Readings
Jonah 3:10–4:11
Psalm 145:1–8
Matthew 20:1–16
In today’s gospel – Jesus tells a parable about God’s generosity, challenging the common assumption that God rewards people according to what they have earned or deserve.
The holy gospel according to saint matthew (20)
[Jesus said to the disciples:] “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 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 laborers 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 a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 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 a denarius? 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.”
The Gospel of Our Lord…
Back in 1988, I worked at Sky Ranch Lutheran Camp.
There was a guy on staff named Chris.
Chris was… unusual.
That’s probably the fairest way to say it.
He worked maintenance, so he wasn’t responsible for groups of kids, but even so, the rest of us on staff didn’t really know what to make of him.
Sometimes, walking through the woods, the rest of us would stay on the path and Chris would suddenly tear off through the trees, running around, shouting.
One time he saw a pop can lying on the ground, picked it up, and crushed it against his forehead.
We didn’t understand him.
And if I’m truthful, most of us kept our distance.
We weren’t sure what to expect.
We weren’t even always sure whether he was safe to be around.
Later I learned that Chris’s father was a pastor, and that he had asked the camp director to take Chris on that summer as a favor.
The hope was that camp might somehow be good for him.
In the middle of all that, Chris came up to me one day.
He knew that I wrote music.
I did a lot of that back then.
And he said, “I write lyrics, but I don’t know how to put them to music. Would you be willing to do that?”
And I said yes.
But I have to confess:
I said yes, but I didn’t really mean yes.
I had already decided what the lyrics were probably going to be like.
Strange.
Angry.
Maybe even a little disturbing.
I figured I would look at them, find some polite way to respond, and that would be that.
The next morning, Chris came to me with a piece of paper.
He had stayed up much of the night working on it.
The song was called “Reflections.”
And it was beautiful.
It was a reflection on his own life—
how life had twisted him around,
thrown him in different directions,
left him feeling pulled here and there—
and yet underneath all of that was this strong conviction that God had called him to share his love for God with other people.
I put it to music.
And the song became one of my favorites to sing.
But even more than that, Chris gave me something I’ve carried with me all these years.
He taught me how easy it is to decide too quickly what another person has to offer.
I had already made my judgment.
I had already decided what kind of gift Chris could possibly bring.
And I was wrong.
That memory came back to me when I read Jesus’ parable for today.
Jesus tells about a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
Then he goes back at nine.
Then noon.
Then three.
And finally, at about five o’clock, he goes out again.
And there are still people standing there.
He asks them,
“Why are you standing here idle all day?”
And they answer,
“Because no one has hired us.”
I think that is one of the saddest little sentences in the whole parable.
“Because no one has hired us.”
It doesn’t say they were lazy.
It doesn’t say they were unwilling.
It doesn’t say they had nothing to offer.
It simply says nobody had chosen them.
Everybody else had been picked.
Everybody else had somewhere to go.
And there they were, still standing around at five o’clock.
And the landowner says,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That’s the line that catches me.
“You also.”
There is still a place for you.
There is still work for you.
You are not forgotten.
You are not useless.
You are not too late.
Now, this parable is often preached about fairness.
And that’s certainly part of it.
The people who worked all day get angry because the people who worked only one hour receive the same pay.
And Jesus is making a point about grace—
that God’s generosity is not based on our accounting system.
But I also think there is something powerful here about the people nobody else chose.
The five-o’clock people.
The people others had passed over.
The people standing around wondering if they would ever be wanted.
And the landowner still comes for them.
Still sees them.
Still calls them.
Still says,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That is good news.
Because there are all kinds of ways people end up feeling like five-o’clock people.
Sometimes life has twisted us around.
Sometimes we have made mistakes.
Sometimes our bodies no longer do what they once did.
Sometimes our circumstances change.
Sometimes we lose a job.
Sometimes we retire.
Sometimes we outlive a role that once gave our lives meaning.
Sometimes we simply look around and wonder:
Does anyone still need me?
Do I still have something to offer?
Is there still a place for me?
And churches can ask the same questions.
most congregations i’ve known of have been looking around and remembering back when there were more people in the pews.
More children.
More activity.
More energy.
And it is easy to wonder:
Are our best days behind us?
Does God still have something for us to do?
And the answer in this story is not a strategic plan.
It is not a growth program.
It is not a technique.
It is simply this:
The landowner is still coming out.
Still looking.
Still calling.
Still saying,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That is where I think about Chris.
I had already decided what he probably had to offer.
But God apparently had not.
And maybe that is the word for us too.
There may be people we have written off.
There may be parts of ourselves we have written off.
There may even be moments when a congregation wonders whether it still has a place.
But the landowner is still coming out.
Five o’clock is late.
But five o’clock is not too late.
Amen.
Back in 1988, I worked at Sky Ranch Lutheran Camp.
There was a guy on staff named Chris.
Chris was… unusual.
