Isaiah 55:6–9  ·  Philippians 1:20c–24, 27a  ·  Matthew 20:1–16a

Brothers and sisters, let’s be honest: on first hearing, this parable feels unfair. If your boss paid the newest hire the same as someone who had worked since dawn, you’d be in the HR office by Monday. Most of us instinctively side with the workers who bore the day’s burden and the heat. Jesus knows that. He tells the story so we’ll feel that reaction and then look at it.

The prophet Isaiah prepares us: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” We often hear that line as a warning that God is mysterious and beyond us. But read what surrounds it. Just before, Isaiah says to let the wicked forsake their way and return to the Lord, for he will have mercy, “for he is generous in forgiving.” The difference between God’s thoughts and ours is not mainly that God is more complicated. It is that God is more generous than we are.

Look at how the landowner behaves. He doesn’t hire once and go home. He goes out at dawn, at nine, at noon, at three, and again at five, when the day is nearly over. Those last men are standing in the marketplace, and when he asks why, they say, “Because no one has hired us.” Nobody wanted them. He hires them anyway, and at the end of the day he pays everyone a denarius, a full day’s wage. In that world, a denarius is what a family needs to eat. The men who worked one hour have hungry families too. The landowner is not paying for output. He is paying for need, and beyond that, out of love.

Now watch the first workers. They receive exactly what they agreed to, and the master says so: “Friend, I am not cheating you.” No injustice has been done. Their problem isn’t their wage. It’s the comparison. And Jesus points it out, with the landlord saying: “Are you envious because I am generous?” Literally, the Greek says, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” Envy is a strange sin. It gives no pleasure. It costs us nothing, and yet it robs us. These workers lost not a penny, but they lost the ability to be glad for their neighbor.

Someone else got a blessing, and they experienced it as their own loss.

To see this generosity at its purest, we have to go to Calvary. Because if this parable has a last-hour worker, it is the man we call the good thief. Consider what he brings to the vineyard: nothing. He has a life of crime,  and by his own admission, his sentence is just. He has no time left to make amends, to fix what he broke, or even to be baptized. His hands are nailed down. All he has is a few breaths and a request: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus does not say, “We’ll see...maybe,”  or, “Someday, after you’ve been purified.” He says, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Today, not someday. And notice the excess of generosity. The man asked to be remembered. He was given companionship: 'with me.' That is how God’s generosity always works. It exceeds the request. The father of the prodigal son doesn’t just take him back as a hired hand. He runs, embraces, and puts a ring on his finger. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

Now, where are we in this picture? If we’re honest, sometimes we’re the grumblers. We see it in the life of a parish. Someone who has been away for thirty years walks in, and they are graciously welcomed, mostly. But some part of us, the part that has kept the ledger, wonders whether they should have to earn it. Someone comes to faith late, or is forgiven for something we consider unforgivable, and we bristle. That is the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son.  That is the first worker; that is our stinginess, set against God’s generosity. We ration mercy. We keep accounts. We want the last to wait in line behind us.

But here’s the deeper truth that this Gospel offers us. None of us was really hired at dawn. We didn’t find the vineyard. The landowner found us. Every breath we have is a gift. Every year we’ve been given to know Christ is a grace, and if we’re honest about our hearts, we’ve all arrived late in some way. That’s why I say the best we can be, and the best we can hope for, is to be like the good thief. Not because we’ve done nothing, but because we know that whatever we’ve done doesn’t earn what we’re offered.

The good thief teaches us three things. He is honest: “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds.” He has reverence: he rebukes the other criminal for having no fear of God. And he trusts: “Jesus, remember me.” This is not resignation. It is freedom. 

And let me say two more things. First, to anyone here who feels it’s too late or knows someone who thinks it's too late, who thinks they’ve wandered too far or waited too long: the landowner is still going out at five o’clock. He is still looking for you. “Seek the Lord while he may be found,” says Isaiah. That word, “while,” matters. Don’t treat this as an excuse to wait. The thief didn’t plan his conversion for the last hour. He simply didn’t get another one. But no one who turns to God, at any hour, will be turned away.

Second, to those who have been in the vineyard all day: don’t miss what you’ve been given. The first workers thought their reward was the denarius at the end of the day. But they had spent the whole day in the master’s vineyard, working for him. That was the reward. To serve God is not a burden he compensates us for. It is the privilege itself. The person who has known Christ for fifty years has fifty years of friendship that the last-hour worker never had. That is not nothing. That is a great deal.

So what do we do with this? Saint Paul, writing from prison, and quite possibly facing death, tells the Philippians that for him to live is Christ and to die is gain. He isn’t counting or comparing. Whether it’s life or death, he belongs to Christ. And then he gives them one instruction: “Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

He means worthy of the good news:  that we’ve been paid a wage we never earned. Then the way to live worthily is to live like people who know it. Generously. Rejoicing when someone else is blessed. Forgiving quickly, welcoming the latecomer, and giving without keeping a ledger.

So this week, let me suggest something small and concrete. Think of one person you’ve been keeping score against, someone you feel got more than they deserved or was let off too easily. Ask God for the grace to be glad for them. And the next time you feel that little pang of envy, that “what about me?”, turn it into thanks: “Lord, I too am a last-hour worker, and you have been generous to me.”

In a few moments we come to the altar. There, everyone receives the same wage: the same Christ, whether we’ve been here since baptism or walked in off the street this morning. It’s not fair. It’s far better than fair. It is mercy.

“Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Amen.

Peace

Deacon Michel