The sermon opens with the parable of the workers in the vineyard: the master hires laborers at different hours of the day but pays each one the same, generous wage. That parable frames a broader look at ‘social justice’ as a modern idea — tracing its roots through the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, and movements like egalitarianism — and asks whether any human justice system can be called truly just.
Man’s justice, however well-intentioned, is not the same as righteousness — a system built on human standards can look fair to people and still be unjust in the sight of God. God’s justice, by contrast, is described through equal regard for the poor, the needy, minorities, laborers and servants, and even one’s enemies. The sermon closes by summing up God’s justice as something no human ideology fully captures, because it flows from His own character rather than from any social theory.