parable – The Rev. Eric Mancil

Come to the Table

A Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23, Year A)
October 11, 2026

Text: Matthew 22:1-14

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the vows I made at my ordination to the priesthood was to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church. What that means is that, when it comes to planning worship, I tend to keep things pretty traditional.

That will come as no surprise to most of you!

Almost every part of our worship at St. Mary’s comes directly from The Book of Common Prayer or some other approved resource.

But, on occasion, I like to shake things up a little bit.

For example, while I was serving at my previous parish in Alabaster, one of the things I started doing was adding a special invitation right before the Eucharistic Prayer.

It was something I had seen done before at other churches. So, I decided to give it a try.

And people really liked it.

In fact, on more than one occasion, people who were new to the church made a point of coming up to me and telling me how much that part of the service meant to them.

Now, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “Well, technically, I’m not really supposed to be doing this since it’s not in the Prayer Book.”

But I was glad they found it meaningful. And more than that, I was glad it made them feel more welcome. Because that was the whole reason I started doing it in the first place.

Each week, after the Table had been set and I stood at the altar preparing to lead the Eucharistic Prayer, I would speak these words to the congregation:

This is the Table, not of the Church, but of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love God and who want to love God more.

So, come, you who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.

Come, not because the Church invites you. It is our Lord Jesus who invites you to be known and fed here.

Now, I do have a confession to make.

The Bishop of Alabama at the time made her annual visit one Sunday, and I made sure she was aware of this extra part of the service so she would know what to expect.

But…I might’ve gotten in a little bit of trouble for it.

She wasn’t upset, exactly, but she did question me about it and wanted to know why I added something to the liturgy that wasn’t in the Prayer Book.

And my answer was pretty simple.

I wanted everyone in that church to know that, no matter where they were in their lives or what they were going through, there was a place for them at the Table.

I wanted them to know that they didn’t have to have everything figured out. They didn’t have to have perfect faith. They didn’t have to pretend to be something they weren’t.

Because the invitation wasn’t coming from me or even from the Church.

It was coming from Jesus.

Jesus was the one inviting them to come to the Table—to receive his grace and to take part in his life.

And I still believe that.

That invitation—to come to the Table, to take part in what God is doing in the world through Jesus—is really at the heart of what our Gospel lesson this morning is all about.

It picks up right after last week’s Gospel, where we heard the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.

Jesus has already entered Jerusalem. He’s already gone into the temple and upset the religious leaders.

He’s in the final days of his earthly life, and he’s challenging those who believe they already belong to God’s Kingdom to consider what it actually means to respond faithfully to God’s invitation.

So he tells them another parable.

It begins with a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son. When everything is ready, he sends his servants to call those who’ve been invited.

But they refuse to come.

So, the king sends even more servants, and this time the response is even worse.

Some of the people who were invited make light of the invitation and continue to go about their daily work. Others mistreat and even kill the king’s servants.

The king becomes furious, and the story takes a violent turn. He sends his troops to destroy those responsible and burn their city.

But the banquet is still ready.

And the king still wants the wedding hall to be filled.

So, he sends his servants out into the streets with instructions to invite everyone they can find.

And that’s exactly what they do.

They gather everyone, both the good and the bad, until the wedding hall is filled with guests.

That’s an important detail.

These weren’t necessarily the people anyone would’ve expected to find at a royal banquet.

They hadn’t done anything special to deserve a place at the king’s table.

But the king invited them anyway.

I think that’s a wonderful image of God’s grace.

It’s open to everyone.

But then the story takes another turn.

When the king enters the banquet hall and sees all the guests, he notices a man who isn’t wearing a wedding garment—which was something that probably would’ve been expected at a royal wedding.

He asks him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?”

The man is speechless.

And the king orders him to be bound and thrown into the outer darkness.

That’s a pretty harsh ending to a story that began with such a wonderful invitation.

And I don’t think we should gloss over it. Actually, I think we should pay close attention.

It’s easy to hear the Parable of the Wedding Banquet and get overwhelmed by some of the details—especially toward the end of the story.

But, I don’t think Jesus is trying to scare us or intimidate us. And I don’t think the point of the story is that God is waiting for us to mess up or make a mistake so he can cast us out.

After all, the servants were told to invite everyone they could find— both the good and the bad.

The people at the wedding banquet weren’t there because they were perfect or because they had done anything to earn a place there.

