Ponder All These Things

Sunday, September 27, 2026

Where Are Your Feet Headed?

It is one thing to profess our faith with our lips, but what happens when our lives don't follow what our mouth proclaimed?

Proper 21, Year A

This sermon was delivered on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

There are few things more satisfying than a Gospel passage that lets us identify exactly who Jesus is talking about. You know the kind. Jesus tells a story about hypocrisy, and immediately a face appears in one’s mind. Maybe it is a politician whose speeches bear very little resemblance to the way that person actually behaves. Maybe it is an athlete or celebrity who built a public image around certain values and then lived very differently when the cameras were turned off. Maybe it is a pastor, priest, bishop, or television preacher whose public proclamation and private life seem to belong to two different people.

And if we are particularly spiritually gifted, we can identify several of them before Jesus even finishes the parable. That second son? Oh, we know that guy. “I go, sir.” Absolutely. Yes, Father. Whatever you need. And then he never goes. His mouth says one thing. His feet say another. And surely Jesus is warning us about people like that.

Which is probably about the moment when this parable becomes dangerous. Because Jesus does not tell it so that we can become better judges of everybody else’s spiritual integrity. He tells it to religious people—people who know the right answers, know the Scriptures, have spent their lives around holy things, can recognize faithful language when they hear it, and probably know how to use plenty of it themselves. People, in other words, a lot like me. And perhaps a lot like us.

The chief priests and elders come to Jesus in the Temple and ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?” It is a reasonable question. Jesus has entered their religious space and behaved as though he has the authority to rearrange it. He has overturned tables. He has challenged assumptions. He has disrupted a system that had been operating long before he arrived. “Who gave you permission to do this?”

Jesus answers their question with another question, this one about John the Baptist. Was John's authority from heaven or merely human? And Matthew lets us overhear the leaders calculating their response. If we say this, Jesus will trap us. If we say that, the crowd may turn against us. Notice what they do not seem to ask: What is true? What is God doing? What if John actually was speaking for God?

Their concern has shifted from truth to self-protection. And I wish I could tell you that only corrupt politicians and hypocritical religious leaders ever do that. But I know better. Because I do it too. I suspect most of us do.

We say we value truth, until the truth costs us something. We say we believe in forgiveness, until someone hurts us in a way we do not want to forgive. We say every human being bears the image of God, and then discover there are certain human beings whom we find remarkably easy to dismiss. We say we trust God, while quietly arranging our lives so that as little as possible is actually beyond our control.

We promise in our Baptismal Covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being. Beautiful words. Words I mean every time I say them. And then I go live another week. And sometimes my feet do not follow my mouth. Sometimes my actions do not quite catch up with my theology.

Jesus tells them a story. A father has two sons. He asks the first to work in the vineyard. “No.” At least the kid is honest. But later he changes his mind and goes. The father asks the second. “Yes, sir.” Perfect answer. Respectful. Polite. Maybe even sincere. And then he doesn't go.

“Which of the two,” Jesus asks, “did the will of his father?” Well, that’s easy. The first. And in answering, the religious leaders convict themselves. Because this is not ultimately a parable about saying the right thing. It is about becoming the kind of person whose life begins to align with what we say we believe.

Integrity. That word comes from the same idea as integer: wholeness. Our words, our beliefs, our actions becoming less fragmented, less divided, less like one person on Sunday morning and another person by Tuesday afternoon.

And here is where this story becomes more hopeful than condemning. The first son says no. He gets it wrong. He resists. He goes the wrong direction. And then he changes his mind. That little movement may be the Gospel inside the Gospel. His first response does not have to become his final response. He can turn around. He can reconsider. He can walk another way.

Jesus then says something meant to shock his respectable religious audience: tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of them. Not because tax collectors and prostitutes are somehow morally superior human beings. Not because religious leaders are somehow uniquely terrible human beings. But because the people who knew they needed to change were changing. And the people who were most certain they already had it right could not see their need to move.

That means this parable will not allow us to divide the world neatly into the good first son and the bad second son. We are capable of being both. Sometimes we resist God and then, by grace, find ourselves walking toward the vineyard. Sometimes we say all the right things about Jesus and then discover that our lives are walking somewhere else entirely.

