Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, from childhood, we learn a simple principle that if I work more, I should receive more. We expect effort to be rewarded, sacrifice to be recognised and fairness to mean that everyone receives what they deserve. Then Jesus tells us a parable in which people who worked for only one hour receive exactly the same wage as those who worked through the heat of the entire day. If we find ourselves thinking, “That is not fair,” then we have already entered the heart of this Sunday’s Gospel.

The first reading prepares us for this challenge. Isaiah declares: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways; it is the Lord who speaks.” These words come from the later chapters of Isaiah, addressed to a people who had experienced exile and were being invited to hope again in God’s mercy. They had discovered painfully that God could not be reduced to their expectations. God says, “Let the wicked man abandon his way… let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him.” God’s generosity is greater than human calculation.

Jesus makes that generosity visible in the Gospel. In first-century Palestine, labourers often gathered early in the morning hoping someone would employ them. No work could mean no income and perhaps no food for the family that evening. The landowner goes out repeatedly at dawn, nine o’clock, midday, three o’clock and even at the eleventh hour. The surprising thing is not simply that he pays everyone the same. It is that he keeps going out looking for those whom nobody else has employed. When evening comes, those who worked all day complain: “You have treated them the same as us.” Their problem is not that they were cheated; they received exactly what had been agreed. Their unhappiness begins when they compare their blessing with somebody else’s blessing.

And that remains deeply human. We compare salaries, houses, achievements, families, careers and even our spiritual lives. Social media has made comparison almost unavoidable. We see somebody else’s success and quietly ask, “Why them and not me?” Even within the Church we can think that “I have served this parish for thirty years; that person arrived yesterday.” “I have tried to live faithfully all my life; why should someone who ignored God for years receive the same mercy?” Jesus challenges precisely this attitude. The landowner asks, “Why be envious because I am generous?” Literally, the Gospel speaks of the “evil eye” looking resentfully at another person because goodness has come to them.

The Kingdom of God is not a salary earned by hours worked. It is grace received from a generous God. This does not mean that effort, justice or fair wages do not matter. Jesus is not presenting an employment policy. He is revealing the character of God. Before God, none of us can stand with an invoice and say, “You owe me.” Everything begins with grace. That has challenging implications for our society. We can easily decide that some people deserve compassion while others do not; that someone’s past should permanently define their future; that the prisoner, the addict, the immigrant, the person returning to faith after decades away or the neighbour whose life has gone badly should somehow remain at the back of the queue. Yet the God of the Gospel keeps going out, even at the eleventh hour, asking, “Why have you been standing here idle all day?” And perhaps that is also good news for someone here today. Maybe you feel you have come late to God. Perhaps years have been wasted, faith neglected or opportunities lost. The eleventh hour is not too late for God. As long as He is still calling, there is still time to enter His vineyard.

Saint Paul understood this. Writing to the Philippians from imprisonment, uncertain whether he would live or die, he says: “Christ will be glorified in my body, whether by my life or by my death.” His concern is no longer comparison or reward but simply that his life belongs to Christ.

So this week, let us ask ourselves: Can I rejoice when God is good to somebody else? Can I welcome those who arrive late? Can I stop measuring my life against another person’s life? At this Eucharist, we come not because we have earned a place at the Lord’s table but because He has invited us. Some came early, some late; some strong in faith, others struggling. Yet the same Christ gives Himself to us all. And when we truly understand that everything is grace, we stop asking, “Why did they receive so much?” and begin asking, “Lord, how can I ever thank you for being so generous to me?” Amen.