Sermon Notes — September 20, 2026
“You Have Made Them Equal to Us”
Matthew 20:1-16 (NRSVUE)
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
September 20, 2026
I confess that I don’t have a ton of experience with being treated unfairly – or even what I might perceive as unfair. I am an only child, so there was never any competition for my parents’ attention or their resources. I have lived an unquestionably privileged life, and I don’t remember ever looking around and thinking that I had gotten the short end of the stick. The best I can do is loudly protest unfair calls at football games, and since Jay doesn’t appreciate it when I do that, it’s not even an option.
But fairness – whether or not we perceive that something is fair – is closely tied to our notions of deserving – whether or not someone deserves something that they receive. And when someone receives something that we don’t think they deserve, our complaint is that it is unfair.
Fairness=deserving
Where do we get our perceptions of fairness? Where do we learn whether something is fair or not? Maybe our families teach us – directly or indirectly – what is and isn’t fair. I think our culture informs our ideas of fairness. And our notions of fairness, I think, derive directly from the human condition. Our human condition points us inward so that we focus on ourselves and we prioritize our own well-being over the welfare of people who aren’t and who aren’t people that we care about.
But living in God’s Kingdom reverses our ideas about what is fair and what isn’t, or at least it should.
Will you pray with me and for me?
Gracious God, your Word surprises, challenges, upsets, and overturns our way of seeing and thinking. Come and find us today wherever we are, however we are. By the power of your Holy Spirit, cause that which is withering in us to blossom and that which is selfish in us to broaden until we see as you see, and glimpse the kingdom you are bringing. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
Matthew uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven” in all the places that the other gospel writers use the phrase “kingdom of God,” but essentially they mean the same thing.
Kingdom of heaven = Kingdom of God
The kingdom of God – or the kingdom of heaven – is the world as it should be. It’s what we imagine the world will look like when God has finished redeeming it and perfecting it. It is a kingdom where everyone has enough, where all debts are forgiven, where all relationships are reconciled, and where the earth – where creation – no longer suffers. It is a kingdom of perfect understanding. There is no violence.
It is a kingdom that has already come but is not yet complete. The kingdom has come in the person of Jesus, who showed us with his life what the kingdom of heaven looks like. Everything Jesus did and said reveals God’s will for all of creation – plants, animals, people, all of it. And Jesus destroyed the power of death. Death is no longer the ultimate thing. That’s what it means to say that the kingdom of heaven has already come. But it’s not yet complete because things aren’t yet as they should be. People still hoard resources for themselves while others scrounge for them. Violence – physical, emotional, economic violence – is still the primary way people demonstrate power. If you need any other proof that the world is not yet as God intended, I have two words for you.
Heat. Dome.
When Jesus wanted to tell the disciples about the kingdom of heaven he told stories. He told stories because stories capture our imagination in ways that plain speech cannot. They draw us in and we follow along and we have a vested interest in the outcome, and then, almost every single time, Jesus takes a turn that we don’t expect. And often it’s a turn that we don’t like.
Put yourself in the place of the first people that the landowner hired. Put yourself in the place of the people who had worked all day long in the scorching heat for that denarius – which, to be clear, is exactly what you need to support your family for a day with nothing leftover – and then watched the people who only worked a few minutes also get a denarius?
What kind of kingdom is it where the person who works for a few minutes gets the same pay as the person who worked for ten hours?
Friends, it’s the kingdom of heaven.
But let’s back up a few stories. Let’s turn to Matthew 19. Don’t worry, we’re not going to talk about divorce. We’re going to look at the stories that start in verse 16. This is a story that we often call The Rich Young Ruler, although in Matthew’s gospel it’s just a regular guy who also happens to be rich. He asks Jesus what good deed he has to do to get eternal life. And we might expect Jesus to say, “Well, young man, you don’t have to do anything to get eternal life. Just believe that I’m the Son of God and you’ll have eternal life.” Because that’s what we would say if someone asked us that question, right? You don’t have to do anything. But Jesus is Jesus and Jesus gets to say whatever he wants, and so he tells the young man, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
And the young man says, “Well, which ones?” And Jesus lists a few, and the young man says, “I’ve done all that. What else?” And Jesus says, “If you want to be perfect – if you want to top it all off with the most faithful obedience – sell all your stuff, give the proceeds of the sale to the poor because your treasure will now be in heaven, and follow me.” And the young man says, “Can’t do it.” And Matthew tells us that the young man leaves Jesus and he is sad because he has lots of stuff.
