Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time · Year A · Matthew 20:1-16a
The workers in the vineyard
For Sunday, September 20, 2026
This is the one that makes kids mad, which is why it is a good one to start on. A man hires workers at dawn and promises them a fair day's pay. He hires more at nine, at noon, at three, and then a last group at five in the afternoon with barely an hour of light left. At the end of the day he pays them all the same.
The ones who worked since dawn are not imagining the unfairness. They really did work twelve hours for what somebody else got for one. Jesus does not tell them they are wrong to notice. He tells them they are looking at the wrong thing. The owner did not take anything from them. He gave something extra to somebody else, and that felt like theft.
I think that is worth sitting with before you correct a child who says it is not fair, because it is not fair. That is the point. Grace is not payroll. Nobody in that vineyard earned the denarius (the coin of the day), including the ones who showed up first.
Five minutes at the table
- If you worked all day and somebody who came at five got paid the same, would you be angry? Be honest.
- Has anyone ever been generous to somebody else in a way that bothered you?
- Is there anything you think you have earned from God?
Class discussion topics
Sept 16 — Classes begin. Chosen Lesson 1, “Why am I here?” Parents join the first fifteen minutes.
“Why are you here?”
The lesson opens by going around the room with that question. Some of them will say Confirmation. Some will say their parents. One will say he does not know.
The Gospel asks it too. The landowner walks into the marketplace, finds men standing there, and says, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” Their answer is the one I want the kids to hear: “Because no one has hired us.” Not lazy. Not unwilling. Nobody had asked them yet.
That is what the word Chosen is doing in the title of the program. Nobody in that vineyard hired himself. The owner went out at dawn, then nine, then noon, then three, and then again at five with an hour of light left. Five separate trips to go and get people.
We also write down five things we want out of life, which sits oddly well beside a day's wage. The men hired at dawn agreed on a price first and spent the day measuring everyone against it. The ones hired later took whatever was right. The only ones who go home angry are the ones who set the number.
The lesson closes with Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you.” The grumbling at the end of the parable is what that sounds like when you hold God's plan up against your own contract.
If your child comes home saying nothing else, this is the one worth asking about: was anyone in that story late?