The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost - The Rev. Tom White
Let us pray: Almighty God of unlimited generosity, we rejoice that the wideness of your mercy is far wider than any sea. By unconditional and unearned grace you redeem us from our bondage to sin and death. And so, our hearts swell with thanksgiving for your love that never lets go. In Christ, the Savior’s Name we pray. Amen. As I prepared to consider with you today’s Gospel reading, I thought of the verse from Isaiah, where God speaks and declares: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Our first thought as we hear Jesus’ story of the workers in the vineyard is: those poor laborers first hired, who, indeed, bore the burden of a whole day of hard work in the sweltering heat, they were certainly treated unfairly that their pay was no more than the workers who had labored only six, three, or good golly!, only a single hour! It’s blatantly unfair! But, let’s put ourselves in the place of the workers who...