We are the religious leaders asking questions about authority. And we are spiritually kin to the people whose lives need turning around. We are not standing safely outside this story. We are inside it.

Which means the spiritual task is not figuring out which political party is the second son, or which church, generation, or celebrities really need to hear this sermon. Which friend on social media we might tag to subtly tell them, this guy’s talking about you. The mature spiritual life slowly takes that pointing finger and turns it around. Where are my words and my life out of step? Where do I say yes to Christ while my feet quietly say no? Where might God be inviting me to change my mind?

Because the only repentance I can actually practice is my own. I cannot repent for you. You cannot repent for me. I cannot make another person become merciful or courageous or truthful or generous. But I can offer this life—my life—to the transforming grace of God. And you can offer yours.

It is never the wrong time to do the right thing. It is never too late for our feet to begin catching up with our words. It is never too late to say, “I was wrong.” “I have been walking in the wrong direction.” “I need to try another way.” The first son is proof of this.

And Christians have developed many practices over the centuries to help us notice where our lives are moving toward Christ and where they are drifting away. Let me give you one today. It is an old spiritual practice called the examen. And you do not need a book. You do not need an app. You do not need an hour.

Find a few quiet minutes once a day. Maybe before bed. Maybe first thing in the morning. Maybe sitting in your car before you walk into the house. Become still. Let the last day pass through your mind. And ask yourself two questions. First ask: Where was God’s presence unmistakably near?

Maybe it was joyful. Maybe someone made you laugh, you noticed beauty, or experienced kindness. But it might also have been a difficult moment: sitting beside somebody who was hurting, admitting something painful, making it through something you did not think you could endure. Looking back, where was Christ the closest? Give thanks for that.

And then ask the harder question second: Where was I out of step with the way of Christ? Where was I less loving than I want to be? Where did fear control me? Where was I dishonest? Where did I diminish somebody else’s dignity? Where did I protect myself rather than pursue what was true?

Not so that you can beat yourself up. Not so that God can catch you being bad. But so that you may notice where your mouth has said yes and your feet have wandered somewhere else.

And then pray. Thank God for where grace was visible. Ask forgiveness where it is needed. And ask God for strength over the next twenty-four hours to bring your life a little more fully into alignment with the life of Jesus.

Because the good news of this parable is not that some people are hypocrites and we have finally figured out who they are. The good news is that human beings can change. We can change our minds. We can change direction. We can discover that the road we are walking is not leading toward life and turn around. God’'s grace is not limited by the answer we gave yesterday.

So today the question is not whether you have always said yes to God. And it is not whether your life has always perfectly matched what you believe. Mine certainly has not. The question is simpler: Where are your feet headed now? Are they walking the Way of Christ?

Because Christ is still calling. The vineyard is still there. And whatever we may have said yesterday, today we can get up to go and work alongside Jesus, who is the good vineyard owner who tends to our souls. Amen?

Sunday, September 20, 2026

“You Have Made Them Equal to Us"

Life is not fair, but God always invites you into the vineyard

Proper 20, Year A

This sermon was delivered on the 17th Sunday after Pentecost at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

“That’s not fair.” I am fairly certain that is one of the first moral arguments human beings learn how to make. Children say it constantly. Adults mostly learn how to make it sound more sophisticated.

That’s not fair becomes… Why did she get that? Why did he get chosen? Why did they get another chance? Why did I have to work this hard when they seem to have gotten the same thing so easily?

And usually, when we say something is unfair, it is because somebody else seems to have gotten the better end of the deal. We do not very often receive the natural consequences of our own choices and say, “Well, that seems perfectly fair” (that was our Director of Music, Kenny Ganon’s insight at Tuesday Bible Study this week). We usually discover our concern for fairness when we believe somebody else has received too much—or we have received too little.

And of course, this is not a new problem, because in our first reading this morning the Israelites are grumbling in the wilderness. God has liberated them from slavery. God has brought them through the sea. Pharaoh’s army is behind them. They are free. And almost immediately they begin complaining.

“If only we had died in Egypt! At least there we had pots of meat and bread to eat.” Which is an extraordinary thing to say. They have been liberated from bondage, and scarcity has already begun convincing them that perhaps slavery was the better deal.