They were there because the king wanted them the be there.

So, what are we supposed to make of this man without the wedding garment?

One possibility—and I think it’s a strong one—is that, throughout Scripture, clothing is often used as an image of the new life we’re called to live as followers of Jesus.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes:

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”

And then he goes on to say, “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

I think that’s a helpful way to think about the wedding garment.

In fact, St. Augustine, one of the great theologians of the early Church, preached a sermon on this very parable in which he suggested that the wedding garment actually represents love.

Not being perfect all the time or having all the answers.

But love.

Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to understand about the man who showed up without a wedding robe.

He had accepted the king’s invitation. He had taken his place at the banquet. But he wasn’t prepared for what that invitation truly meant.

Because accepting God’s invitation means more than simply showing up at the banquet.

It means allowing ourselves to be transformed by the love of the One who invited us.

And that transformation isn’t something we can accomplish on our own. It’s something God works within us through grace as we learn to follow Jesus.

So if we take nothing else away from this parable, we should remember this: the Christian way of life isn’t passive.

When we promise to follow Jesus, we’re committing ourselves to a new way of life—a life shaped by compassion, kindness, forgiveness, humility, and, above all, love.

That love isn’t just something we talk about on Sunday mornings.

It shapes the way we care for one another and the way we participate in God’s work of healing and reconciliation in the world.

God doesn’t simply invite us to come to the Table to take up space.

God invites us to lay down our lives and be transformed in the process.

And I think that’s especially important for us to remember when we gather around this Table each Sunday.

When we come to the Eucharist, we’re doing more than simply remembering something Jesus did a long time ago.

We receive the grace of God that nourishes us and transforms us into the people God has called us to be.

St. Augustine, who I mentioned a moment ago, once preached a sermon about the Eucharist in which he reminded Christians that, when we receive the Body of Christ, we’re also being called to become what we receive.

Each of us belongs to the Body of Christ, and together, as the Church, we’re called to embody Christ’s presence in the world.

Every time we come to this Table, we’re reminded that the life of Christ is meant to shape our own lives—in the way we love, the way we serve, and the way we care for one another.

We don’t come just to receive something for ourselves.

We come because we need God’s grace to help us live more like Jesus.

God doesn’t just invite us to take a seat at the Table.

God invites us to share in his very life.

So, as we prepare to gather around this Table once again, I want you to hear those words one more time and take them to heart:

This is the Table, not of the Church, but of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love God and who want to love God more.

So, come, you who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.

Come, not because the Church invites you. It is our Lord Jesus who invites you to be known and fed here.

Amen.

Leave No Trace

A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22, Year A)
and A Liturgy for the Care of God’s Creation
October 4, 2026

Text: Matthew 21:33-46

Growing up in Enterprise, one of the most formative and memorable experiences of my childhood was participating in Boy Scouts.

I started as a Cub Scout in first grade and continued in Scouting all the way through high school, eventually earning the rank of Eagle Scout, which is one of my proudest achievements.

I have my parents to thank for that! They encouraged me to keep going when it would’ve been much easier to give it up and focus on other things.

During those years, I learned so many valuable lessons about how to be a good and responsible citizen and helpful skills that I carried with me into adulthood.

One of my favorite activities in Scouting was getting to go camping on the weekends and learning all the skills that went along with camping. We went to places like Lake Jackson down in Florala and St. Andrew’s Bay in Panama City. And of course, we spent a lot of time at our local scout camp in New Brockton—Camp Alaflo.

One of the things we learned early on as we were learning how to be responsible campers was a rule called “Leave No Trace.” Basically, it meant that when you left a campsite, you should leave no trace that you were ever there. And not only that, it meant that you were supposed to leave it better than the way you found it.

One of the ways we practiced that was at the end of every camping trip. After everyone had packed up their tents and we were ready to leave, we would all form a long line, standing shoulder to shoulder.

Then, we would walk across the campsite together, almost like a long police line. When we came across a piece of trash in our path, we would pick it up and throw it away. We would sweep back and forth across the entire campsite, making sure there was no trash left behind. And it didn’t matter whether or not we were the ones who put it there. We picked it up anyway.

That experience of learning how to be a responsible camper instilled in me a respect for the earth and for God’s creation. It probably explains why, even today, it makes my blood boil when I see someone throw trash out of a car window or when I see trash scattered along the side of the road.