So the disciples see this, and they start to get curious, and Peter says what they’re all thinking, as he often does. He says, “Well, what about us, Jesus? We left everything to follow you. What do we get?”
In that moment Jesus realizes that they need a perspective adjustment, so he tells them this story.
As he tells this story, he knows that they will see themselves in the laborers that the landowner hires at the beginning of the day. They said yes to Jesus as soon as he said ‘Follow me.’ They left everything behind to follow him. They’ve been with him from the very beginning. They’ve done the work. They’ve walked the miles.
As Christians we affirm God’s unconditional love and grace. We believe that God loves everyone and that no one is beyond God’s power to redeem. We believe that God never gives up on anyone and that God’s salvation through Jesus is a free gift available to everyone no matter what.
We believe these things with all of our hearts. And we live them out to the extent that we are able both in our individual lives and in the church.
But what happens when, as the first laborers hired complained, God makes them equal to us? What happens when God gives them what they haven’t worked for? What they haven’t earned? What happens when God surprises them with goodness and mercy that they didn’t expect – that they didn’t even ask for? Shouldn’t they at least have to ask for it?
I guess not.
The idea of God’s grace makes us feel good and it warms our hearts. We love a story about someone who turned away from God or believed that they didn’t deserve God’s love, and then became a follower of Jesus. We believe in the power of transformation for people who see the error of their ways and choose to change–but this is not that story.
This is a story about how unfathomably radical and offensive God’s grace can actually be.
Our culture claims to reward merit. We want to know that people have what they have because they earned it. Because they worked for it. Because they were industrious and productive, and made good decisions and lived in upright and admirable ways.
But this is not a story about getting rich.
This is a story about getting by. A denarius was the equivalent of a day’s wage for a day laborer. It was just enough for a family to live each day with no margin. No one getting a denarius is going on vacation or having a nice dinner out. No one getting a denarius is saving for a rainy day. No one getting a denarius is investing. Getting a denarius means eating the next day and going out and getting another denarius for the day after that.
The landowner is going out to the marketplace all throughout the day, looking for people whose families weren’t going to have anything to eat the next day if they didn’t get hired. If he had paid the first people hired a denarius and everyone else a pro-rated amount based on the amount of time they worked, it wouldn’t be like he was making some people rich and other people less rich. They all got what they needed to take care of their families.
This story about God’s grace challenges us to reckon with our perceptions of fairness and justice. It challenges us to see how our perceptions of fairness and justice stack up against God’s understanding of fairness and justice in the kingdom of heaven.
I confess that I have to reckon with my own perceptions of fairness and justice. I can choose fairness and justice as they are in the kingdom of heaven, or I can choose fairness and justice as I would like for them to be. And I don’t know if that’s hard for you, but it’s hard for me.
I was raised in a “do the right thing” family. So when I see the landowner promising a denarius to the first laborers hired, I can get behind that. They’re getting paid a fair amount for doing the right thing, and that’s the way the world should work. According to me. But God has a different idea. God’s justice looks like helping people before they’ve asked for help and giving them things that they didn’t ask for. God’s justice looks like paying people for a day who only worked for a few minutes.
This story challenges us to reckon with our perceptions of fairness and justice, but it also challenges us to reckon with our ideas of power.
If the purpose of power is to enforce justice, and justice in the kingdom of heaven looks like paying people a day’s wage for a few minutes of work, then perhaps we also need to adjust our expectations and notions of power. In the kingdom of our own minds, the purpose of power is to put people in the right places, to divide and separate people according to what they deserve and what is fair. In the kingdom of heaven, the purpose of power is to mete out goodness and grace and compassion and mercy, and to make sure that everyone has what they need.
The truth ultimately is that it is a privilege that none of us deserve to live in the kingdom of heaven. The answer to Peter’s question
We have left everything to follow you. What do we get?
Is this, You get to spend your life – all day in the scorching sun – in pursuit of the kingdom of heaven. You get to walk alongside Jesus and see the world as he sees it. You get to experience justice and fairness and power as God experiences them.
And – and – you get the freedom to live your whole life as though that kingdom is here now – imaginging what a world looks like where God’s notions of justice and power and fairness prevail, and then doing life that way.
As we leave today, I invite you to search your heart as I will search mine, asking the Holy Spirit to help you reckon with your ideas about justice and fairness and even power. And may we all give thanks to God for inviting us to live together in the kingdom of heaven.
God of the harvest, we are privileged to be counted among those whom you have called, graced to have been given your work to do, blessed to receive more than we will ever earn. Matt. Accept, we pray, our thanksgivings and offerings, and do what you choose with what already belongs to you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.