Better Than We Deserve

By Rev. Heidi L. Barham |  September 20, 2026

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Read Matthew 20:1 - 16 (NIV)
 
Just out of curiosity… how many of us have ever uttered the phrase, “That’s not fair…”?  Whether we said it to our parents, our spouses, our bosses, our teachers, our pastors… or whoever it may have been… it would not be too surprising to find out that most of us have said or at least thought on more than one occasion… “That is just not fair.”
 
And the underlying response to that statement is a simple question…
 
“Who ever said that life was fair?”
 
Now, as we look at our text for the morning… it is this concept of fairness that lays just beneath the surface of the mumbling and grumbling that we hear from a group of workmen who were given the same amount of pay for a full day’s work as another group of laborers who had worked only the last hour of the day…
 
That’s not fair…  “These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun” (Matthew 20:12).
 
No one has to raise their hand… but how many of us are willing to admit that we have compared ourselves to the other folks around us and tried to measure our achievements and abilities against theirs… and arrogantly determined that we are far superior?
 
Have any of us ever looked at the amount of work that we have done and weighed it against what a coworker or colleague has done… and deemed them to be deficient in their efforts?
 
Have any of us had the audacity to look at someone else’s life with a critical eye and judge that they have fallen short in living up to their potential… unlike what we think we have done?
 
We would certainly like to believe that we would never do anything of the sort… but if we are honest with ourselves… it has probably happened more often than we would care to admit.  (Okay… maybe, I am just talking about myself this morning.)
 
But as we look at this parable that Jesus told of the Workers in the Vineyard… we find that the workers who were hired at the start of the day had come to the conclusion that since they had worked harder and longer than the others… they deserved a greater reward than those who had only come along at the ninth hour.
 
However, as the landowner was quick to point out… the disgruntled workers were paid exactly what they had been promised when they were hired at the start of the day… which was one denarius. 
 
Just as a point of reference… in biblical times, the denarius was the standard rate of pay for a day’s labor.  Today, the average laborer’s daily wages would be around $160… depending on the type of work they are doing.
 
And while we can all probably relate to the anger of those early morning laborers in our text… I want to share an excerpt with from Max Lucado’s book entitled, “And the Angels Were Silent” which offers a somewhat different perspective on this parable.
 
In referencing this parable, Lucado writes:

I want to hone in on an often forgotten scene in the story: the choosing.  Can you see it?  It happened at 9:00.  It happened at noon.  It happened at 3:00.  But most passionately, it happened at 5:00.
 
Five in the afternoon.  Tell me.  What is a worker still doing in the yard at 5:00 in the afternoon?  The best have long since gone.  The mediocre workers went at lunch.  The last string went at 3:00.  What kind of worker is left at 5:00 p.m.?
 
All day they get passed by.  They are unskilled.  Untrained.  Uneducated.  They are hanging with one hand from the bottom of the ladder.  They are absolutely dependent upon a merciful boss giving them a chance they don’t deserve.
 
So, by the way, were we.  Lest we get a bit cocky, we might take Paul’s advice and look at what we were when God called us…  (As recorded in The Inspirational Bible, 1995, p. 1115).

Now, I will cut through the rest of Lucado’s analysis and fast forward to the end where he points out several reasons that are not why we were chosen by God… Lucado explains that God did not choose us for our intellect, our willpower, our money, or any of the other things that we think we possess. 
 
And then Lucado goes on to explain that we are those 5:00 workers… and that the reason God did choose us is simple… because He wanted to.
 
Lucado writes: 

…you are His.  He made you.  He brought you home.  He owns you.  And once upon a time, he tapped you on the shoulder and reminded you of that fact.  No matter how long you’d waited or how much time you’d wasted, you are His and He has a place for you.  (As recorded in The Inspirational Bible, 1995, p. 1116)

Just let that thought sink in for a moment. 
 
No matter how long we may have waited before we came to Christ… regardless of how much time we may have wasted living outside of God’s will for our lives… we are still God’s and God STILL has a place for us…
 
Talk about getting something BETTER THAN WE DESERVE…
 
It brings to mind the criminal who was hanging on a cross beside Jesus at Calvary.  He was painfully aware of everything that he and his compadre had done that warranted death by crucifixion. 
 
In fact, he offered a rather stern rebuke to his counterpart who had been taunting Jesus… saying, “‘Don’t you fear God,’… ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong’” (Luke 23:40 – 41).
 
Then after chastising his criminal companion… the Scriptures tell us that the man turned his attention to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  
 
He offered no pleas for mercy to spare his life.  There were no last-minute cries to be taken down from the cross.  He made no appeals for a pardon from the governor for a stay of execution.
 
 All he put forth was a seemingly simple request to be remembered. 
 
Now, it is hard to know exactly what this criminal had in mind when he asked to be remembered… but let me suggest, whatever it might have been… what he received was far better than what he deserved. 
 
Keep in mind… this man was being crucified.  And in those days, crucifixion was the punishment reserved for the most heinous of criminals… a punishment which I might add… he acknowledged that he and his cohort deserved… and that Jesus did not.
 