And God responds in the wilderness by giving them bread. Not because they earned it. Not because they asked politely. Not because they finally demonstrated sufficient faith. God gives them manna because God is God, and God’s people are hungry.

That same anxious arithmetic is happening in Matthew. Our Gospel today does not really begin in chapter 20. It begins a few verses earlier.

A wealthy man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. He has kept the commandments. He has apparently lived an exemplary life. And then he asks Jesus, “What do I still lack?”

There is something almost heartbreaking about that question. Because this is a man who has much, and he assumes fulfillment must depend upon acquiring whatever one thing he still does not possess. But Jesus turns the whole question upside down. The problem is not what he lacks. The problem is what he cannot release. His abundance has become an obstacle.

And when the man walks away grieving, Peter immediately speaks up. Peter, being Peter, essentially says, “Well, Jesus, we did it. We have left everything and followed you.” And then comes the question: “What then will we have?”

There it is again. Israel in the wilderness: What are we going to eat? Peter on the road: What are we going to get? And then Jesus tells a story.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” He hires some at dawn and agrees to pay them a denarius, the customary wage for a day’s labor. Then he goes back out around nine. Then noon. Then three. Then five o’clock.

And by that point, I think we are supposed to begin wondering about the landowner.

What kind of vineyard owner keeps doing this? Surely if he needed this many workers, he could have hired them all in the morning. Depending on the time of year, by five o’clock there may not even be enough daylight left to make another worker worth hiring. And yet he keeps going back. Again. And again. And again. Looking for people who have not yet been brought into the vineyard.

And when he finds them, he asks why they have been standing there all day. Their answer is simple: “Because no one has hired us.” Not because they were lazy. Not because they slept until four. Not because they did not care enough. “No one has hired us.” And the landowner says: “You also go into the vineyard.”

There is something almost foolish about his generosity. It reminds me of the father in another story Jesus tells—the one about a father who keeps watching the road for the son who wandered away. Neither one seems particularly interested in behaving with respectable efficiency. The father runs down the road. The vineyard owner keeps returning to the marketplace. The Kingdom of Heaven, apparently, is full of people who look a little foolish because they simply will not stop looking for someone else to bring home.

Then evening comes, and the landowner does something very deliberate. He tells the manager to pay the workers beginning with the ones who came last. That matters. Because if the people who arrived at dawn had been paid first, they could have taken their denarius and gone home perfectly satisfied. They received exactly what they had been promised. But Jesus makes them stay long enough to watch grace happen to somebody else.

The five-o’clock workers come forward. One denarius. The three-o’clock workers. One denarius. Noon. One denarius. Nine o’clock. One denarius. And by the time the workers who came at dawn step forward, Matthew tells us exactly what has happened inside of them: “They thought they would receive more.”

Of course they did. Wouldn’t we? But they receive one denarius. Exactly what they were promised. Nothing has been taken away from them. The landowner has broken no agreement. And still they grumble, just like the People of Israel in the wilderness.

And then comes the sentence that I think exposes the whole thing, the all-day workers lament: “You have made them equal to us.”

Not: “You cheated us.” Not: “You broke your promise.” Not even: “We cannot survive on what you gave us.” No. “You have made them equal to us.”

That is the wound. They worked longer. They endured the scorching heat. Their labor was real. Their sacrifice was real. But somewhere along the way, their faithful work had become more than work. It had become a claim to status.

We have done more. We have been here longer. We sacrificed more. Therefore we should stand above them.

And suddenly we are no longer talking only about a vineyard. Human beings have always struggled when people we have placed beneath us suddenly stand beside us.

We saw it in this country during integration, when equality before the law felt to many white people like a loss of status. The Church has experienced it in our long and painful struggle to receive LGBTQ people not merely at the edges of Christian community but fully within its sacramental and communal life.

And every generation will discover some new boundary around which we are tempted to say: “Yes, God loves them. But surely not exactly as much as God loves us. Yes, they can come in. But surely they have not earned the same place.”

And friends, that is why this sermon cannot become one about “those” people somewhere else. Because the landowner turns to the grumbling worker and asks: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

The Greek is even sharper: “Is your eye evil because I am good?” The “evil eye” was a familiar way of talking about envy or resentment. And what a question!

