This is the text of a sermon preached at St Bartholomew, Warleggan and St Neot, Cornwall on Sunday 20th September 2026.
The set readings were: Exodus 162-15 Philippians 121-30 Matthew 201-16
We live in a world which rewards effort.
We encourage our children and grandchildren to work hard at school so that they may achieve well and, having enhanced their employment prospects, might earn the option of going to university and of getting rewarding, well paid jobs.
We laud athletes and sportspeople for the hard work they put in in training and developing their talent and practising their skills. We celebrate their successes – winning a gold medal at the Olympics, or the Golden Boot at the World Cup Finals, or becoming the Wimbledon Champion.
We admire scientists for their knowledge, skill and dedication in unravelling the wonders of the world around us, or developing new medicines, or finding cures for cancers, or solutions to intractable problems.
We celebrate the work of artists, musicians and writers, architects and engineers, doctors and nurses.
In a world which rewards people on the basis of merit – although how true that really is is a discussion for another occasion – it’s nigh on impossible to read this morning’s gospel reading without feeling at least a little sympathy for the hired labourers who worked the whole day. We understand why they feel that they have not been treated entirely fairly by the landowner. And even though we understand that he is not, as he tells them, treating them unjustly, we still feel that he is not being completely fair.
This parable makes us want to question Jesus, even argue with him. How can this be fair? How can this be the way the kingdom of Heaven is?
This parable is sandwiched between two strikingly similar verses. This suggests to me that these verses might help us to understand the parable better.
Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.
Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.
The sentiment expressed in these two verses is familiar enough to us – we’ve heard it so many times before. Time and again over the past weeks we have heard how Jesus is turning the world upside down and challenging its assumptions. And these verses do the same. The first will be last, the last first. This is not the way the world thinks. But it is, says Jesus, the way of the Kingdom.
The way of the world and the way of the Kingdom have frequently been contrasted by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel as we’ve been reading through it during the Sundays before Lent and these Sundays after Trinity, and before Advent – from the sermon on the mount up to the beginning of the passion narrative.
That contrast has been highlighted in the actions and miracles of Jesus – in the cure of the centurion’s servant; in the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter; the cure of the woman with the haemorrhage – and in his teaching – in the sermon on the mount; in the parable of the lost sheep; and in today’s parable. And lots more.
Jesus lives out and teaches the way of the kingdom of Heaven and consistently challenges the way of the world.
Today’s parable is addressed to the disciples – not the crowds, not the Pharisees, not the scribes, but just those people who have been following Jesus most closely. The people who have been chosen and called by Jesus to live out and proclaim the gospel after the resurrection and his gift to them of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
This is not the only parable that begins with the words, the kingdom of Heaven is like …, but it is, perhaps, the one that most strikingly contrasts the kingdom with the world.
The landowner in the parable could not run his vineyard like this in the world. Word would quickly get around that if you want to work for him you should hang around the market place in the late afternoon and you’ll get a full day’s pay for an hour’s work.
But, of course, the parable is not about a businessman but about God and how he treats those in his kingdom – that’s why it is addressed directly to the disciples. It’s not about rewards paid for labour. The parable is about grace.
The world understands nothing about grace. That is why this parable has the power to shock us. Grace is not about God being fair to us. Indeed, grace can often appear unfair, irrational or even offensive in worldly terms.
There are other stories in scripture where God’s grace offends a character. Think of Jonah – angered because God relents from the destruction of Nineveh (Jonah 41-4). Think of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son – outraged that his father should welcome back with open arms, and a party, his reprobate brother (Luke 1528-32). Think of the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not like the publican who dare not even lift his eyes to heaven to pray – but only one of them is justified by God (Luke 189-14).
Each of these characters has a point, but each of them has also been unable to recognise the unlimited and unlimiting love of God. In each case grace delivers not what is deserved but what is needed to bring healing, hope and life.
We talk about grace a great deal, but often we think of it as little more than God being nice to us – kind, generous, benevolent. But it’s much more than that.
In the centre of Liskeard is the Church of Impact – it’s where Jesus saves, heals and transforms lives according to the sign outside. They’re not wrong – nor are they unique. Jesus does that here too. It’s a good working definition of grace.
Jesus saves, heals and transforms lives.
When God’s grace is shown to us it does not leave us unchanged. It’s not a reward for services rendered. It’s not a gift for anything that we’ve done. It’s not a prize for effort.
Grace is God’s free gift to us. I say free gift, and so it is, but it also makes demands of us. God’s grace will always transform us. It will make us new. It will heal us – in the fullest sense of that word – making us new, making us whole, equipping us for what God is calling us to be and to do.
It is never what we deserve – it is what we need. It may not be what we want – indeed it may well be the very opposite of what we want.
Sometimes so undeserving are we of God’s grace that the world can be shocked, outraged or offended by the gift. Just imagine how those early Christians must have felt when they heard that Paul, their arch persecutor, was proclaiming the gospel and bringing the gentiles to Christ.
Sometimes God’s grace will bring us comfort and peace, if that’s what we need. But at least as often it will turn our world upside down, change the whole direction of our life and make us into the person that God can see us becoming, because God sees us in ways that we never could.
God takes our lives in directions we could never have imagined – and rarely does he give what we deserve. As Jesus put it,
Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.
exultemus 