Lectionary Readings: Year A – Proper 20

If you came in here today feeling the world is spiraling out of control, you wouldn’t be alone. Any time we watch the news, we are inundated with stories of death, destruction, mayhem. Of theft, of fraud, or just people taking advantage of others. It seems, sometimes, like a hopeless situation. 

Part of the reason that the news will focus on this kind of thing is because our minds are hard-wired to look for bad patterns in the world. It’s how we as a species learned to survive. If we could spot something lurking in the woods, it could mean the difference between survival or getting eaten by a lion. Or a tiger. Or a bear. Oh my!

But while this was a great survival instinct in the past, it can now cause more problems than good. We end up looking for these bad patterns, and we focus on them, because we fear how all the evil in the world might affect us. The news loves to tap into that instinct and play up on it, always telling us how we ought to be afraid of some injustice, because it will affect our ability to survive. And one of the news agencies’ favorite pastimes is making mountains out of molehills, so that we feel that everything affects us negatively. And, of course, anything that affects us negatively is an injustice. If it affects other people we barely even notice, but if it affects us, oh no! A tiger, lurking at the edge of the forest, just waiting to eat us.

Take a look at what we see in the Gospel reading today. The owner of a vineyard hires people to work in his vineyard, collecting the grape harvest. This is a common thing in Jesus’ time. The grapes would have ripened near the end of September, and in order to collect the harvest before the rains came and damaged the crop, the owners would go into town and hire as many laborers as they could. These were people who had no land of their own, no full-time jobs, no way to make money to survive except to be hired for a day’s work. Think of it like people standing outside the Galilee Home Improvement Center, waiting to be hired. They have their tools, if they are craftsmen, or they just have themselves. Someone comes up, negotiates a wage for the work they need these men form, and hires them – in the Gospel, that wage is a denarii. Enough to feed a family for the day. This is how the day laborers make their living. This is how they make money to feed their families. This is how they survive.

Of course, as the story goes on, we see that the owner of the vineyard becomes worried that the harvest won’t be fully gathered in time, so he goes back multiple times, picking up more and more workers – even those who have been waiting all day because no one hired them. So he gives them work, even just for an hour.

And when everyone lines up to be paid, the ones who came last get paid first, and those who came early see that these people who only worked an hour are getting paid the common wage for the day. And so they think, “We’re going to get more!” But they don’t get more. They get the same amount, and they become angry, because they worked longer, and they should have made more. And they turn to the owner of the vineyard and they say, “You have made them equal to us!”

“You have made them equal to us!”

In other words, “This is an injustice! You have wronged us! You have made these slackers, these late-comers equal to us. We did more. We worked more. We should get more!”

But the owner of the vineyard says, “We agreed on a price. You got the wage you agreed on. I’m just being generous to these last few men who were grateful to get any work at all. Why are you concerned about me being generous to these men – who, by the way, can now feed their own families today – when you also got paid enough to feed your family? You are cared for today. And they are cared for today. Where’s the injustice?”

I can only imagine some of those men went home, vowing never to work for this landowner ever again, because they believe that he was unjust, unfair, and was willing to pay those who didn’t deserve it the same amount. “What an injustice,” they say, “Because those people and their work are not equal to my work.”

Our first reading today tells a very similar story of this incorrect view of injustice. The prophet Jonah had been sent to Nineveh to tell people of that great city to repent of their sins, and turn their lives around. As we know, Jonah runs away from God, but doesn’t get far because he gets swallowed by a big fish, gets vomited out on dry land, and once again gets told to go to Nineveh. So he goes, tells the people that they will all die unless they repent.  And miracle of miracles, the entire city repents.

“But this was very displeasing to Jonah,” the scripture says, ”and he became angry.” He was sent to have the people repent, and they did. And yet, Jonah was angry. Why? Because all of this could have been avoided. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen, Lord? I know that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and you try to avoid punishing people. Did you really have to send me all the way to Nineveh to tell these people to repent? Why waste all this money on travel? I spent time in the belly of a fish! For crying out loud, why waste my time?” And then he stormed out of the city to wait for the destruction of Nineveh. But that destruction was never going to come, because, after all, the people of Nineveh had repented. Still, Jonah waited, wanting to see if God would destroy them after all. Because, hey, Jonah is important, you see? This whole thing was an injustice, because it affected him. And if it affected him, then God was clearly being unjust. 

It’s absurd for Jonah to think like this. And God tells Jonah that he has no right to be angry. And, as if to rub it in with Jonah, he makes a bush to grow up – overnight, I might add – to give shade to this angry little prophet. And for a day, Jonah is happy. Then, the next night a worm eats the bush, and causes it to die. When Jonah wakes up and sees his little shade bush gone, he gets angry again, and is so angry that he wants to die: “Oh, the inhumanity of it all! My little shade bush has died.”

I can only imagine God sighing like a worn out parent when he responds. “Jonah. This bush was a gift for you. I just spared the lives of over a hundred thousand people because they repented, and here you are, waiting to see if any destruction will come on Nineveh. And, what’s worse, you are more worried about your wasted time and this little bush that you didn’t even work for! Where’s the injustice, Jonah?!”

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. Evil and wickedness in the world, and the only injustice that Jonah cares about is what is happening to him.

God is a generous God who cares even for the needs of those late-comers to the grape harvest, and God is a God of mercy, who forgives even the grave wickedness of a city like Nineveh, and spares their lives.

We will always see the lions, the tigers, and the bears, lurking at the edge of the forest, but we must also learn to also see the wildflowers in the glade, or learn to enjoy the warmth of the camp fire burning before us. I imagine that if each of us took a moment, we could find an area in which we see God’s mercy, in which we see God’s generosity. Not just in our lives, but in the lives of those around us – or even in the rest of the world. 

Seeing the negative is good for survival, but seeing the blessings around us is good for a life that thrives, because it sees the abundant mercy and generosity of a God who is full of mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

This is something the Apostle Paul gets into in his letter. You see, Paul was unjustly imprisoned when he wrote the letter to the Philippians. And yet, because Paul writes so much about joy in this letter, it is often called The Epistle of Joy. Paul was experiencing an injustice, and yet, he still tells everyone that the simple fact that they believe in Jesus is a privilege. The fact that they believe is a gift, and the fact that they are able to see that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ, is a blessing. A blessing, even though they may undergo suffering, and experience real injustices, not just made up ones.

There is real injustice in the world. But the world – and the news in particular –  likes to have us focus on those injustices that affect us, so that we forget about all the good we see around us, and ignore the real injustices the world is facing. 

If we can focus on the beautiful things, and see where God is already working, we would have the energy to deal with the real evils and injustices in the world, and make the world a place where injustice becomes a distant memory. A world where the lives of thousands are spared from death, and peace reigns. A world where even the poorest of the poor are given enough to take care of their own needs. A world where even those who don’t believe in the God of Jonah, the God of the workers in the vineyard will look at the world and say, “Truly, God is full of mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

There is real injustice in the world. Focus on God, and the work God is doing, so that you can see those real injustices, and not just the tiger in the trees trying to eat you.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on September 20, 2026.]