The Kindom is Not a Zero-Sum Game

Posted on October 5, 2026 by marylbrandt

Although I follow my ancestors’ spiritual path, I have incredible respect for the varied traditional paths my friends follow…and for those who follow no specific spiritual tradition. This post, which is the text of a sermon I gave on Sunday, does not and should not imply anything beyond my desire to share… and to lift up love where ever we find it.

Merriam-Webster defines a zero sum game as “a situation in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose it.” It is human nature, particularly in Western civilization, that we live this way – that we view our work as a competition and resources as limited and finite. The message we get, over and over, is that there is only so much money (or other resources) available, which means we have to fight for our portion of that limited pie.

That’s a zero-sum game – which can also be summed up as “If you win, I lose.”

This idea, the concept of a “zero-sum game”, is everywhere. Because we live in a society of competition and individualism, we have what psychologists call a zero-sum bias… a tendency to view that this idea applies to other things, too. (For example, the idea that if we give women equal rights it will somehow diminish the rights of men.)

Which brings me to today’s gospel reading, Matthew 20:1-16.

I’ll remind you that the chapters and verses in Matthew were added a thousand years ago. The original text was one long story, not divided arbitrarily into chapters and verses, which means it is always important – and often helpful – to look at what precedes and follows any text we are wrestling with.

Three things happen just prior to our gospel text for today

Jesus blesses the children that the disciples want to send away
A rich young man wants to know how to get into heaven, and
Peter wants to know what he is going to get out of being a disciple

Blessing children (who have no power), telling a young man to give away all his money, and reassuring Peter he will get “everything” by having given up everything… that’s what precedes today’s gospel reading. After telling Peter that he will end up with “everything” because he gave up everything Jesus says this, the verse that immediately precedes today’s reading: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Today’s gospel lesson takes place towards the end of the 2-3 years of Jesus’ ministry. The Romans and Jewish authorities are increasingly worried about what Jesus is preaching. That’s why the text that immediately follows today’s passage is Jesus foretelling his death and resurrection – for the third time.

Today’s gospel text is a parable, and starts as many of them do like this: “The kindom of heaven is like…”

More than anything else, when we decide to follow Christ we are committing to do what we can to bring the kindom of heaven to earth… We actually pray those words every week when we pray the Lord’s Prayer together – so it’s particularly important that we understand what the kindom is like.

In today’s parable the Kindom of Heaven is like a landowner.

He’s a landowner who needs help in the vineyard, so he goes to the market at 6 in the morning and hires some workers. There is discussion about the pay and they all agree that they will be paid 1 denarius, which in today’s dollars would be about $150 dollars for the day, or about $15 per hour for 10 hours of work. (It shouldn’t escape your notice that $15 dollars an hour is twice what our minimum wage is today.)

Three hours later the landowner goes back to hire more people. Did he miscalculate the number of people he needed? Was there more work than he realized? We don’t know. There isn’t a negotiation about the pay this time – he just says “I’ll pay you what’s right.”

Then he goes back again, and again, and again. He makes 5 trips to the market, each about three hours apart. At this point we can assume this isn’t incompetence on his part… There’s some other motive here.

Five sets of workers who worked different lengths of time.

I’m pretty sure that other than the first group these workers expected they would be paid by the hour – that they would receive pay for the hours they worked, which would have been fair.

But that’s not what happened.

At the end of the day, they are paid in reverse order – the last ones hired are the first ones paid. It’s not hard to imagine what they felt when they were paid a full day’s wage for their 1 hour of work, when they realized they would be able to feed their families for several days, that no one would go hungry. We can assume they recognized this as generosity, praised God, and thanked the landowner.

The landowner goes sequentially, paying all the workers in reverse order until he gets to the first group – the ones he hired at 6 in the morning to work all day. And here’s where the zero-sum game kicks in. They are angry. There was a pool of money available for wages that day, a pool that had not been divided the way they thought it should. More specifically, they thought the low hour workers got more than they deserved, which meant they “lost” in this zero-sum game.

Jake Owensby describes the situation like this*

Finally the crew that had worked from sunup to sundown got to the payroll office. And they got the usual daily wage.

They were furious. “We worked all day and got the same thing as those slackers who only worked a fraction of the time. They don’t deserve that! We deserve more!”

