Poem for Sunday, September 20, 2026

September 20, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 20:1-16



Children have fierce notions of fairness. It’s fairly common for children with siblings to wonder which one is the favored one. If we’re lucky, we have parents who insist that all children are loved equally. My mom went so far as to make sure my sister and I had the exact same amount of Christmas presents to unwrap, so that we wouldn’t read anything into the pile of gifts.


Today’s parable explores the issue of fairness: that everyone should be treated fairly. But today’s Gospel asks us to consider what fairness means. Is it complete equity? Is it proportional? Needs based? Yield based equity? Is it promise based, or is it contractual justice?


Obviously, we’re not reading a capitalist management textbook. The householder pays all the workers equally, no matter how much work they’ve done. For most of us, we’d see this as a quick route to bankruptcy—by way of spending all of our cash, or the slower route to bankruptcy, by way of demoralizing your most dependable workers, the ones who show up to do a day’s work for a day’s pay, not the ones standing idle.


The workers standing idle might tempt us to a different reading of the parable, 2 different readings, depending on our relationship to work and depending on the translation of the text. If we read the words as “standing idle,” we might see these workers as lazy, people who could be working but are not—and they are rewarded for their laziness, paid just the same as those who have been working all day.


The Greek word is “argos.” It can mean “at leisure.” It can mean “free from work.” It can mean “lazy.”. It can mean what the late hired laborers offer as a reason for their idleness: “because no one has hired us.”


If we’re tempted to see Jesus teaching us a lesson about the value of capitalism and bosses and workers, you’d be about to hear a different sermon that frankly does not seem to be supported by the majority of Christ’s teaching.


It’s also tempting to see this parable as about God’s relationship to Jews and Christians, and while it’s one standard interpretation, it poses dangers. Throughout the Scriptures, a garden is often used as a way of talking about God’s relationship to people of the Covenant, and in today’s parable, the garden is not only for the Jewish people. From there, some interpreters see this text as showing a shift in God’s favor from Jewish people to Christians, but that interpretation isn’t supported by the text.


It’s much more likely that this parable isn’t about the workers at all. It’s much more likely that Jesus is trying to show us how God is generous in ways that humans are rarely generous, particularly humans who are in charge of workforces, of land, and policy decisions about justice and fairness. Consider that the landowner hires people and offers to pay them. He makes every laborer the same offer. Those of us who have been in charge of workplaces know how rare this generosity is. I’ve been part of the hiring process from both sides, and it is just exhausting, this measuring of worth, and it starts even before the worker is hired, with paperwork and evidence of past education, training, and work.


The landowner isn’t having any of it. He has work that needs to be done, and there are workers waiting to be hired. He makes every one of them the same generous offer.


And how do the workers respond to this generosity? We don’t know about the workers hired later in the day, but we do know how the ones hired in the morning feel: envious and exploited. They worked longer hours, and they are paid the same amount of money as the ones who only worked an hour???? Outrageous. Shouldn’t the ones who worked longer now get more pay? Ten day’s wages, surely, if we do the math.


The vineyard owner doesn’t engage. He says that they made an agreement, and both sides kept the terms, and thus, the workers have been treated fairly. You can almost hear the vineyard owner saying, “If you want fairness next time, I can do that, but you won’t like that as much as you think you will.”


Again and again, Jesus shows us that our legalistic approach to life will not serve us very well. And much more importantly, Jesus reminds us that it’s humans who have this mind set, not God. It’s humans who stretch their clenched hands wanting more—but with this clenched hand mindset, we can’t open our hands so that God can fill them. A clenched mindset means we can’t open our hearts, our minds, our boundaries of what’s acceptable in an alternate approach to justice.


Instead of seeing this reading as a parable about workers, it’s much more useful to ask what this parable tells us about God. God doesn’t make contracts—God makes covenants. God isn’t a boss rewarding us only for merit—and thank goodness! And the covenant isn’t dependent on human behavior—what a relief, because we all fall short. God isn’t keeping a ledger sheet; Luther would remind us that we can’t be redeemed by our works, but only by God’s grace.


God doesn’t bestow grace on us because we deserve it. We don’t get privileged treatment because we were early to say yes to God. We don’t get payment because we worked hard and had a higher yield than others.


