Sermon for The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity - Simon Oliver

We’ve just heard one of Jesus’ familiar parables in which he tells of a landowner who hires workers for his vineyard at the beginning of the day, at 6 o’clock, then goes to the marketplace and hires more workers at 9, 12 and 3 o’clock. Even at 5 o’clock he finds some labourers who have no work so he hires them for the last hour of the working day. At the end of the day the landowner tells his manager to pay the labourers, starting with the last to be hired and going to the first. They all receive the same wage. But surely that’s unjust? But the landowner decides in his generosity that he will pay the first labourers what was agreed, but those who were hired last will receive the same amount.

I’d like to reflect this morning on three lessons we might draw from Jesus’ parable about the kingdom of heaven and our relation to God. The first two lessons concern the immediate setting and concern of St. Mathew’s gospel.

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Matthew and his gospel is often known as the Jewish gospel. Whereas Mark and Luke were written for Gentile – that is, non-Jewish – communities, we think that Matthew wrote his gospel for Jews who were recognising Jesus as the Messiah spoken of in the Jewish scriptures, our Old Testament. One of the big disputes amongst early Christians was this: is Jesus, a descendent of King David, a Messiah only for the Jews, or is Jesus a Messiah also for the Gentiles, for all the nations?  The early Christians, largely under the influence of St. Paul, concluded that Jesus is the Messiah for Jews and Gentiles, for all people. But the early Jewish Christians grumble: they were God’s ancient people, first called under Abraham to be God’s people, led by Moses to the promised land. They’ve been labouring in the vineyard of the Lord for generations and generations. Then these Gentiles come along late in the day. Are they to receive the same grace as the children of Abraham, even though these Gentiles have laboured for such a short time? So the grumbling labourers in Jesus’ parable who have laboured all day are the Jewish Christians, God’s ancient people, and the labourers who arrive late in the vineyard are the Gentiles now coming to faith in Christ. But they all receive the same grace of God, the same salvation.

The second lesson from this parable concerns the justice and generosity of God. God is not bound by our sense of what is right or what the job market demands. God is not mean or unjust to those who laboured from the beginning of the day – they were paid the agreed amount – but generous to those who came late to the vineyard. That should not provoke our envy and anger, but our joy and thanksgiving. All are received into the kingdom of heaven with the same abundant grace.

The third lesson I’d like to draw from Jesus’ parable requires us to shift our attention. When we read the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, we usually focus on the labourers and how much they are paid. But let’s also pay attention to the labour itself. If we are to interpret Jesus’ parable to mean that God is the landowner, he is sending labourers into his vineyard, into the harvest. Already, to be called to labour in the vineyard of the Lord – the vineyard in which justice, mercy, peace and love are the harvest – this is already a gracious blessing. It’s the idea of labouring in the vineyard of the Lord for the harvest of the Kingdom that I’d like to reflect on for a moment. To do that, I’d like to take a look at what’s been in the news over the last week. We’ll come back to Jesus’ parable in just a moment.

Over the last week, we’ve heard a lot about Artificial Intelligence. The billionaire leaders of the major tech companies have warned about the dangers of AI. The King convened a summit this week in which he warned of the ‘existential dangers’ posed by the technology falling into the wrong hands. Donald Trump said that all this doom-mongering is a hoax, but I’m sure he’s particularly interested in preserving the value of tech stocks in the run-up to the midterm elections in the US.

It seems that we fell in love with AI some time ago, beguiled by its ability to mimic human consciousness and intelligence – it looks like us to the extent that we wonder whether there is someone, not just something, behind the screen. We’re captivated by AI’s potential in medicine and industry but now worried about AI’s risks if it ‘goes rogue’. Can we put in guard rails? Could there be a kill switch? “No”, say the tech companies, “let us self-regulate”. I don’t find that entirely reassuring.

There’s a very long history of human beings falling in love with the things we make – think of everything from the golden calf in Exodus to Pygmalion in ancient Greek myth, who fell in love with a statue he made, to Dr Frankenstein’s monster. How are we to handle this latest and most powerful of our creations, machines that appear to display learning and intelligence?

AI will bring some dramatic changes in human society over the next generation. One of the most important concerns human labour. AI may take the place of human workers in a number of industries, performing tasks at unimaginable speed with incredible efficiency. Surely that’s a good thing – replace inefficient human labour. That’s got to be a driver for economic growth.

But this might make us stop and think more deeply about human dignity and human labour and whether efficiency should always our principal goal. In modern capitalist societies, efficiency – doing more with less – is an irresistible idea. In his encyclical letter on this topic, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, Pope Leo writes this:

"When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion."

Human beings are not a project to be optimised through AI. Beyond mere efficiency, there are goods that come from human labour that are part of our dignity and value – goods of relationship, communion, and fulfilment. When we think of ‘labour’, we shouldn’t think only of the work we’re paid to do, but the labour that goes into raising children and building a family, the work of building communities like Durham Cathedral, the labour of a craft such as musicianship, or the work of prayer. In our first lesson and in many of his letters, Paul writes of himself as a fruitful labourer for the Lord. The goods of relationship and communion that come from human labour cannot be optimised by AI, as if we could outsource our praying to ChatGPT and thereby make the cathedral more efficient – get rid of a couple of residentiary canons, for example.

We’re going to be considering the critical issue of AI and the human person at the next Durham Cathedral Institute debate on 28th October with two outstanding expert speakers, Carmody Grey and Iain McGilchrist. Please do come along – details are on the cathedral web site. For now, let me conclude with this reflection. In Jesus’ parable of the labourers in the vineyard, the labour is a good in itself and cannot be measured by money. The labourers, whether they came early or late, receive the pay they need. If the landowner wanted to be efficient in mere market terms, he would pay less to the labourers who came last. But he doesn’t, because the collective labour of the human community in the vineyard of the Lord brings a harvest that cannot be measured in terms of market efficiency driven by technology. Such is the dignity of human labour that in so many ways brings the harvest of the kingdom. Whether you’re a teacher or accountant, an academic, cleaner, medic or volunteer in the cathedral or elsewhere, whether you’re a parent, carer, musician, verger or someone whose daily labour is prayer, God gives us what we need, inspires and directs our labour, and welcomes us into his kingdom. He welcomes us all with the same grace, a grace that passes all our understanding, for in him is eternal life and light.