The owner in essence says, “Deserving has nothing to do with it. This is about my generosity. I have enough for everybody to have enough. So I give it freely. Are you now dissatisfied with enough?”

The message is stunning, really. Enough will never be enough for me unless I want it for everybody else.

To be a follower of Christ means to love our neighbor with our actions, to deeply understand that justice is love out loud… But how do we actually do that? What practices do we need to embrace if we are serious about working to bring the kindom of God to Earth?

There are some practical lessons we can take from this parable – some of which are not so comfortable.

The workers who had worked all day were mad, but they had at least two other choices for how they could have responded. They could have simply not cared one way or another – they were paid fairly – it didn’t matter what happened to the rest of the workers. Or they could have been happy that their co-workers, their neighbors, people they surely knew, would now be able to go home and feed their family.

The kindom of God is like people who celebrate when those less fortunate are given unearned gifts that allow them to thrive.

The second practical lesson, the one that’s maybe not so comfortable, is about how we are supposed to act if we are the landowner in this story.

But before we go there, let me be clear that this parable is not about social structure or economic theory – as Amy-Jill Levine puts it “Jesus is neither a Marxist nor capitalist, rather he is both an idealist and a pragmatist… his focus is often less directly on good news to the poor than on responsibility of the rich.”

So what does this Parable tell us about the responsibility of the rich, of those who have more resources than others?

Ouch.

This is not an ambiguous message.

We are told that those who have resources should be agathos. That’s the Greek word that is translated as “generous” in Verse 15 of today’s reading: Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?

But it turns out that the word agathos means more than just being generous… It’s the most common Greek adjective for “good”, but it means much more than just good behavior. This is a deep, rich word that means “moral or intrinsic goodness, often with a sense of generosity or benefit towards others”. **

Which means verse 15 could be translated: Am I not allowed to do what I choose with my resources? Or are you envious because I am reflecting the true nature of our loving God by being generous towards those who have less than you do?

The kindom of God is like good people who do what they can to share what resources they have with others who have less, and who rejoice when everyone can thrive.

What this means for each of us will be different – Parables don’t come with detailed instructions! But as people with resources – which we all are – this lesson demands that we interrogate not just what we give, but how and why we give it.

This is echoed in today’s reading from second Corinthians as well, this idea of being intrinsically good, of giving to others in need not out of obligation but with true joy: “…for God loves a giver who gives cheerfully. There are no limits to the grace of God who will make sure you will always have enough of everything and even a surplus for good works…”

The kindom of God is not a zero-sum game.

No one has to lose in order for others to win.

The kindom of God is like friends, neighbors, congregations, and countries that finally understand that – Enough will never be enough for me unless I want it for everybody else.

Thy kindom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

Amen

Sermons are best listened to, rather than read. If you’d like to hear this one, it starts at 24:33 on this recording

*I mistakenly attributed this quote to Suzanne Guthrie in the sermon.

** The only use of AI (Claude) for this sermon.

With Our Own Eyes: A Sermon Preached on the Second Sunday of Easter

Posted on April 13, 2026 by marylbrandt

John 20:19-31

Last week, on the Monday after Easter, four human beings travelled around the moon in a spacecraft.

For the first time, the other side of the moon, the side that is always turned away from us, was seen.

Four human beings saw with their own eyes what humans had never seen before.

We don’t know the dates of Jesus’ birth or the events of his ministry. But there is one date we do know. Because what we call The Last Supper was a Passover seder… and that meant the moon was full, because in Jewish law, Passover always starts on the 15th day of the lunar month of Nisan, which is (in our hemisphere) the first full moon of Spring.

The Last Supper took place under a full moon.

The moon was full as Jesus prayed in the garden that night.

The moon was full as Roman soldiers took him away.

The moon was full when he was crucified.

And the moon still looked full three days later when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Peter and John ran with her back to the tomb and confirmed… the body of Jesus was gone.

Peter and John went to find the other disciples.

Mary stayed at the tomb… and wept.

Until…. two angels and then the risen Christ appeared and gently asked her why she was weeping.

Mary saw with her own eyes what humans had never seen before.

She ran to tell the disciples who, understandably, were besides themselves. Think about it – the man they loved and followed had been murdered. Angels had appeared? Jesus was raised from the dead? And all of this while Roman soldiers were looking for them to kill them.