It makes me upset because it means that someone had such little care and regard for the earth that they couldn’t take the time to throw away their trash where it belongs.

Those experiences in Scouting instilled in me a reverence for the earth, long before I ever had a way to put it into spiritual or theological language.

By learning to “leave no trace” and to clean up after ourselves, we were learning to care for something much bigger than ourselves so that the people who came after us could also enjoy its beauty. We were learning to think not only about ourselves, but about those who would come after us.

And on a spiritual level, we were learning to tend and care for something God had given us—not to use it just for our own purposes, but to be good stewards of God’s great gift of creation.

Because the earth is not a garbage can—and it’s not ours to do with as we please. The earth and all of God’s creation have been entrusted into our care—not to use however we want or to expend all of its natural resources for our own benefit.

When we read in the story of Creation that humanity has been given dominion over the earth and its creatures, that doesn’t mean we get to use everything frivolously or however we please.

It means practicing good stewardship and taking great care of that which God has given us.

Stewardship is really at the heart of our Gospel reading for this morning.

Jesus tells a story to some religious leaders about a landowner who planted a vineyard.

He put a fence around it, dug a winepress, and built a watchtower. The landowner did everything necessary to prepare the ground and create a vineyard that could produce good fruit.

But then he entrusted that vineyard to tenants. He leased them the land to care for while he went away to another country.

When the time for the harvest came, the landowner sent his servants to the tenants to collect the produce that belonged to him.

But the tenants began to act as though everything belonged to them.

They abused and killed the landowner’s servants. And eventually, when the landowner sent his own son, they killed him too, thinking that if they killed the heir, they could keep the inheritance for themselves.

At the end of the parable, Jesus asks the religious leaders what the landowner will do when he comes.

And they answer that he will put those tenants to death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.

Jesus then tells them that the Kingdom of God will be given to a people who produce the fruits of the Kingdom.

And when the religious leaders hear this, they realize that Jesus is talking about them.

This story is a warning from Jesus about what happens when we’re unfaithful to the work God that has called us to do.

Just like the landowner, God calls his people to work for the building up of his Kingdom on earth, and part of that work means taking care of all the many gifts God has given us.

It also means remembering that everything we’ve been given comes from God and that nothing actually belongs to us.

The tenants’ mistake was that they began to treat something entrusted to them as though it belonged to them, which is why this parable is a great lesson about stewardship.

It invites us to consider what we’ll do with what God has given us to take care of.

Part of our calling as builders of God’s Kingdom is to care for God’s creation—to be good stewards of the gifts and natural resources God has given us.

If we read this parable through the lens of creation care, then it becomes a call to care for the environment and for all the creatures of the earth.

They are not ours to squander.

They are not ours to do with as we please.

They’ve been entrusted to us to tend and care for, just as God intended from the very beginning.

As I was writing my sermon for this morning, I came across a commentary about this Gospel reading that talked about two very different economies at work.

There’s an economy of domination, and there’s an economy of grace.

The economy of domination says that the things entrusted to us are expendable. If something benefits us, we can take it and use it however we want. We can consume it. We can take from it until there’s nothing left.

But that’s not the economy of God.

The economy of God is one of grace, and grace begins by recognizing that everything we have is a gift from God. And because it’s a gift, it isn’t meant to be hoarded or used only for ourselves. It’s something to be received with gratitude, cared for faithfully, and shared with others.

As human beings, we’ve learned to live in a world that often thinks of creation as expendable for our own benefit. But we have to learn to think about creation, not through dominance, but through grace.

Practicing good stewardship of God’s creation isn’t just about what we’ve been given.

It’s also about how we use it.

It’s about what kind of world we want to live in and what kind of world we want to leave behind for those who come after us.

Our decisions—even some of the smallest ones—can make a difference.

From September 1 to today, we’ve been observing the “Season of Creation.” This is a relatively new observance in the life of the Church, and it’s not just for Episcopalians.

Christians from many different denominations around the world have begun setting aside this season each year as an intentional time to think about God’s creation and the responsibility God has given us to care for it.

It gives us an opportunity to think about what it actually means to practice good stewardship of the earth and its resources.

It gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves, “Will we be good stewards of what God has entrusted into our care?”

Or, will we be like the wicked tenants in Jesus’ parable and treat God’s gifts as though they belong entirely to us, to use and abuse for our own benefit?

