Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 20, 2026

Matthew 20:1-16
 
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
Some of you have heard me tell the story of the first baptism I ever did. It wasn’t at all what I imagined it would be like while I was in seminary. It was not the baptism of beautiful new baby dressed in a flowing white gown, accompanied by beaming new parents. My first baptism was of an 80-something year old man in a nursing home in Chinook, Montana. His name was Ray. Ray was a real cowboy, and he embodied every negative stereotype of a cowboy there is. He was a heavy drinker. He was a womanizer. He was a brawler. He was like someone who walked straight out of a Larry McMurtry novel.
 
By the time I met him, Ray knew that he was dying, and he called for a pastor. We weren’t able to visit much as his health deteriorated, but through the conversations we were able to have it was obvious enough that he was full of regret for how he had lived his life. Now that it was ending, he was afraid. He asked to be baptized, and so in the little nursing room chapel, using a bowl I had borrowed from the kitchen, I baptized Ray in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, washing away a lifetime’s worth of sin. Tears ran down his face as I made the sign of the cross on his forehead and declared that he was a child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever. I buried him in a rural cemetery just a few days later.
 
Word of rowdy Ray’s baptism made its way through that small town, and the reactions were interesting.
 
Some of my church members’ eyes grew big with surprise. “Really? Ray? Are you serious?” they said. They looked at this baby pastor right out of seminary like I had performed a minor miracle. They were surprised, but they were happy – happy for Ray, happy that the Lord Jesus managed to get this wayward sheep into his flock, even if it was at the last minute. Some compared him to the thief on the cross, who turned to Jesus with his dying breath and was given the promise of Paradise. “Thanks be to God!” they said. They got it. This was the reaction of those who understood the gospel most deeply.
 
Others, however, joked that it didn’t seem fair. They joked that Ray got to spend his whole life sowing his wild oats, rarely even setting foot in a church, and he somehow got his sins forgiven and his ticket punched at the last minute. They cloaked their comments in a humorous tone, but there was an edge there that suggested an undercurrent of jealousy, like Ray was getting away with something and that they themselves were being cheated. (I wanted to ask them what it was they were jealous of: the drunkenness, the bar fights, or the promiscuity, but I was still new there and didn’t want to get into trouble just yet.) At any rate, their jokes had a whiff of envy to them, which was telling. It just didn’t seem fair to them.
 
You can surely see why I would be remembering all this.
 
Today we hear Jesus tell a parable about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus begins his parable by describing a landowner who hired laborers for his vineyard. He hired some first thing in the morning. He hired some more at nine o’clock, and still more at three o’clock. Finally, he hired a few more just before quitting time, at five o’clock. At the end of the day, those who were hired last, who probably didn’t work for more than an hour or two, received the full daily wage.
 
When those who were hired first and had put in a full day under the hot sun came to receive their wages, they thought they would receive more. But they didn’t. They received the same wage as those guys who barely did anything! It didn’t seem fair. They felt they were being cheated. And so they began to complain. They grumbled against the landowner.
 
But the landowner insisted they weren’t being cheated. They had their wages in their pocket, exactly the amount they agreed to. They had received everything that was promised. The landowner simply chose to give those who arrived late the same wage, which was his prerogative. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” he asked, “Or are you envious because I am generous?”
 
Now, Jesus isn’t teaching employment law here. He isn’t teaching us how to run a business. Fairness in the civic realm is indeed important, and there are plenty of scripture passages which attest to this. The Lord Jesus himself in other places says that workers should be worthy of their wages and shouldn’t be cheated but treated fairly, a sentiment that is echoed again and again in the letters of Paul. So, Jesus isn’t prescribing some kind of economic system here. As Jesus himself says when he introduces the parable, this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is teaching us how God deals with us. And the truth is, God doesn’t deal with us fairly!

That might be jarring to us, but think about it – is fairness what you really want from God? Do you really want God’s justice applied to you? Do you really want God to give you what you deserve? Do you really want those wages?
 
Be careful what you wish for, my friends! Be careful, because God’s Word teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s Word also teaches us that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Are you sure you want that paycheck?
 
Thankfully, God doesn’t give us what we deserve. That’s what this parable is all about.
 
Jesus concludes by saying that the last will be first, and the first will be last. What could this mean? It means that those who come to him with nothing, with no claims to righteousness, with no expectations of rewards, with no illusions of having earned their way, those are the ones who receive the kingdom first, because they have no choice but to receive this kingdom for the gift that it is.
 
On the other hand, those who come with a timecard of hours served, thinking they’ve earned their way in through their good behavior, thinking they deserve their place, are going to be too full of arrogance and envy to receive this kingdom. It isn’t until you lay those timecards and trophies down that you can receive this gift. It isn’t until you admit you are last that you will find yourself at the front of the line.
 
This parable reveals to us that part of our hearts which resents those we deem unworthy of the kingdom of heaven. Maybe we deem them unworthy because of their rowdy lifestyle. Maybe we deem them unworthy because they haven’t put in the time and tithes that we have. Maybe we deem them unworthy because they are part of this group or that party. Surely we have been living right, putting in the time. Surely we have been associating with the right people and the right causes. Those other people aren’t the real Christians, the real laborers. Surely they aren’t getting what we have been promised, right? At the very least, we should get a little more for our efforts. It’s only fair!
 
But the truth is, God isn’t fair. God is something better than fair. God is generous. God is gracious. And this is good news for all of us.
 
The trial that Jesus endured wasn’t fair. He didn’t get a fair hearing. It wasn’t fair when he labored under the weight of the cross for us. It wasn’t fair when he put in twelve long hours of suffering for us, bearing our sins.
 
But he endured that long day for our sake because he is God’s generosity in human form. He is grace in the flesh. He did all the work necessary for our salvation, and because of him, God doesn’t give any of us the wages we deserve. Instead, God gives us everything Christ has earned for us. He puts what Christ has earned in our pockets. He gives us all his wages, all his benefits, all of his righteousness, all of his glory. He gives us the kingdom of heaven.
 
This isn’t fair. It is something better than fair. This is God’s generosity. It is God’s freedom to do what he wants with what is his. It is God’s graciousness. It is the gospel!
 
Don’t be mistaken: the way we live our lives matters. It matters to God. It matters to the people around us. As Paul says in our reading from Philippians, we are called to live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel. We are called to show up and work in the vineyard, serving God in joyful obedience to his will. In fact, our gospel readings for the next two Sundays will be about the importance of faithfully working in the vineyard.
 
But the kingdom of heaven is not a wage earned; it is a gift given – and sometimes this gift is given to the people you would least expect.
 
Let there be no enviousness among us because God is generous. Let there be gratitude rather than grumbling. For the very same grace God showed towards rowdy Ray has been given to you and me too.
 
And we need it just as much as he did.
 
Thanks be to God. Amen.
 
 
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church