On the contrary, God’s generosity extends everyone, from those dependable workers that labor long, to the ones hired last, the ones that have been waiting because it seems that no one will ever call upon them. In the business world, we’d say that there must be a reason that no one has hired them, and we’d avoid hiring them too. But the vineyard owner hires these laborers, at the close of the working day, for the same rate, when he could have hired them for far less. It’s no way to run a business.


Praise be to God—God is not running a business. God is tending a vineyard in ways we won’t always understand, but God will always invite us to be part of this creating. We can react to God’s generosity in any number of ways, and today’s parable shows what happens when we respond with envy.


A far better response is to release all of the tight and clenched parts of our lives and say yes to God’s invitation. A far better response is to open our hands and respond to God’s generosity with gratitude. And let us always remember to say daily prayers of thanks to our triune God who gives us so much, each and every day.

Lutheran Safe Houses

For several weeks now, I've found my brain returning to an idea that doesn't exist as much as I can tell.  I wish we had a nation-wide network of Lutheran safe houses.  I don't mean that term in the 60's radical kind of way, as a shelter for people out in the world working to overthrow any number of societal forces.

It would be great to have houses with individual sleeping spaces with doors that lock, and communal spaces like bathrooms, kitchens, and living spaces--perhaps sleeping spaces with private bathrooms too.  People could stay as they were traveling or if they needed a retreat.  Houses could offer long term housing too.

We used to have more of these kind of spaces, although Lutheran ones were probably more likely to be connected to campuses.  I'm thinking about Catholic Worker houses and other dwellings connected to monastic traditions--how many of them still exist?

Is there a website or some other network that lists them all?  I did a quick internet search and didn't come up with one.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm never far from contemplating communal housing, particularly communal housing with a religious connection.  I've had this on the brain even more intensely because one of my church members in Bristol could really use this kind of resource as she waits for a unit to open in one of the places for low income seniors.

Would it be cheaper than the cheap motel which costs $430 a week that we're helping her pay for?  Hard to say--but I'd feel better about our church money going to a local Lutheran safe house.

The Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen

 September 17 is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, herbalist, musical composer, naturalist, and Abbess. Her life was full of accomplishments, an amazing feat considering she lived in the twelfth century (she was born around 1098 and died in 1179).

Until recently, I had never thought of the twelfth century as a high water mark of feminism, but female monastics did amazing things during that time period. By studying them, I come away with a new appreciation for the medieval Church, where talented women found a cloistered kind of freedom. In many ways, the cloistered life was the only way for medieval women to have any kind of freedom. Cloistered life offered the only protection available to women who lived at the edges or outside the margins of society: widowed, artistic, not wanting to be married, weird in any way.

But Hildegard's life shows that freedom was constrained, since women monastics answered to men. For years, Hildegard wanted to move her group of nuns to Rupertsburg, but the Abbot who controlled them refused her request.

We all face constraints of various kinds, and the life of Hildegard shows what could be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She was an Abbess, and because being in charge of one cloistered community isn't enough, she founded another. She wrote music, and more of her music survives than almost any other medieval composer. She was an early naturalist, writing down her observations about the natural world and her theories about how the natural world heals us. She wrote to kings, emperors and popes to encourage them to pursue peace and justice. She wrote poems and a morality play and along the way, a multitude of theological meditations.

She did all of these things, in addition to keeping her community running smoothly. Yes, I'm thinking about Hildegard as an administrator, a woman who could be efficient and artistic at the same time. It’s no wonder that I find her inspiring.

It's interesting to think about the different types of groups who have claimed her as their own. Feminists claim her importance, even though she didn't openly advocate equality. Musicians note that more of her compositions survive than almost any other medieval composer. Her musical works go in different directions than many of the choral pieces of the day, with their soaring notes. New Age types love her views of the body and the healing properties of plants, animals, and even minerals. Though her theology seems distinctly medieval, and thus not as important to modern Christians, it's hard to dismiss her importance as a figure from church history.

I often say that it's odd I'm drawn to monasticism, as I'm a married, Lutheran female who has all sorts of worldly commitments, and thus cannot fully vow obedience. But as I think about church history, I'm struck time and time again by how often monasticism has offered a safe space to women that no other part of society did. I shouldn't be surprised that it's a tradition that speaks to me still.

It’s a tradition that speaks to many others too: have you listened to the Hildegard of Bingen channel on Pandora?  At one time, the channel was one of the most popular on that streaming service.