There are big questions right now about the work of creation care and our impact in the environment, and many of them can feel far beyond anything we can do as individuals.

But there are things we can do right here, in our own lives and in our own community.

They can be as simple as turning off the lights when we leave a room.

Or turning off the water instead of allowing it to run.

Taking the time to recycle things that can be recycled.

Picking up a piece of trash when we see it lying beside the road—even when we weren’t the ones who put it there.

Volunteering in the Good News Garden at church.

These may seem like small things.

But they’re everyday acts of stewardship.

Or, we may feel called to get even more involved and find even bigger ways to work for the care of creation.

All of these are ways of remembering that what we’ve been given is not just ours to consume. It’s been entrusted to us by God.

That’s what I first began learning all those years ago as a Boy Scout, walking shoulder to shoulder across a campsite and picking up trash that wasn’t even ours.

We were learning to leave something better than than the way we found it.

We were learning to think about the people who would come after us—not just ourselves.

And without realizing it, we were learning something about stewardship and how to care for a gift that we neither earned nor deserved.

May we all learn to do the same.

Let us pray:

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A Place In the Vineyard

A Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20, Year A)
September 20, 2026

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

There are some parables of Jesus that are easier for us to hear than others. We understand what Jesus is trying to teach us, and we’re right there with him.

And then there are parables like the one we hear this morning that make us a little uncomfortable.

Because if we’re being honest, there’s something about this story that doesn’t seem quite fair.

Jesus tells his disciples about a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire people to work in his vineyard. He finds some workers, agrees to pay them the usual daily wage, and sends them out to work.

A few hours later—around nine o’clock—he goes out again and finds more people who need work. So he sends them into the vineyard, too.

Then he goes out again at noon.

And again at three.

And then again—around five o’clock—he goes out when there’s hardly any time left in the work day.

Each time he goes out, he finds people who haven’t been hired yet, and he says basically the same thing: “You also go into the vineyard.”

Then, at the end of the day, the landowner gathers all the workers together and pays them.

And that’s when things get interesting.

The people who arrived at five o’clock—who had only worked for about an hour—receive a full day’s wage.

So naturally, the people who’ve been there the longest get excited. They probably think to themselves, “If they got that much, imagine what we’re going to get.”

But when their turn comes, they receive the same amount as everyone else. And they’re not happy about it.

And I have to admit, I understand where they’re coming from.

They worked all day. They did most of the work. And these other people showed up at the last minute and received exactly the same thing.

It doesn’t seem fair, does it?

But I wonder if sometimes we get so focused on the workers in this story—who worked the longest and who received what—that we miss out on the person Jesus really wants us to notice.

That’s the landowner.

There’s something remarkable going on with the landowner.

He doesn’t just go out once looking for workers.

He goes out again and again looking for people to work in the vineyard.

And if we see the landowner as an image of God, then maybe Jesus is trying to tell us something important about who God is.

God never stops calling people into the vineyard. God never stops calling people to follow the way of Jesus and to work for the building up of his kingdom.

That invitation began a long time ago.

Jesus called disciples like Peter and Andrew and James and John.

“Follow me,” he said, and they did.

Then eventually, others joined them.

Then more came after that.

And through the centuries, generations of Christians have followed.

Until finally—somewhere along the way—someone told us about Jesus and invited us to follow.

The same thing is true about St. Mary’s.

None of us started this church. None of us started the work that God has been doing here since the 1940s.

Generations of people were worshiping and praying and loving their neighbors through this parish long before most of us ever walked through those doors.

Some of you have been part of St. Mary’s for decades.

Others have only been here a short time.

But every one of us stepped into something that was already happening long before we arrived.

And one day, our chapter in the story of St. Mary’s will be over.

Someone else will sit in our pew.

Someone else will serve at the altar.

Someone else will prepare the meals and teach the children and visit the sick and sing in the choir and serve on the vestry and do all the other things that make up the life and ministry of this parish.

Because, like I mentioned in my sermon last week, this church doesn’t belong to us.

It belongs to God.

And part of our responsibility here is to make room for the people who will come after us—to invite others to join us in ministry.

As your priest, I see it all the time.

I’ve watched people come into this community who were new and weren’t quite sure where they fit in or what they had to offer.

And then someone invited them to get involved.

Maybe they stopped at a table during a Ministry Fair. Or maybe they had a conversation with someone who was already involved in a ministry and that person said, “Come and join us.”

