Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers

Using the All Souls youth's encounters with day laborers at the U.S.–Mexico

border, the sermon explores Jesus's parable of the laborers in the

vineyard. The youth discovered that hearing people's stories and seeing

their faces made it impossible to dismiss their humanity. Jesus similarly

invites his disciples to see the humanity of those who are overlooked and

to reconsider assumptions about who deserves what.

In the parable, workers hired at the end of the day receive the same wage

as those who worked from morning. The first workers resent this, even

though they received exactly what they were promised. Their complaint

reveals how easily another person's good fortune can make generosity seem

unfair.