9am Family Service for The Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity
“ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Summary
It’s not fair! is a constant cry in childhood but adults are not so very different. In today’s gospel, Matthew 20: 1-16, Jesus tells the beautiful parable of the workers in the vineyard. The early workers are happy with the daily wage that they have agreed with the landowner … until the workers who have worked less hours than them receive the same wage. God, it turns out, is not in the business of fairness. But we are, we want reward for our efforts, we want our talents valued and appreciated. The kingdom of God, however, is not a meritocracy. God doesn’t not care how hard we have worked, God wants everyone, the lazy as well as the industrious, the bad as well as the good, to enjoy God’s gifts. God is not fair, God is generous.
READING
Matthew 20:1-6
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
