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Morning Meditation
September 19, 2026
Reading: Matthew 20:1-16
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Meditation by Glenn Beamer
With apologies for topical redundancy, Matthew’s scripture brings to mind another dimension from September 11th that prompts us to consider how we misunderstand God’s grace during challenging and devastating events. Thirteen days after 9/11 Congress passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, which in turn created the 9/11 Victims Compensation Act.
A prominent attorney, Ken Feinberg, became the special master for the 9/11 fund, charged with determining and dispersing “equitable” monetary relief to survivors of those killed on September 11th. By 2005 Mr. Feinberg distributed $7.1 billion in compensation with survivors receiving an average of $2 million and injured individuals receiving an average of $400,000.
Mr. Feinberg immediately encountered protests not from September 11 survivors but from individuals and their families who had suffered losses in other tragedies such as the Oklahoma City Bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They had suffered tragedies, weren’t they entitled to compensation?
Recognizing that his task could become overwhelming, Mr. Feinberg created parameters that equitably recompensed survivors. He knew that these guidelines would do nothing to ease survivors’ emotional pain and spiritual devastation. Among his decisions were that every victim’s family would be compensated equally for non-economic losses, victims’ pension and life insurance benefits would offset Victims’ Fund awards. Because of the latter provision firefighters’ and police officers’ families protested that they were being shortchanged.
Mr. Feinberg quickly discovered that one family’s equity was another’s injustice, and he recognized that the anger directed at him was not about money. The anger stemmed from unfathomable hurt. Mr. Feinberg began to meet one-on-one with survivors, listening to their experiences and stories. In a presentation this year, Mr. Feinberg relayed that his biggest mistake was telling a survivor he knew how she felt. He was informed unequivocally that he had no idea how she felt. He gave devastated, angry individuals space to create their own relief even when they didn’t realize they were doing so. He held hundreds of meetings for three years.
Ninety-seven percent of surviving families and injured individuals accepted settlements from the 9/11 victims fund and eschewed their rights to sue airlines, the Port Authority, Larry Silvertein, or the US Defense Department.
Matthew’s gospel ends ambiguously. The landowner makes clear that it’s his prerogative to pay workers the wage they agreed to, leaving the impression that the workers remained disgruntled. The 9/11 Victims Fund addressed a more consequential situation. Like the laborers two thousand years ago we continue to confuse our earthly compensation with the peace and grace God grants in ways large and small.
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