The most famous sermon you’ve (probably) never heard of
Sunday 20 September 2026
The most famous sermon you’ve (probably) never heard of
Revd Kenneth Padley
Readings: Philippians 1.21-30; Matthew 20.1-16
Today’s gospel is the inspiration for the most widely broadcast sermon in Christian history. However, few in Britain will even be aware of it, let alone heard it. This is because it comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Every Easter, Orthodox Christians hear the Pascal Homily attributed to St John Chrysostom, based on Jesus’ parable about the workers in the vineyard.
John Chrysostom was a rather tragic figure, serving as Archbishop of Constantinople at the turn of the fifth century. His unusual surname means ‘golden tongued’ which, for the avoidance of doubt, is a reference to his reputation as a preacher.
And the most famous of Chrysostom’s legendary sermons is his Easter homily, a tour de force in defence of an inclusive Church. Some in Constantinople had apparently been complaining about laggards who only ever came to church for festivals. Like any good Church leader, Chrysostom wanted people to attend worship as often as possible. However, he wasn’t prepared to berate the less familiar who flocked to church at Easter. He knew that Easter was a starting point that could and should challenge them to dig deeper in faith.
This is an excerpt from what Chrysostom said:
Let all pious people and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendour of the Easter feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late; for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first… Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord.
Wind back the clock 400 years from Chrysostom and we find the origin of today’s parable among the grumbles of Jesus’ core followers. The vineyard was a traditional Jewish metaphor for God’s people, the house of Israel, his precious planting. And so in the parable of Jesus, the landowner is God and the workers are missionaries, labouring to bring in a rich harvest of converts dedicated to worship and good works.
Sermons on this parable are prone to going astray at this point, by focusing on how little the landowner seems to offer the workers, because a labourer’s usual daily wage in the time of Jesus was a denarius, the pre-cursor of the pre-decimal British penny, one 240th of a pound. However, this is not a story about inflation over the last two millennia. A daily wage (then as now) was a daily wage such that in a parable about God’s precious planting, the payment promised to labourers is nothing less than an analogy for the eternal life of heaven.
Despite such an amazing reward, some of Jesus’ longer-standing followers were huffing and puffing at the seeming injustice of having to share heaven with parvenus, upstarts who’d only recently become Christians. Feel their indignation: why should that lot get the same prize as us?! Have not we been labouring for many more years than they? Wouldn’t it be fairer for these newbies to receive a lesser wage – or for us to get a bonus?
Christians of long-standing can empathise with such feelings when dedicated long service risks giving way to self-satisfaction. Yet Jesus’ response is unambiguous. Stop grumbling: God rewards in full whomever he wants. Heaven is so amazing that everyone will be in awe and wonder.
Alas, I can’t hope to offer anything as enduring as Chrysostom’s Easter homily. However, I would encourage you to take away three points from today’s reading.
The first is about divine generosity. God’s welcome and embrace are always available. He’s there for the eager workers who join him at the dawn of their lives; and he’s there for those whom he picks up later in the day. We just need to respond with faith to his invitation to join the team.
People come to faith at all ages. For some this will happen as children, for others as teenagers or students, or as parents, middle aged, or later in life. The call of Christ is always immediate – come now – but he is never closed, even to a sincere deathbed conversion. To be saved ‘at the eleventh hour’ is a memorable description of such moments which has entered popular parlance from the way this parable is told in the old King James Bible.
Because people come to faith at all ages, they are baptised at all ages. As a parish priest I sometimes encountered slightly confused and nervous mums who thought that if they didn’t get their child ‘done’ before his or her first birthday then it doesn’t count. Absolutely not. God’s love is timeless. Baptism is for all ages. The first person at whose Baptism I was privileged to preside was 73. Yes, Baptism has different implications depending on the capacity of a candidate to comprehend what is going on, but it is nonetheless important whether you’re 10 months, 10 years, or 10 decades old.
The shadow side of this divine generosity is Jesus’ warning against jealousy. He tells his followers not be envious. Rather, they are to be encouraged, encouraged when others join the team – even those who rock up at the eleventh hour.
We’ve all experienced situations like that: at work, at home and even in church. Today’s parable exhorts who are those committed to the hilt to find satisfaction in their calling and ministry and not to be envious of others. Here is another case of where the King James Version makes a more accurate and vivid translation than its modern successor. ‘Is thine eye evil because I am good?’ asks the landowner in verse 15 of the KJV. (This is the origin of the phrase that we ‘give someone the evil eye’ when we are jealous of them.)
And thirdly, fanning out from that warning against jealousy, today’s passage is very honest about the highs and lows of Christian life. Things are not always easy. Like the labourers in the vineyard we are called to ‘bear the burdens of the day’ – which, by the way, is another commonplace that has come down to us from the early English Bibles. We do some things in response to faith because they are the right thing to do – but they are not always easy.
St Paul, like Jesus, acknowledges the reality of Christian suffering. We heard him tell the Philippians that ‘God has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well.’
There are times when Christian life can be a challenge. But in that same passage Paul talks about the Philippians finding joy in faith (1.25). We need to talk more about joy, times when through prayer and service we sense God’s love and assurance in our hearts. William Wordsworth wrote about being ‘surprised by joy’, a phrase adopted by CS Lewis as the title of his autobiography. When we encounter the burdens of the day we need to remember what Paul wrote about finding ‘joy in faith’.
Official government documents are rarely memorable. But the opening line of the Shorter Westminster Catechism, a question and answer about Christian belief from the 1640s, is worthy of remembrance. The Catechism tells us that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. To glorify God and enjoy him forever is the great joy of those who labour in the vineyard – whatever time of the day we bowl up, an encouragement in suffering, a preservative against jealousy, a product of God’s grace, and the road from baptism. Amen.