Maybe today is a good day to tune in that medieval music. We could listen while writing letters to those in charge, letters which demand more work towards social justice. Or we could focus on other writing projects, as Hildegard of Bingen did. We could plant a healing herb garden.

Today, on her feast day, let us say a prayer of thanks for Hildegard of Bingen and other medieval matriarchs of Christianity.

The Ghost in the Machine and the Holy Spirit

In late 2022 and early 2023, I first heard about ChatGPT and the current incarnation(s?) of artificial intelligence, I heard a lot of experts telling us that machines/programs/AI can't learn the way humans can learn.  Then they'd explain the creation process of these technologies and how humans programmed them to learn, and I thought, that process sure sounds the way my students learn.

Now I'm hearing a few people talking about the technology and issues of morality and spirituality.  Granted, more people are talking about how AI might kill us all--this week, at least, more people are talking about those dangers.  I saw one pastor post his notes from a Carey Nieuwhof webinar on AI and the Church and this bit intrigued me:  “AI doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. AI doesn’t pray.”

When I was growing up in the 1970's, almost every Christian faith tradition taught that humans were God's supreme creation, the best of the best.  Many of those traditions taught that only humans go to Heaven.  It's a different faith scene now--says this pastor who is thinking about her first blessing of the pets as part of a worship service, at least first as one I've led.

This morning, I find my mind coming back to AI, to our beliefs (hopes?) about how human neurons are superior to silicon neurons.  I think about an NPR show back in the early days of this century that had philosopher Daniel Dennett as part of a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence. He said that he thinks that silicon based life forms (like computers) are eclipsing carbon based life forms (like you and me). Further, he said that computers are using humans to assist in the evolution of computers. The part of me that loves sci-fi was intrigued, and continues to be intrigued. The part of me that doesn't understand machines was horrified at the thought of enabling them to take over the world and enslave us.  The rest of the panel scoffed at Dennett's idea.

Now it seems like prophecy--or that Dennett was keeping up with the research in a much more comprehensive way than most of us.

I am aware of the dangers of anthropomorphizing this technology, and yet I keep thinking of Claude or ChatGPT praying.  What would those prayers sound like?  Would God hear them?  How would God respond?

This morning's pondering took me back to other times when I've tried thinking about God in different ways than I was taught in childhood.  It's made me think of a poem I wrote a long time ago, when I looked up at the pre-dawn sky and thought about how many astronomical objects are cold, hard rocks as far as we can tell. It led to this poem, which has become a renewed favorite of mine, after the spouse of a dear friend told me how it had stuck with him and made him think about the universe differently. It was published in my first chapbook Whistling Past the Graveyard.


Geology, the True Life Science


Our planet—warm, gooey corner
of a cold, lifeless cosmos,
a primordial ooze which forms
the perfect building blocks for life,
a miraculous exception to the universal
rule. The official astronomer’s story.

But perhaps God prefers rocks and minerals.
Why else create such a diverse abundance?
Maybe animals and humans are the experiment
gone horribly wrong, an accident of pumping liquids
surrounded by decaying flesh.

Bones calcify, kidneys form stones, arteries harden
with plaque—instead of medical disaster,
perhaps our bodies move towards their ultimate evolutionary
destiny, seeking God’s pleasure.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, September 20, 2026:

First Reading: Jonah 3:10--4:11

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 16:2-15

Psalm: Psalm 145:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45

Second Reading: Philippians 1:21-30

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16


I've often thought that these parables that use work metaphors are less useful to those of us toiling in the 21st century--and I've wondered how the contemporaries of Jesus would hear this parable.  Would they hear it as a typical tale of how rich landowners abuse those forced off the land?  

Outrage is the classic response to the idea that the workers who toiled all day getting the same wages as those who show up one hour before quitting time. We howl, "But that's not fair."  But is this parable designed to teach us a lesson about capitalism?

The poet in me immediately searches for a new way to frame this parable. What if, instead of toiling in the vineyard, we're invited to a party? Those of us who come early get to drink more wine, eat more goodies, and engage in more hours of intense conversation. We get to spend more quality time with our host. Those who come later will still get to drink wine, eat goodies, converse, and have quality time. The wine won't have soured, the goodies won't have molded, the conversation won't have dwindled, the host won't be tired and wishing that everyone would just go home. The party will still be intensely wonderful. But those who come late won't have as much time to enjoy it.

