuse his hearers, but use your imagination and put yourself into the story as one of those ones invited along at the end of the day. That’s a little taste of what the Kingdom of Heaven is. Not the “Kingdom of Heaven,” a place where you go, But the Kingdom of Heaven that comes near to us

In the world as we know it, people see and think and value one way, but in the world as God sees it, the world where God reigns above all the Donalds and Elons and Vladimirs and Marks, all the normal ways are turned upside down. So you know how some get rich and some are stuck being poor? Where some are called winners and others are…not-winners? Where some are worth more than others? In the kingdom of heaven, in the world as God sees it and where God reigns, the least ones and the last ones matter, and become first. Even the youngest and cutest little family member who stayed home most of the day.

Jesus doesn’t tell this story to make a point about the ones who thought they should be paid more, or to say that they’re bad. He tells the story and it shakes up our way of seeing the world, and it invites us to see…maybe to see how God sees…to see something different about how God regards all that God has made. And how God reigns.

Maybe the story invites us to see that the Kingdom of Heaven is not fair. Or at least not fair like we might think of fair. Instead, the Kingdom of heaven is gracious and generous. The landowner gives what the landowner promises.

Think about it. In other places in Matthew’s gospel we hear of the landowner who promises to clothe the lilies, and every spring we see the landowner adorning the land with this year’s colours. The landowner promises to feed the birds, and at birdfeeders and tree trunks and on lawns after a rain we see the landowner feeding the birds with food that they did not plant. The landowner promises a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light, and every Sunday we hear the news that Christ is risen, and we’ll never have to prove that we’ve worked hard enough in the hot sun to receive the life that God gives. It’s all given freely in a cross and an empty tomb, in water and bread and wine.

That promise is given for the last and the first and the best and the worst.

Maybe the real problem for the workers comes right in the middle of that story. When they see that they, and all the ones who worked less than them, were paid exactly the same amount, did you hear what they said? “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who worked so hard.” It’s not just about the money. It’s about a world where some are more equal than others, and isn’t it nice to be one of the ones who are more equal, if that happens to be your lot? And isn’t it hard if you’re one of the ones who are less equal? Less equal because you make less money, or don’t look quite the right way or love just the right kind of people? But in the realm of the landowner, they’re all somehow made equal. We are all made equal.

One more story from the days of my youth. When I was a year out of university I did the whole “travelling to Europe with a backpack and wondering where I’d ended up” thing. Towards the end of my travels, when my money was starting to grow thin, I ended up staying at a youth hostel in a small city on the Greek island of Crete. I was staying at the hostel with other travelers from all over Europe and as far away as Japan and Australia.

Every morning, people who lived in the area would come to the hostel to see if any of us travellers could come and work for the day. Most of us, of course, said yes. Some went to work in olive groves, some to do some construction work, others to work on farms, other things like that. Some lollygagged on the beach all day. I went and worked for a few days breaking up a really big concrete patio in someone’s back yard. Just me, a sledgehammer, and some water and a sandwich that my “boss for a day” brought out for me.

At the end of the day we’d all arrive back at the hostel with stories of our days. My work was what you’d call backbreaking, even for a twenty-year-old. Other people had the same kind of workday, some had it easier, and there was even a group from a country which will not be named who spent the day in a vineyard drinking with their “boss for a day.”

We’d always end up walking down to a taverna a few blocks away for a good Greek dinner and an evening of what people often do on a long night around dinner tables. At that point in the day, nobody was rewarded with more or less, and some who had more paid the tab for some others who had less. With no regard for who worked harder or not at all, or who got paid more, we all just laughed and told stories of our travels and our lives back home. Sometimes the stories would be more serious and would touch close to home as tongues and hearts were loosened up as the evening went on. For that time, at least, we weren’t the ones who worked more or worked less. We were just equals around the table, sharing the good gifts that the land had given, and sharing the good gifts of one another’s company. We were just workers at the end of the day.

Jesus tells this story. When the landowner paid out the workers after the day’s work, the ones who worked all day might once have said, “What? You’ve made them equal to us? It’s an outrage.” But now, once the story has been told, all the ones at the end of the day’s work were set free and said, “What? You’ve made them equal to us? How cool is that?!”

That’s like the reign of God. It’s just like this table here, where the one whose life is given for all, gives us all food and drink, and we equals taste that reign of God.