Sermon - 9/20/20

<p>This is the Gospel and Sermon for Sunday, September 20. Bishop Elizabeth Eaton is reading Gospel this week and Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing provides the sermon.</p> <p>Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, there was a businessman who owned a small vineyard in Napa Valley.  As the economy changed and larger corporations were increasingly taking over the market, he began to see the writing on the wall.  These larger vineyards were gradually squeezing out the smaller businesses, competition was becoming increasingly challenging, and he knew he would be facing major difficulties in the foreseeable future. </p> <p>Therefore, he finally decided to sell while his business was still doing rather well.  However, he wanted to give his workers one last holiday bonus.  Ever since he first started the business, he had given his workers a holiday bonus based on the company’s yearly profit and each individual’s time on the job.  And, the past year of operations had been a reasonably good one, so he decided to do something wild and crazy and give everyone a very generous bonus.  Not only would everyone receive more than they had during the previous few years, each would also receive <strong>equally</strong> the same amount.  There would be no differentiation based on the time each person had spent working for his company.  In other words, if you were simply on the payroll as of December 22nd, the day the checks were written, you got the bonus!</p> <p>When the envelopes were first opened, it seemed everyone was thrilled to see the amount of his or her bonus.  However, as people began to slowly share information and compare checks, guess what happened!  Voila!!!  It was today’s gospel story in Matthew, chapter 20, all over again!! </p> <p>The business owner could not believe it.  He had tried to do something good for everybody and now he was getting angry phone calls from people who had just received larger bonus checks than they had ever gotten before, but were upset that everyone received the same amount.  Envy and greed