Has God’s goodness toward somebody else somehow become evil in my sight? Someone else gets the opportunity. Someone else gets forgiven. Someone else gets welcomed. Someone else gets the second chance. Someone else receives a gift I wanted. And suddenly the grace that filled my own hands feels smaller.

Nothing has changed about the gift—it is my vision that has changed, and comparison has changed it.

A blessing can feel wonderful right up until the moment we discover someone else received one too. And that may be one of the most exhausting ways we live: constantly looking sideways. Who got more? Who deserved less? Who has what I wanted? And, social media has made this exponentially worse.

Maybe that is why Jesus tells this absurd story in which the Kingdom refuses to cooperate with our arithmetic. Now, I do not think that means justice does not matter. I do not think Jesus is giving us a business model or saying employers should ignore fair compensation. The Kingdom is not unjust. But God’s justice is larger than our ledger. And God’s grace refuses to remain inside the machinery of comparative deserving.

Which brings us back to Peter. “We have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

I wonder if one answer Jesus gives Peter is: Peter, look around. You are already in the vineyard.

Maybe we become so focused on the denarius at the end of the day that we miss another gift in the story. The first workers got to spend the whole day in the vineyard. They got to tend something alive. They had their hands in the dirt. They shared the water. They watched fruit ripen. They participated in the work of the landowner.

Maybe following Jesus is not merely the price we pay in order to receive something better later. Maybe following Jesus is already part of the gift.

Peter, what will you have? You have Christ, this community, and a share in the work of healing, reconciliation, welcome, forgiveness, and new life. You are already in the vineyard.

And the vineyard owner still goes out. Still search, invites, and finds people who assume it must be too late for them.

People who think they do not have the right résumé. People who believe they have failed too badly, aren’t religious enough, good enough, deserving enough. And the owner keeps saying: “You also go into the vineyard.”

Maybe eventually those of us who arrived early can stop staring over our shoulders at who comes in after us. Maybe we can stop checking what everyone else received. Maybe we can even walk back toward the marketplace with the landowner.

Because there are still people standing there. And there is still work to do.

The scandal of grace is not that God gives us less than we deserve. The scandal is that God refuses to give our neighbors less.

So before we say, “That’s not fair,” perhaps we might look again at the grace already in our own hands. And then look toward the road rejoicing at more workers coming into the vineyard, because it belongs to God, so does the work and the fruit. And thanks be to God—so do we. AMEN.

Trinitarian blessing based on today’s sermon:

May God the Father, whose generosity is wider than our deserving, open your eyes to the grace already in your hands.

May God the Son, who calls us again and again into the vineyard, give you joy in the holy work of love, reconciliation, and welcome.

May God the Holy Spirit free you from envy and comparison, that you may rejoice in the grace given to your neighbor.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

Sunday, September 13, 2026

Free People Free People

God cancels our spiritual debts—why do we still hold them for ourselves and others?

Proper 18, Year A

This sermon was delivered on the 16th Sunday after Pentecost at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Last Sunday, Jesus gave us some remarkably concrete instructions about what to do when relationships break. If someone sins against you, Jesus says, go to them. Tell the truth. Listen. Try to regain one another. And if that does not work, widen the circle. The goal was never punishment; the goal was restoration.

And apparently Peter has been thinking about this, because today, almost before Jesus has finished speaking, Peter raises his hand and asks the question lurking underneath all of it: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Seven! Peter probably thinks he is being extraordinarily generous. And Jesus says, essentially: Peter, you are still counting.

Before we go any further, though, I want to say clearly what Jesus is not saying. Forgiveness is not denial, and forgiveness does not require us to pretend that something did not hurt. Forgiveness is not necessarily reconciliation, and reconciliation does not automatically mean restored trust, restored access, or returning to a relationship that remains unsafe. In fact, this whole conversation began last week with Jesus telling us to name the harm and seek repair.

So this is not a command to remain in the path of someone who is actively hurting you. This is a conversation growing out of Jesus’ teaching about reconciliation in community: sin has been named, truth has been spoken, and the possibility of repair is before us. Peter wants to know what happens then. How long do I have to keep doing this? When have I forgiven enough?

Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” and that number may be pointing us all the way back to Genesis. There, Lamech boasts, “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” Lamech imagines a world in which violence compounds: you hurt me, I hurt you more; you take something from me, I take more from you. Every offense accumulates interest, and vengeance multiplies seventy-sevenfold.