And they started to notice that they had gifts to offer as well.

They found things they enjoyed doing and formed relationships with new friends.

And before long, they weren’t simply attending St. Mary’s anymore.

They had become part of the ministry of this church.

Sometimes all it takes is an invitation.

That’s what the landowner does in our parable this morning.

He goes out. He meets people who are looking for work. And he says: “You also go into the vineyard.”

There’s a place for you here.

I think that’s something we all need to hear.

Because sometimes we assume ministry is for other people.

It’s for the people who’ve been here the longest or the people who already know how everything works.

Or maybe we think ministry is only for the people who have their lives figured out or people who are more faithful than we are.

But if you don’t hear anything else from my sermon this morning, please hear this: there is no pre-requisite for serving God.

God meets us where we are and calls us all to work in the vineyard.

Whether you’ve been here thirty years or thirty minutes, there’s a place for you at St. Mary’s to discover how God is calling you to serve.

But, of course, that still leaves us with the uncomfortable part of Jesus’ story. Because at the end of the day, everyone gets paid the same.

And the people who’ve worked the longest don’t like it.

But we should remember something about the beginning of the story. The landowner hasn’t cheated anyone.

He gives them exactly what he promised. Their problem isn’t really with what they received. It’s what everyone else received.

They see the landowner’s generosity toward those who arrived later, and suddenly what seemed fair that morning no longer seems fair at all.

In this story, Jesus isn’t talking about wages. He’s talking about grace.

Because grace isn’t something God gives us according to how much we deserve or how much we try to earn.

Grace isn’t a paycheck for doing hard work.

It’s a gift.

We don’t accumulate more of God’s love because we’ve been Christians longer or because we’ve served on more committees or volunteered more of our time or given more money.

God’s grace is freely given.

And that means the work we do can never be transactional.

We don’t serve God so that God will love us more. We serve because God already loves us more than we can possibly imagine.

We don’t serve in order to earn God’s grace. We serve because we’ve already received it.

That’s why everything we do in service to God and others—whether it’s volunteering our time at Rice and Beans or serving in worship on Sunday morning—should be done with a spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Later this morning, after worship, we’ll be having our annual Ministry Fair.

When you walk into the Parish Hall, you’ll see tables and displays set up around the room representing many of the different ministries that make up the life of our church.

And yes, there will be opportunities to sign up and volunteer.

But what I hope you’ll see this morning at the Ministry Fair is something more than just a recruitment drive.

I hope you’ll see it as a sign that ministry is happening all the time here at church, and there are so many opportunities to serve.

Because church is more than just what happens here on Sunday mornings. We don’t come here one a week, spend an hour with God, and then put our faith away until next Sunday.

What we do here prepares us for what we do out there.

We hear the Word of God. We pray. We confess our sins. We gather around the table and receive the Body and Blood of Christ. And then we’re sent out.

Ministry doesn’t end on Sunday mornings. It’s where ministry begins.

There are plenty of ways to serve God during worship, and all of that’s important. But the ministry of this church continues throughout the week.

It happens when hungry people are fed or when someone who is sick or homebound receives a visit.

It happens when children and young people learn about the love of God and are reminded that God is always with them.

Ministry happens when someone prepares a meal or washes dishes.

It happens when people gather to make prayer shawls or when people donate coats and blankets for those in need.

All of that is ministry.

So when you walk into the Parish Hall this morning and see all those tables set up, I want you to think about our Gospel lesson for this morning.

Every table—every display—represents some little corner of the vineyard that God is calling us to tend.

And the invitation is open to everyone: “Come and join us.”

Come and see what God is doing in and through this church.

Come and discover the gifts God has given you.

Come and find your place in ministry.

Or maybe you’re already involved in several ministries and your call for today is to invite someone new to join us in the work that God has given us to do.

That’s what the landowner does.

Early in the morning, he goes out and looks for people to tend the vineyard. And then again and again, he goes out. Still looking, still inviting.

Because there’s still work to be done.

There are still people to be welcomed.

There are still gifts waiting to be discovered.

That invitation began long before us and will continue long after we’re gone.

But for this moment, this is our part of the vineyard—our part of God’s Kingdom—to tend.

So whether you’ve been here for decades or you’re brand new to our church, hear the invitation again:

God is calling people to work in the vineyard.

And there’s room for you, too.

Amen.