But what he actually received that day was the assurance from Jesus that, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
 
In other words, he became the beneficiary of the free gift of salvation… not because he joined the local church and attended Bible study regularly… not because he completed a thousand hours of community service… not because he served hot meals in the soup kitchen and passed out clothes to the homeless… and not even because he made large donations of his time, talent or his treasure to local charitable organizations.
 
All of that would have been honorable indeed.
 
But the man received the gift of salvation in those precious moments before he died… not because of anything he had done to deserve it… but because of what amounted to his profession of faith in Jesus. 
 
Now, we don’t read in the Gospel account how this criminal came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah… but the fact THAT he believed was the key to opening the doors to the kingdom of heaven for him… even in his final moments.
 
Most of you know that my full-time vocation is in the hospice and palliative care space.  And in my former role as a spiritual care coordinator, I would sometimes encounter people who wondered if they or their loved one may have waited too long… questioning if there was any hope left for them.
 
But this story that calls for our attention from today’s New Testament lesson… along with the story of the criminal who hung alongside Jesus… give us the hope that as long as we still have breath in our bodies… it is not too late to receive God’s gift of grace. 
 
 And just like those workers that were hired at various times throughout the day all received the same reward…  God offers the same gift of grace to all of us.
 
And it is not because of anything we have done to deserve it.  It is not because we have worked longer and harder than anyone else… and it is not even because we have been coming to church longer and been engaged in more ministries than someone else.
 
In fact, as the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:9 – 10).
 
“For it is by grace that [we] have been saved…”
 
GRACE which is often defined as God’s unmerited favor… receiving something that is BETTER THAN WE DESERVE… is often found walking hand-in-hand with MERCY… which is in essence not getting what we do deserve.
 
Now, with your permission, I want to share a quick story about grace and mercy.  (Of course, even without your permission, I am still going to share it because I think it is a pretty good story... although, the jury is still out on whether it is a true story or not… but it was on the Internet.)

So, the story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, the former mayor of New York City that on a bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. 
 
Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.”
 
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions--ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
 
So, the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.  (source: Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Multnomah, 1990, pp 91-2, as cited at https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/g/grace.htm). 

Now, according to the law as well as the shopkeeper… that grandmother deserved to either pay a fine or spend time in jail.  But what she got was so much better than what she deserved. 
 
It was more than just the large sum of money that she received… remember it was 1935 and that $47.50 then would be the equivalent of about $1,160 today when adjusted for inflation (see $47.50 in 1935 → 2026 | Inflation Calculator)
 
But more than the monetary gift… that grandmother was the recipient of grace and mercy that day.  And everyone who bore witness to what took place in that courtroom saw what grace and mercy looked like… up close and personal.
 
Perhaps there are times in our own lives when we have found ourselves in a situation where we were like that tattered old woman… trying to rationalize something we said or did… that in our heart of hearts we knew was probably not right… but we believed we were doing it with the best of intentions.
 
And yet, wasn’t something once said about a road to somewhere being paved with good intentions?
 
Well, the good news is that even when we fall short and sin… whether it is with or without the best of intentions… we have a God who loves us enough to forgive us. 
 
Now, just to be clear… as you have heard me say on more than one occasion… in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he makes it clear that we all sin and fall short of God’s glory (see Romans 3:23). 
 
And Paul also explains in Romans that, “…the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
 
We serve a God who knows us and loves us anyhow… which means we have been given a second (and a third and a fourth and a fifth) chance through our Lord and Savior, Jesus… which is most definitely BETTER THAN WE DESERVE. 
 
God’s love for us is so great and so deep that He was willing to go to a cross at Calvary… so that the penalty for our sins could be paid in full… and so we could spend eternity with Him.
 
The old woman in that story went into a courtroom to receive her punishment for stealing a loaf of bread… and she walked away blessed with enough to buy groceries for her entire family for the rest of that month and beyond.
 
The fact of the matter is that we are all faced with the prospect of entering a courtroom one day to receive the punishment for the sins we have committed. 
 
But if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior… when we enter that courtroom… we will not be alone. 
 
Jesus has promised to be right there with us… to act as our attorney and to plead our case.  And can I let you in on a little secret?
 
Jesus has already accepted and paid the punishment for our sins.  Before we could ever make it to judgment day in court… God already made a way for us to get what is far BETTER THAN WE DESERVE… more than just a few bags of groceries… we have been given the promise of everlasting life.
 
We serve an awesome and amazing God who was willing to go to unimaginable lengths to ensure we would be able to spend eternity with Him… not because we have done anything to earn it or deserve it… but all because God and His love for us is just that great. 
 
As Paul reminds us in Romans (5:8) that, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
 
Because our God is great and loves us so very much… I think it is fair to say that if we were to look back over our lives… we would see that in spite of our flaws, our faults, and our failures… we have received blessing after blessing… including the very breath in our bodies right this moment… and each and every one of those blessings are infinitely BETTER THAN WE DESERVE.
 
The reality is that every blessing… every good and perfect gift… comes from God who is so much greater than we can even imagine… which is why everything we have received or ever will receive from God is truly BETTER THAN WE DESERVE.  And with that thought in mind that I want to invite you to stand and join in singing our Hymn of Discipleship: How Great Thou Art #33.       

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