That’s probably the fairest way to say it.
He worked maintenance, so he wasn’t responsible for groups of kids, but even so, the rest of us on staff didn’t really know what to make of him.
Sometimes, walking through the woods, the rest of us would stay on the path and Chris would suddenly tear off through the trees, running around, shouting.
One time he saw a pop can lying on the ground, picked it up, and crushed it against his forehead.
We didn’t understand him.
And if I’m truthful, most of us kept our distance.
We weren’t sure what to expect.
We weren’t even always sure whether he was safe to be around.
Later I learned that Chris’s father was a pastor, and that he had asked the camp director to take Chris on that summer as a favor.
The hope was that camp might somehow be good for him.
In the middle of all that, Chris came up to me one day.
He knew that I wrote music.
I did a lot of that back then.
And he said, “I write lyrics, but I don’t know how to put them to music. Would you be willing to do that?”
And I said yes.
But I have to confess:
I said yes, but I didn’t really mean yes.
I had already decided what the lyrics were probably going to be like.
Strange.
Angry.
Maybe even a little disturbing.
I figured I would look at them, find some polite way to respond, and that would be that.
The next morning, Chris came to me with a piece of paper.
He had stayed up much of the night working on it.
The song was called “Reflections.”
And it was beautiful.
It was a reflection on his own life—
how life had twisted him around,
thrown him in different directions,
left him feeling pulled here and there—
and yet underneath all of that was this strong conviction that God had called him to share his love for God with other people.
I put it to music.
And the song became one of my favorites to sing.
But even more than that, Chris gave me something I’ve carried with me all these years.
He taught me how easy it is to decide too quickly what another person has to offer.
I had already made my judgment.
I had already decided what kind of gift Chris could possibly bring.
And I was wrong.
That memory came back to me when I read Jesus’ parable for today.
Jesus tells about a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
Then he goes back at nine.
Then noon.
Then three.
And finally, at about five o’clock, he goes out again.
And there are still people standing there.
He asks them,
“Why are you standing here idle all day?”
And they answer,
“Because no one has hired us.”
I think that is one of the saddest little sentences in the whole parable.
“Because no one has hired us.”
It doesn’t say they were lazy.
It doesn’t say they were unwilling.
It doesn’t say they had nothing to offer.
It simply says nobody had chosen them.
Everybody else had been picked.
Everybody else had somewhere to go.
And there they were, still standing around at five o’clock.
And the landowner says,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That’s the line that catches me.
“You also.”
There is still a place for you.
There is still work for you.
You are not forgotten.
You are not useless.
You are not too late.
Now, this parable is often preached about fairness.
And that’s certainly part of it.
The people who worked all day get angry because the people who worked only one hour receive the same pay.
And Jesus is making a point about grace—
that God’s generosity is not based on our accounting system.
But I also think there is something powerful here about the people nobody else chose.
The five-o’clock people.
The people others had passed over.
The people standing around wondering if they would ever be wanted.
And the landowner still comes for them.
Still sees them.
Still calls them.
Still says,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That is good news.
Because there are all kinds of ways people end up feeling like five-o’clock people.
Sometimes life has twisted us around.
Sometimes we have made mistakes.
Sometimes our bodies no longer do what they once did.
Sometimes our circumstances change.
Sometimes we lose a job.
Sometimes we retire.
Sometimes we outlive a role that once gave our lives meaning.
Sometimes we simply look around and wonder:
Does anyone still need me?
Do I still have something to offer?
Is there still a place for me?
And churches can ask the same questions.
Congregations can look around and remember when there were more people in the pews.
More children.
More activity.
More energy.
And it is easy to wonder:
Are our best days behind us?
Does God still have something for us to do?
And the answer in this story is not a strategic plan.
It is not a growth program.
It is not a technique.
It is simply this:
The landowner is still coming out.
Still looking.
Still calling.
Still saying,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
That is where I think about Chris.
I had already decided what he probably had to offer.
But God apparently had not.
Chris had something beautiful to give.
Something I would have missed if he hadn’t asked—
and if I hadn’t, almost accidentally, said yes.
And I suspect that is true far more often than we realize.
There are people around us we may have already decided about.
People we think are too old.
Too odd.
Too difficult.
Too inexperienced.
Too broken.
Too late.
And maybe sometimes we look at ourselves that way too.
But God does not seem nearly as interested in those categories as we are.
God keeps coming back.
Nine o’clock.
Noon.
Three.
Five.
Still calling.
Still making room.
Still finding ways to use people whom others have passed by.
So maybe the question for us is not,
“Is it too late?”
Maybe the question is,
“Where is God still calling?”
Because five o’clock is late.
But five o’clock is not too late.
Not for Chris.
Not for the workers in the vineyard.
Not for you.
Not for me.
Not for this congregation.
Because the God Jesus describes is still coming out into the marketplace,
still looking,
still calling,
still saying,
“You also go into the vineyard.”
Amen.
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