Jesus takes that same number and turns it upside down. What if mercy multiplied like that? What if forgiveness became as relentless as revenge? What if, instead of endlessly escalating what people owe us, the people of God became known for interrupting the cycle?

Then Jesus tells a story about a servant who owes a king ten thousand talents, and the number is intentionally ridiculous. One talent was roughly six thousand daily wages, which means ten thousand talents comes to around sixty million days’ wages. Using a modern comparison of roughly $185 for a day’s work, we are talking about something in the neighborhood of eleven billion dollars. This servant does not have a repayment problem; he has an impossible problem.

And just to feel the difference between a million and a billion: one million seconds is about eleven and a half days, while one billion seconds is almost thirty-two years. That is the scale Jesus is playing with. There is no payment plan, no refinancing, no side hustle, no clever budgeting that fixes this. And yet the king simply wipes the debt away.

The servant walks out carrying something he could never have purchased for himself: freedom. Then almost immediately, he finds another servant who owes him one hundred denarii, about one hundred days’ wages. Using the same modern comparison, that is roughly $18,500. That is real money; Jesus is not pretending that the second debt is meaningless.

But compare $18,500 to eleven billion dollars, and the tragedy becomes obvious. The first servant has received a completely new life, but he immediately goes back to living according to the old rules. He grabs the other servant by the throat and says, “Pay what you owe me.” Mercy has happened to him without becoming a way of life within him.

And I think that is the heart of Jesus’ warning. The servant’s failure is not simply that he is stingy; his failure is that he has been liberated without learning how to live as a liberated person. He has been released from an impossible debt, yet when he gains power over somebody else, he recreates the very system from which he has just been freed. He has been liberated, but he keeps living like Pharaoh.

And suddenly our Exodus reading belongs right here. Israel stands at the sea with slavery behind them, Pharaoh behind them, and an entire system of domination, fear, violence, and bondage behind them. God makes a way where there was no way, and they walk through the sea into freedom. But Exodus is not merely the story of people being liberated fromsomething; the rest of the story asks whether they can learn to live as people liberated for something.

Can people who were slaves learn not to enslave? Can people who lived beneath domination learn another way of being together? Can people who have been set free become people who make freedom possible for others? That is one of the great questions running through Exodus, and I think it is the question Jesus places before Peter as well.

Because God’s forgiveness is not simply the cancellation of a heavenly balance sheet. God’s mercy invites us into an entirely different way of being human: a life in which we do not have to keep every ledger forever, a life in which vengeance does not multiply seventy-sevenfold, a life in which another person's debt does not have to become our prison too. We are not merely forgiven people; we are being formed into a forgiving people.

That does not mean forgetting, abandoning wisdom, or ignoring boundaries. It does not mean automatically trusting someone because they say, “I'm sorry,” and it certainly does not mean surrendering ourselves again to someone determined to harm us. But when repair really is possible, Jesus asks whether we can imagine something beyond repayment, something beyond “You hurt me, so now you owe me until I decide you have suffered enough.”

Paul says something similar today when he asks, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” Ultimately, Paul reminds us, we all stand before the same Lord. We are fellow servants living on mercy. None of us stands before God as the one who managed to settle the account.

So perhaps there is a very concrete practice to carry with us this week. When someone who has hurt you genuinely comes seeking repair, tell the truth about the debt; do not minimize it, and keep whatever boundaries wisdom requires. But then ask yourself: What would freedom look like here—not only for me, but for them?

Maybe freedom means that you stop bringing up the old failure every time there is a new disagreement. Maybe it means refusing to keep someone permanently reduced to the worst thing they have done. Maybe it means no longer recruiting other people to help you collect a debt that has already been confessed. And maybe, where trust can responsibly grow again, it means opening a door that punishment would prefer to keep shut.

Because this is what liberated people do. People whom God has brought through the sea do not build another Egypt on the opposite shore. People whose impossible debt has been released do not spend their lives tightening their hands around everyone who owes them something. People who have been set free by Christ become, by the grace of God, people through whom others discover freedom too.

So yes: receive the mercy of God. Walk out of the prison. Cross the sea. Live as someone who is free.

And then, beloved, go make freedom possible for somebody else.

Amen.