Maybe Jesus tries to tell us about a different kind of work.  Maybe God's work is like that enriching job, the one where you were challenged, but not overwhelmed. God's work engages you on every level and you look up at the end of the work day, amazed at how time has passed and how involved you have become. At the end of God's work day, you're amazed at all you've been able to accomplish.

God calls us to partnership in an amazing creative endeavour. We're called to transform the world, to help reclaim the world for God's vision. In Surprised by Hope, Bishop N. T. Wright reminds us, "But what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15;58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff" (208).

The ways that we can do this Kingdom work are varied, from helping the poor, to enjoying a good meal, to writing a poem, to consoling a friend, to playing with your dog, to painting . . . the list is as long as there are humans in the world. Wright assures us that "God gloriously honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news" (226).

Do the kind of creating that involves you on many levels, that makes you lose your sense of time, that leaves you unmoored in your wonder at the beauty of creation. That's the work that God calls us to do.

Satisfying Sunday

Yesterday was a fairly good day.  At church, as I was moving through the communion liturgy, I could feel my throat about to crack, and sure enough, I went into a coughing fit.  Because I was at the words of institution, I felt weird about having someone else speak the words--Lutherans believe that only ordained or specially appointed ministers can consecrate the bread and wine.  I think it would have been fine, as long as I was there, but I don't really know how members feel.  So I drank some water, coughed a bit, and powered through.  People were kind.

I have spent most of the week wondering if I'm fighting off a cold:  I'm more tired and less hungry, and my throat has felt a bit scratchy off and on.  And I'm still not here.

I felt good about my sermon, although I'm aware of all the ways it could be improved; you can view it here on my YouTube channel and read it in this blog post).  We spent Sunday afternoon as we usually do, watching other people's sermons from churches where we feel a connection.  No one else preached on the Gospel.

I wanted something else of depth before we reverted to our usual viewing of old TV shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway?  We watched this podcast of David Brooks interviewing philosopher Meghan Sullivan. My spouse and I both have solid liberal arts educations along with graduate degrees, so it wasn't groundbreaking for us, but it felt nourishing.

I did some stitching in the evening so that I stayed awake past 7:15--success!  I'm making smaller squares, the first level of a log cabin square--but they're not all the same size.  I may put them aside and go back to the quilt I'm making for my cousin's first child who graduates from high school this year.

And now, another week:  week 6 at one school, week 3 at another.  We've got sanding to finish at the fixer-upper house.  The work at Faith Lutheran continues.  Onward!

Sermon for Sunday, September 13, 2026

September 13, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 18: 21-35



Last week’s Gospel instructed us in how to deal with disagreement in the context of community. Today’s Gospel continues the teaching—the work of forgiveness is never done. By now, we all know that Jesus isn’t telling us to keep a ledger book to track how often we’ve forgiven. Jesus is showing us how our forgiving becomes less a ledger book and more a repair manual.


Like last week’s text, today’s teaching, boiled down to that pithy 70 times 7, or 77 in newer translations, that number has been used to insist that we forgive some very hard to forgive actions: domestic violence for example. It can be a damaging text, taken out of the context of last week’s passage and the parable at the end of today’s Gospel.


Last week’s text reminds us that forgiveness doesn’t come without a change in someone’s behavior and/or belief, which is true repentance. If we’ve tried to sort out differences, not just one on one, but in the presence of community, and reconciliation can’t be achieved, we are eventually allowed to stop trying. Today’s parable tells us that forgiveness involves more than just an apology, which some people see as short hand for repentance. True repentance involves a change in behavior. True repentance involves a change in attitude too.


The slave in the parable shows neither a change in behavior nor a change of heart. Consider his predicament: the slave owes 10,000 talents. One Bible scholar notes that 1 talent is approximately 20 years of wages. It’s a shorthand way of saying he owes more than he can ever repay.


The fellow slave owes a hundred denarii, a much lesser amount—one denarii is one day’s wages. But the slave who has just had his much greater debts forgiven, literally in the same hour, on his way out of the palace, orders the other debtor slave thrown in prison. Luther tells us that repentance must be constant and daily, but the forgiven slave can’t even manage an hour! The king revokes his forgiveness and orders the non-repentant slave not only thrown into prison, but tortured.


