Jonah 3:10 – 4:11 / Psalm 145: 1–8 / Philippians 1: 21-30 / Matthew 20: 1–16
This is the written version of the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, September 20, 2026 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“GOD’S WAYS ARE (HIGHER) (BETTER) (WISER) (MORE GENEROUS) THAN
OURS”
(Homily text: Matthew 20: 1–16)
Earlier
in my ordained ministry, I served as Pastor for weekend retreats for Middle
School and High School young adults. As part of our weekend, we sang a number
of songs. One of them went something like, “His ways are higher than ours…His
ways are wiser than ours…His ways are better than ours…” This song was
accompanied by gestures to indicate the meaning.
Perhaps
that song might characterize our Gospel reading, appointed for this morning.
In our
reading today, Jesus lays out what we know as the Parable of the Laborers in
the Vineyard.
So
then, borrowing from our song, cited above, let’s look at some of the various
aspects of the Lord’s teaching.
1.
God’s
ways are higher than ours:
No doubt, as Jesus tells us about the master who owned the vineyard, He is
telling us that God has plans which are above and beyond our human capacity to
fully understand. Perhaps that’s why Jesus tells us that the master says, “Am I
not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” (Matthew 20:15)
2.
God’s
ways are wiser than ours:
This aspect of the parable is related to the first one. Here, we might
understand that, if the master (God) is generous to the workers who were hired
later on in the day, perhaps the master might have some broader and better plan
than the laborers could foresee.
3.
God’s
ways are more mysterious than ours: To be sure, God’s ways are, at times, beyond our ability
to comprehend. But God’s ways are always better and more beneficial to us than
the ways that we can imagine those blessings to be.
4.
God’s
ways are more generous than ours:
Here we come to the central point (it seems to me) of the parable: God’s ways
are far more generous than ours.
Now
then, having come to the point where we consider God’s generosity, let’s
explore this aspect of the Lord’s teaching in greater depth.
If
it’s true that Matthew was engaged in argument with the Judaism of the day in
the community where he was living and working (and I believe that this
understanding of the setting of Matthew’s writing is a good estimation of
Matthew’s situation), perhaps this teaching was aimed at those children of
Abraham who maintained that their relationship with God amounted to some sort
of a bargain. A bargain of the sort of “If we do this for you, then you owe
us….”. Apparently, Jesus encountered that sort of an understanding which
amounted to some sort of a “deal” with God, for many in Judaism seemed to feel
that if a person was wealthy or had good health, then it must be that they were
doing all the “right” things where God was concerned. Conversely, they felt
that those who were sickly or were poor were being punished by God for some
grievous wrongdoing.
The
Lord’s teaching cuts against such an understanding. Jesus is telling us that a
person’s efforts, done in the name of God, don’t amount to a direct relationship
in terms of results and blessings from God. God will be generous in ways we
can’t understand. (We’ll come back to this point in a moment.)
It may
be true that the church that Matthew operated in was composed of both Jews and
Gentiles. If so, then perhaps this parable assured those Gentiles, who had come
to faith later than the earliest believers, were as equally welcome to enter
into a relationship with God through Christ. They, like the laborers last
hired, were to be valued just as much as the original band of the Lord’s
followers.
Then,
too, we ought to notice the need to respond in faith to God’s invitation to go
into the vineyard of life and act in God’s name. Notice, in the parable, that
Jesus tells us that the next workers to be told to go into the vineyard are
told that they will be paid “whatever is right”. (Verse four) The workers
aren’t told exactly what they will be paid for the hours that they work. They
go into the work, trusting that the master will be just in his compensation for
their efforts.
Before
we end our consideration of this parable, we need to look at the matter of
efforts and good work done in the name of the Lord.
Throughout
the history of the Church, some Christians have maintained that doing “good
stuff” is the substance and the central purpose of relating to God through
Jesus. In the late fourth century and the early fifth century, a British monk
named Pelagius maintained that we human beings didn’t need God’s help in order
to save ourselves. The Church, in response, condemned Pelagius’ views, and
labelled them as heresy.[1]
During
his tenure as Bishop of Hippo[2], St.
Augustine said that we human beings are so easily fooled. We can be fooled into
believing that we can work our way up the ladder of God’s approval by our own
merits and efforts.[3] Here again, today’s parable does away with that notion.
What
then, are we to glean from today’s teaching?
Perhaps
this: God calls each and every one of us into ministry in His name. As we
respond to that call and engage in the Lord’s work in the world, we are not to
keep some sort of a tally of the things we’ve done, in order to keep a tally of
God’s blessings and favor. The two aren’t directly related to one another.
We can
be assured of God’s generosity (surely a central point in today’s parable), a
generosity that will be informed by God’s ways, which are higher, better, more
mysterious and more generous than we can imagine.
AMEN.
[1] I have a short list of the basic, historical heresies that I think every
Christian ought to know. The reason is that the Evil One keeps trotting out
these old falsehoods again and again, often in slightly different packaging.
The four on my list are: Marcionism, Gnosticism, Arianism and Pelagianism.
[2] A Roman city in northern Africa
[3] This last point figured prominently in the concerns and the causes of
the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The Reformers saw
(correctly, in my view) the practice of selling Indulgences as a form of Pelagianism.