The disciples were terrified. They didn’t witness the crucifixion. They were so afraid they fled to where they had last seen Jesus, the room where they had been together the night before … and they locked the door.

And then, even though the door was locked… Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Having said this, the savior showed them the marks of crucifixion.

The disciples saw with their own eyes what humans had never seen before.

They locked the door to protect themselves. In many translations of the Bible it says they locked the doors “for fear of the Jews” and it’s very, very important to understand the harm this translation has done. This text is used by many to support antisemitism, which is not only an abomination, it’s not the correct reading of the text. The disciples weren’t hiding from “the Jews”, they were hiding from those who wielded the power of oppression, those who had just executed their Messiah… Roman soldiers carrying out the orders of the empire and religious authorities who were profiting by their association with that power.

There was one disciple who wasn’t in the locked room, who didn’t see what the other disciples saw. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there, or why, after he was told what happened, he seemed to reject what his friends said. They told him they had seen Jesus, that they had seen the wounds – and Thomas responded, ”I’ll never believe it without putting my finger in the nail marks and my hand into the spear wound.”

Ressurection Chapel, Washington National Cathedral

This verse, the verse where Thomas says he needs to feel Christ’s wounds to believe, is often used to teach us that when it comes to our faith doubt is somehow a sign of weakness…but I don’t think that’s what this text is teaching us.

Because the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s certainty.

Certainty is what leads us to become religious leaders who align themselves with the empire.

Certainty teaches us that there are “others” who deserve less, who are less, and who even deserve to die.

Certainty closes us off from wonder, and awe, and the miraculous.

The gospel lesson for today isn’t about doubt… These words teach us that it’s not only ok to ask questions, it’s holy. We are supposed to wonder about our faith and our church, to question what others say. Peter Abelard, an important medieval theologian, said “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”

Or, as others have put it “Sincere inquiry leads to sincere faith.”

“By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”
peter abelard

Ten days ago I went to my in-law’s home to celebrate Passover. Once again, I was struck by the symbols of the Passover seder…a lamb shank, an egg, the green herbs of spring…symbols that are echoed in the celebration of Easter.

Before I married into a Jewish family, I was like almost every Christian I know… I didn’t understand Passover, what it means, how it is celebrated. I didn’t know that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. And, I didn’t know that for the first three centuries of the church the followers of Jesus broke bread, drank wine, and celebrated Christ’s resurrection under the full moon of Passover.

For three centuries the celebration of the liberation of all people through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was added to the celebration of the liberation of Jewish slaves in Egypt.

It wasn’t until the Council of Nicea in the year 325 that this officially changed. Emperor Constatine directed the church to break from Jewish tradition and the Jewish calendar. The Christian celebration of Passover (what we call Easter in English) was moved from the lunar Jewish calendar to the Gregorian calendar and to a Sunday… Specifically the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the Spring Equinox.

The Council of Nicaea by Michael Damaskinos, 1591.

That’s why Christians all over the world still use the word “Passover” for what we call Easter. In the Greek of the Bible and modern Greek it’s Pascha. … in French it’s Pacques, in Spanish it’s Pascua.

So how did we end up with “Easter” instead of “Passover”?

The Venerable Bede, a famous 7th century monk, was the first to describe how this happened: “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated as ‘Paschal month,’ and which was once called after a goddess of theirs [Germanic peoples] named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate the Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance” (De Temporum Ratione).

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t learn this in Sunday school.

The idea that we might be part of a thread of God’s plan that connects us directly to a Jewish ritual, a Germanic spring Goddess, and the moon weren’t part of the story of the very white, very American, mainstream Protestant tradition I grew up in.

But I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith. I delight in knowing that the creator of every molecule in the universe needed our ancestors to be part of that story, part of these connections… and that God still needs us to hold onto that thread, to help co-create and write new stories to heal the world and bring forth shalom, the kindom of God.

I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith.

Two days ago, the astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific ocean as they returned home from their voyage to the moon.

On Easter morning, Victor Glover shared this message as the crew of Artemis II approached the moon…

“When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos…In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together.” I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world —whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not — this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing. And that we got to get through this together.”