September 20, 2026
Pentecost 17 / Proper 20, Year A
The Rev. Deacon Lee Febos
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Exodus 16:2-15 ~ Psalm 105 ~ Philippians 1:21-30 ~ Matthew 20:1-16
I want to thank Rev. Elaine for giving me the opportunity to give my first homily in this
new position on a gospel passage about resenting new employees. I will choose not to read
anything into that… for now.
Today, Jesus’s parable of the landowner hiring workers is one that does not require too
many interventions to bring meaning to a modern audience. The“Gig economy” of today’s
world of convenience and gratification pulls from a pool of workers who we might imagine as
similar to the workers idling in the marketplace, the agora. Even many modern day vineyards
rely on the kind of labor that uses the under-the-table, nod and handshakes of “Come work for
me for a day.” Everyone from delivery drivers to healthcare workers are touched by the model
of work presented in today’s parable. It just might not have the same impact if instead of an
agora, Jesus spoke of workers checking an e-blast.
As the setting is familiar, so too is the moral. Today’s parable offers a countercultural
imperative with which many of us are familiar: The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
W e have heard this said to quarreling disciples and rich men, and this instance is spoken to a
crowd as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem. T o make this message clear, Jesus presents a
worldview that reflects an ancient truth that we still hold today: W e want to be rewarded justly
for our labor.
Those who respond to the landowner early in the day are set to have an agreed upon
compensation. And that same compensation goes to those who began to work later in the day.
Even those who showed up at the very last minute and had just enough time to hover
awkwardly over those who have been working all day are to receive that same compensation.
Someone is working less for the same prize for which someone else has been working
much longer. That is the breeding ground of envy and resentment. I grew up hearing a similar
sentiment directed at my generation of “Participation Trophy Children.” W e used to have to
earn praise, the thinking goes, and kids these days are heaped with it. It’s not fair.
It is not itself wrong to feel that gut instinct of unfairness, especially in this parable of
labor. Inequality in pay can bring out righteous anger. Wage gaps between men and women,
white and non-white people, able-bodied and disabled people, documented and undocumented people, these inequalities can render our history and biases in numbers. To work harder for “the usual” wage is a hardship. The central character of the parable, the landowner, defends the practice by saying, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong.”
Jesus finds meaning in the inequality, the Kingdom of God is like this. The workers
return each day and wait to be employed, waiting for a wage to get them through the next day. I
was in a discussion of this passage with some clergy colleagues, and the sentiment was raised
that if the wage was $1,000,000, that would feel more like generosity. Instead, we are to look at
this relatable and quotidian inequity and understand the Kingdom through that. And God
wants us to just accept this? W e used to have a God that worked for his praises with manna
from heaven. Today’s Participation Trophy Deity.
And yet the entire point of this parable is to learn to treat the fortune of our neighbors
with thanksgiving. That tells us about who God is. When Jesus says
“The First shall be last, and the last shall be first,” it is not only a reversal of how we are to think of ourselves but a way to comprehend divinity. The reversal of first and last, alpha and omega, as God’s very being invites us into a greater contemplation that we are to return to every day, our usual daily wage, our daily bread. W e are invited to work throughout our lives, and whenever we find ourselves able to respond with generosity to our neighbors, we are engaged in the work of the Kingdom of God. T o accomplish that work, Jesus speaks of our human impulses of envy and challenges them to bring us into a better relationship with God.
Our distrust of God’s affinity for humanity in the face of affliction is not new. It is not
new to the Israelites following Moses in today’s passage from Exodus who complain to their
leader and are told that such complaints are antithetical to God. The same God responds to
their complaints with abundance and manna. God’s generosity filled the Israelites with holiness
because God loved them.
A distrust of an inequality in God’s mercy is also not new to the prophet Jonah in tract
two for today. That is the old testament reading that St.John’s did not read today, but I have a
cousin who is 6 months older than me named Jonah, and I grew up with whale iconography, so
when I get to talk about the story of Jonah, I rarely skip the opportunity. I’m sure many of us here are able to name some broad strokes of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was swallowed by a whale, but he was fine.
The other year, my family had a summer at Chautauqua Institute, out in upstate New York, near Lake Erie, where my cousin Jonah’s younger sister, Esther, and I ran into a sign outside the Methodist House that said, “Don’t be a Jonah.” That statement has sat with me these past few years. I think there is a space for Jonah in our spiritual lives. Scripture brings us the poetry of the second chapter of Jonah that was beautiful enough to save him from the whale. Jonah’s hesitance is matched by a deep clarity in how God relates to God’s prophet.
I commend the book of the Prophet Jonah to anyone who is struggling with anger at
God because that was a man who could sulk like a professional. Today’s lectionary from Jonah
is the very end of the book. It is after Jonah has exited the whale and pursued his original
calling to Nineveh and, get this, saved the city. And Jonah is sulking that God spared the city of
which Jonah was told to prophesy destruction. That was the whole thing: Go to Nineveh. And
nothing happens. Jonah looks to the heavens and says, “This could have been an email. ‘Is not
this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish in the
beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding
in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.’”
God could show mercy to a city when their leader repented but punished Jonah in the
whale. Jonah has been faithful, but Nineveh has arrived late and received that same mercy
without the hardship and labor of Jonah. Twice, God asks, “Is it right to be angry?”and the
second time, Jonah says, “Yes, angry enough to die.” This anger is corrosive to the prophet, and
that is where we leave him, with God scolding him to be more considerate about the mercy
shown to the people of Nineveh.
Jonah said “Yes.” But throughout his book, he does not live up to what that calling
meant. In this way, he is like the workers from today’s parable. Today’s gospel passage is framed
around the workers agreeing to the wage. It is not that there was an unspoken wage that was
undercut. They received what they agreed to receive, and whether it was the normal wage or $1
million, the workers feel stung when someone else gets the same thing. The good news is we
already have the tools to turn from that thinking.
Our relationship with God is everything we need when we say “Yes” in faith. The parable in today’s gospel is about that generosity, and it is about how we look at those who come into faith in ways that we don’t feel are doing things the right way, certainly not as right as our ways. Our relationship with God is also our daily wage and is built by labor and persistence and showing up to continue to say yes. It is both, and to recognize that and to fall into its pattern and repetition brings us into better relationships with our communities.
Your hard work is not what makes you deserving of God’s love. God loves it, but God
loves your labor because God loves you. When those who we see as less deserving are washed
over in spiritual gifts of solemnity and consolation, it is a time to notice that generosity and give
thanks. And that can be hard, and we can complain, and we can even be angry, angry enough
to die if we’re relating more to Jonah that day.
For we can be Jonah, and we can hear God’s reframing of mercy not to protect what
comforts us but to honor God’s creation. When we wander from that work, when the world
distracts us, all we need to do is return to seeking, and God meets us there in silence and in
prayer, and the reward will be the same. Amen.