Here we have another hard teaching, especially if we look at all of chapter 18. On the one hand, if someone is non-repentant, we’re allowed to cast them out, as verse 17 tells us we must. But we’re also required to forgive and forgive and forgive. And yet, if one remains non-repentant, the punishment is harsh. We’re told that God will refuse to forgive us, if we refuse to forgive.


It shouldn’t be a surprise. Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debt, as we forgive our debtors.” If we don’t forgive, the Lord’s prayer says we won’t be forgiven. The parable elaborates on the prayer. It can also give us a bit of spiritual whiplash, with its depiction of extreme mercy in the early part of the parable and severe judgment at the end.


Christian teaching often sums up the idea of forgiveness as we are supposed to forgive and forget, but that idea is much too simple. Again and again in his theology, Luther tells us that the work of repentance continues until death. Luther saw humans as deeply sinful and that the work of turning away from sin takes humility and a daily effort. Part of that work is seeing where we are not the creatures God calls us to be and asking for forgiveness and turning away from the sinful behavior. Daily. If we’re not doing that, we can’t have an expectation of forgiveness for ourselves. We’re like the people in Luther’s day who wanted to pay money for an indulgence to avoid having to face the consequences for sinful acts.


The practice of rooting out sin sounds hard, and it can be, and that’s where we see the advantage of community. We are not the only ones discerning where we need to change. We are not alone in our discerning of whether or not the behavior of others in our community needs to change. The parable also continues to show the importance of having a group of people to help discern righteous action. In the parable, it is fellow slaves who notice the unjust behavior and report it to the king. Jesus shows us the role that community plays in right relationships—between humans and between humans and God.


Of course, this work will never be fully complete. God offers the gift of grace, an ongoing gift, because we are not made perfect in this lifetime, as Luther reminds us over and over again. We will fall short of being the people God calls us to be. We will cause harm. Others, too, will fall short, and we will need to repair relationships.


Scholar N. T. Wright reminds us that we must forgive others, not in a spirit of forgetting what was done, but in a move towards reconciliation, not revenge. He uses an interesting metaphor in explaining the last part of today’s Gospel: “Forgiveness is more like the air in your lungs. There’s only room for you to inhale the next lungful when you’ve just breathed out the previous one. If you insist on withholding it, refusing to give someone else the kiss of life they may desperately need, you won’t be able to take any more in yourself, and you will suffocate very quickly.”


Theories of social justice remind us of the importance of not just forgiveness but of accountability. In our own time, we’ve seen how these processes can work on an international scale. There are many examples, but one of the most successful recent ones is the truth and reconciliation committees in South Africa that allowed the nation to heal from the terrible wounds of apartheid. In the 1990’s, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu developed this approach in which victims explained the damage done to them, and perpetrators could confess what they had done, in the hope of both amnesty and reparations given to the victims. Some perpetrators still had punishment, particularly if they didn’t show repentance. It’s a compelling example of restorative justice taking the place of retribution. It’s a vivid and modern example of Matthew 18 in action.


Reconciliation is so important that it is now part of Just War Theory, the school of Philosophy that recognizes Matthew 18 on a geopolitical scale, that wars can be unavoidable, but they can be fought justly. In recent decades, the need for a just and lasting peace was added, a realization that without ensuring a just peace, the seeds for the next conflict are sown.


Bible scholar John T. Carroll says, “To be sure, Matthew’s Gospel emphasizes the importance of forgiveness in the lives of individuals and for the health of communities: blessing comes to those who are merciful (5:7). Yet justice matters too. There is and needs to be accountability for harmful actions and abuses of power.”


Our reading from Romans tells us that even like-minded people can disagree about any number of issues, but we find a way not to be torn apart. Our Old Testament reading reminds us of the way that reconciliation can happen, even after the most soul wrenching actions, if there is repentance. Our Gospel tells us what can happen if debts are forgiven without repentance. The king in the parable made forgiveness too easy, and thus, true repentance didn’t happen. Our Divine king does not make forgiveness simple, but the gift of grace that we can never earn is ours, ours so that we can continue with the repair work that must be done: repair to ourselves, repair to our relationships, and by doing so, repairing the larger mechanisms of both our communities and the larger world.