Sermon for September 20, 2026
Pentecost 17A
Matthew 20:1-16
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
A couple years ago, Beth Ann and I toured the “Finger Lakes Region” of western New York State. These lakes have the ideal climate and terrain for growing grapes, and you can just choose one of the lakes and spend a day driving around it, visiting the numerous vineyards and wineries. There’s quite a variety. Some are set up as sleek modern tasting rooms, others like a down-home country store; some have the feel of a barn, others a bar—the different vineyards want to cater to a variety of tastes. Some of what you’ll taste is table wine, meant to have wide appeal to the masses; others are fine wines tailored to the connoisseur. You’ll even find non-alcoholic juices and ciders, because many of these vineyards are inclusive enterprises, aiming to reach as many different people as possible with their products.
The Finger Lakes vineyards are a bit of a niche industry in the United States, but in the ancient Mediterranean world—the world Jesus lived in—vineyards (along with olive groves) were the backbone of the economy. Not only of the economy, but in many ways they were the backbone of life itself. Water sources could not always be trusted to be healthy or good tasting, so it was common to mix some wine into drinking water for its antiseptic properties, and to make the water taste better, too. And when it comes to vineyards—either back then, or even today—what is the backbone of it all? It’s the people who work there. Without the laborers, all the vines would go wild, and become overgrown with weeds.
So, as Jesus tells the parable of the vineyard his focus quickly turns to the laborers whom the landowner needs. The landowner heads out early in the morning to hire laborers. He goes to the “marketplace” to find them, because that’s where people who needed work for the day would go to see if anyone was hiring. Today the equivalent might be the Home Depot parking lot. The landowner finds some laborers there, hires them, and agrees to pay them one denarius. This coin would be enough to buy one day’s worth of bread for a family of four. Or the coin could buy 4 liters of wine—enough for a family to mix in with their water for a day. It was pretty much enough to meet the basic needs of life for a few people for one day.
But this landowner is an unusual character. Remember, Jesus is making a comparison to the Kingdom of Heaven! In this story, Jesus is going to reveal something about the nature of God. So what does the landowner, representing God, do? He keeps going back to the marketplace at 9 in the morning, at noon, and at 3 in the afternoon, and invites more laborers to come to the vineyard, offering to pay them “whatever is right”. Notice, they don’t agree on a specific wage—they simply put their faith in the landowner to treat them fairly.
Finally it’s 5 in the afternoon, almost quitting time. But still, the landowner goes out one more time looking for laborers. At this point they are just “standing around”, and why wouldn’t they be? Nobody goes out to hire laborers when there’s only an hour left in the shift. It’s not that they didn’t want the work either, as they tell the landowner they’ve been standing around “because no one has hired us”. It’s not quite clear at this point if he actually hires them, or even expects much out of them; the landowner simply invites the laborers to “go into the vineyard.” They accept his invitation.
Now we get to the hard part of the parable—pay time. The laborers who only worked one hour get paid for a whole day. They’ve got to be thrilled that they can buy bread for their family tonight. Those hired at 3 o’clock, at noon, at 9 in the morning—they also get paid for a whole day—which again, is more than they expect. Finally, those who’ve been working since sun-up, they get paid for a day’s work, just like they agreed. And boy, are they angry about it! Their anger does not seem to be at the amount of money they’ve been paid—no other landowner would have given them more, anyway. They are angry at what feels like a loss of status: “You have made them equal to us”. If the one-hour workers are being paid for a whole day, haven’t the sunrise workers earned a bonus? Of course they have. When they don’t get it, it violates our human notions of fairness. It’s not fair.
It is, however, something better: it’s generous. Making “them” equal to “us” is God’s reality, because God is gracious and has made everyone of equal worth, before you could do anything to earn it. You don’t have to earn God’s love, and you don’t have to earn human dignity. Love and dignity are already yours, in Christ, whoever you are. And because God has given you love and dignity, the challenge is to recognize that God has also given the same love and dignity even to the people whom you feel don’t deserve it; the people who didn’t have the opportunity to spend all day in the Lord’s vineyard enjoying God’s grace like maybe you did; or who didn’t benefit from the peace of mind in knowing from an early hour that their basic needs would be met like maybe you did.
That is the spiritual point of this parable. God is all about grace—grace in our daily lives, and grace for eternal life. God gives gifts that we don’t deserve and haven’t earned. And this generosity is, in the words of the landowner, “whatever is right”. That’s what he tells everyone whom he hires later in the day: not “I will pay what you deserve” but “I will pay you whatever I think is right”. What does God’s righteousness look like in this parable? It looks like everyone having a chance for their basic needs to be met, and for everyone to enjoy the chance to live in the presence of God. This is what the landowner does for everyone who accepts his invitation. They each get the same denarius; they each enter the same vineyard.
Just as there’s a variety of wines that are produced from one vineyard, there’s also a variety of reasons why so many laborers weren’t hired until later in the day. The parable never explains the backstory. Some might propose that it’s about those who are willing to work versus those who are lazy; others that it comes down to luck—being in the right place at the right time. Some that it’s who you know to help you make connections; others that it’s being savvy about learning where to stand so that landowner will notice you. Some may have wanted to work from the start, but first had to attend to the needs of children, spouse, parents, grandparents, neighbors, cousins, friends, health concerns, or other demands on their time and attention. There are many more possible scenarios that we could read into the parable.
But if we look closely, there’s really only one reason why any of the workers were hired: the landowner went looking for them, and invited them. We enter God’s kingdom not by earning our place in the vineyard, but simply by saying “yes” to God’s invitation, an invitation given to everyone equally. No one is forced to accept it. Yet even when we reject it, every day God is sending the Holy Spirit out into the world to keep making the invitation. Christ went to the cross because his heart is open to all people, equally, and as we see in the parable, he wants to offer a special blessing for those who have the least—either materially, or spiritually.
The irony for the laborers who worked all day is the same irony that any one of us, who live by faith in Christ, might experience. Living a good, virtuous, faithful life carries a shadow-side, that is, the temptation to believe we have earned something from God, rather than realizing that everything we have is a gift of God’s grace. That’s why we so often begin worship with confession and forgiveness. We present to God our whole selves—even our sins, faults, and failures. And God’s promise, whenever we turn in repentance, is that Jesus keeps inviting us into the vineyard, saying “I see you, and I forgive you. Now go into the world with the gift I’ve given. You are free to forgive yourself, to forgive others, to forgive the circumstances that cause you to suffer. Forgive, so that you can love the world, love God, love yourself, and love your fellow human beings. That’s how you enjoy the generosity of Christ.” Amen.