This parable of the vineyard labourers is very provocative for most of us. (Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 20 [25] Matthew 20:1-16.) On the one hand we know that we depend on the mercy and generosity of God (or at least did at some point in time) but we are not comfortable about others (who we think don’t deserve it) receiving equal measures of graciousness!?! Many of us, like the complaining Israelites or Jonah, are a little or a lot upset at the thought of those