Enough – 20 September 2026 – Creation 3

Exodus 16:2–15 | Matthew 20:1–16

A wealthy man stands up in church to give his testimony. He explains that when he earned his very first dollar, it was all the money he had in the world. That night he heard a missionary speak, felt moved, and put the entire dollar in the offering.

Then he tells everyone, “I’ve always believed God blessed that decision, and that’s why I’m a rich man today.”

He sits down looking rather pleased with himself.

An elderly woman sitting beside him leans over and whispers:

“I dare you to do it again.”

I like that story because there is something wonderfully simple about her question. It’s one thing to trust God when you have one dollar and very little to lose. It may be quite another thing once you’ve accumulated enough that you’re frightened of losing it.

And perhaps that isn’t a bad way into our readings this morning, because both of them wrestle with this question of what happens when we become anxious about who has enough, who has too much, and whether there will still be enough for us.

Apparently even children understand that when food is involved, somebody needs to keep an eye on who is getting how much. Perhaps that isn’t a bad way into our readings this morning, because in both of them people are paying very close attention to what everybody else is receiving.

In Exodus, the Israelites are in the wilderness after escaping slavery in Egypt. But as it turns out, freedom is frightening. They are hungry and scared because they don’t know how long they’ll be in the wilderness, and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from. Suddenly Egypt doesn’t look so bad…or so they thought:

“At least there we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.”

Fear can do funny things to our perceptions. When we become convinced there won’t be enough, even captivity can begin to look safe. God responds to their desperation and doubts with manna: the funny-looking white substance roughly resembling bread that appeared each morning, enough to satisfy the day’s hunger. But I don’t think manna is simply a miracle a

bout God making food appear. God is also trying to teach these newly liberated people how to live differently.

They have left Pharaoh behind, but Pharaoh’s way of seeing the world is still living inside them. Egypt taught them that survival depended upon producing more, storing more, controlling more. There was never enough, so somebody always had to accumulate more.

In the wilderness, God begins teaching them another way: Gather only what you need and don’t try to hoard it. Trust that tomorrow will have bread of its own. And eventually, even stop working and rest.

Walter Brueggemann describes this as the difference between the myth of scarcity and the biblical vision of abundance. Now, biblical abundance doesn’t mean endless excess and that everybody gets everything they want.

It means there is enough. Enough for today. Enough for your household. Enough for your neighbour. So are the people excited by the daily miracle and thankful for God’s provision? Apparently not: they grumble about it.

Then in our gospel today, Jesus tells a story in which people grumble again.

A landowner goes out early in the morning looking for workers for his vineyard. He hires some at sunrise, then returns at nine, noon, three o’clock, and finally again around five, when there is hardly any working day left. At the end of their shift, everybody lines up to be paid, and the people who arrived at five receive a full day’s wage.

You can almost imagine the excitement moving through the people who started at sunrise. If these latecomers got that much for one hour, imagine what we are going to get?

Then their turn comes….and they get exactly what they were promised and not a penny more. They’re furious, not because they’ve been cheated, but because somebody else received more than they think they deserved.

And listen to their complaint: “You have made them equal to us.”

There it is. Apparently, this isn’t simply about money, it’s about worth; and perhaps even, status?

We worked longer. We worked harder. Surely that should mean we are worth more.

And Jesus asks this deeply uncomfortable question: Why does somebody else receiving enough feel like a threat to us?

It’s worth noticing that Jesus never says the people hired at five o’clock are lazy. When the landowner asks why they’ve been standing there all day, they answer very simply:

“Because no one has hired us.”

Maybe they were older, less able-bodied, or just didn’t have the right connections. Maybe they were simply the people everybody kept passing over. The landowner keeps returning until even they are given a place in the vineyard. And whatever else we make of this strange landowner, that detail matters. He sees the people no one else chose.

The people hired at five may have worked only an hour, but presumably they still had to eat that evening. Their children still needed supper. A shorter workday did not give them a smaller need to live.

And suddenly Jesus has shifted the question. Instead of asking only, “How much did you produce?” perhaps we begin asking:

“What do people need in order to live?”

That is a very different economy. And it is a difficult idea for us too, because scarcity is a powerful story. We hear it all the time: there aren’t enough jobs, or adequate housing, wages aren’t keeping pace with rising costs. There just isn’t enough money. There isn’t enough room.

And when people become frightened that there isn’t enough, we very quickly start looking around to see who might be taking too much. Maybe it’s the person receiving social assistance or the immigrant who just arrived? Maybe it’s some other group receiving something we’ve decided they haven’t earned?

What I find interesting is how often that anxiety gets directed toward people who have relatively little power. Perhaps part of the reason is that we can imagine ourselves moving upward. We can imagine having more money, more security, a bigger house, enough savings that we never have to worry again.

It’s harder to imagine ourselves needing help because that reminds us of our own vulnerability. What if I lose my job? What if I become sick? What if I can’t afford my home? What if someday I need somebody else?

Sometimes it is easier to judge somebody else’s vulnerability than to acknowledge our own. Scarcity makes us afraid and suspicious and leads us to compare. Eventually it can convince us that somebody else must have less before we can have enough.

But creation tells another story. Think about a tree heavy with fruit. There is a generosity about it. Some fruit will feed people. Some will feed birds or insects. Some will fall and eventually return to the soil.

Creation has limits, of course, and this requires us to take those limits seriously so that we don’t exploit its resources. But perhaps the opposite of scarcity isn’t endless consumption.

It isn’t more. It’s enough.

Enough food, shelter, dignity even. Enough security that people aren’t terrified about tomorrow. Enough that my neighbour’s flourishing does not somehow diminish me. Maybe that is why Jesus teaches us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Not my bread. Ours. There may be another way that scarcity gets into us as well. Eventually, “there isn’t enough” becomes: “I am not enough.”

Not successful or productive enough. Not young and attractive enough. Not useful enough. Not spiritual enough. And churches can fall into that same way of thinking. We look at congregations with bigger budgets, fuller pews, more young families and volunteers, and we wonder whether churches like ours are enough anymore.

Those aren’t imaginary concerns. Small churches face real challenges. We don’t need to pretend otherwise. But I wonder whether there is another question underneath all of them.

Are we enough for God to work with?

The radical thing about Scripture is how often God seems to answer yes. A frightened group of people wandering through a wilderness was enough. A little manna was enough. Five loaves and two fish were enough. A mustard seed was enough. A handful of frightened disciples were enough.

And perhaps two little churches are enough too.

Enough to love, welcome, and feed someone. Enough to give, pray, and care for this little corner of creation. Enough for God to begin something we cannot yet see. God’s not done with us.

What I hear as good news is that God isn’t waiting for us to become impressive before getting started.

And maybe you and I need to hear this as well: We are not simply what we produce. We are not our income or accomplishments or age or the number of things we managed to get done this week.

No matter our position or productivity, we matter to God. And somebody else receiving grace does not mean there is less grace for us.

Their dignity does not diminish yours; neither does their flourishing require your failure. The workers who arrived late were not worth less because nobody hired them until five o’clock. And the workers who arrived early did not become worth less because someone else was treated generously.

Grace isn’t a competition. There is bread in the wilderness. There is a wage at the end of the day. There is grace for the person who arrived late. There is room at the table. There is enough for all. And perhaps, by the grace of God, you are enough too. Amen.