“Is God Fair?”
Matthew 20:1-16
Plenty of people work hard but never get what they feel they deserve.
Plenty of people are incredibly decent human beings but always seem to get the short end of the stick.
How many of us, as children, were cautioned with the self-evident truth that “life’s not fair?”
It’s a hard lesson, but it’s one we have all learned, usually before we got out of kindergarten.
As adults, we are surrounded by evidence that life is not fair.
In our ten to twenty-year-old cars, we drive past multi-million-dollar homes with pristine lawns and ridiculously expensive sports cars parked in the driveway.
We see people throwing money around as if it were confetti, while others struggle to pay the doctor’s bills, keep food on the table, and even a roof over their heads.
We see those who flaunt the law yet get off scot-free, and we see others who are innocent yet are punished unjustly.
Life just is not fair.
(pause)
Now, let’s be honest.
When we were reading the parable for this morning, did our hearts leap for joy?
Were we thrilled when we heard that the workers who’d worked hard all day in the hot sun were going to get the same pay as those who worked only one hour?
This parable runs against the grain of one of our most deeply cherished values: the value of hard work and just reward.
The more you work and the more productive you are, the more you ought to get paid.
I don’t know many people who disagree with that, do you?
And this is the complaint of the people in the parable who worked all day: “Those who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made THEM equal to US who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
This parable gives rise to one of the most primitive cries we had in childhood, when one sibling gets something that we wanted, the one who feels cheated screams: “But that’s not fair!”
But before we dismiss this parable and put it back on the shelf marked: “Bible passages not to be taken seriously,” let’s consider the possibility that there is something to be learned here after-all and that what’s going on in this parable is nothing less than a battle between human justice and God’s justice—a battle between our will and God’s will—and that, even though we say, “We just want to get what we deserve,” what we most want and need is something much, much greater!!!
The story is told of Yogi Berra, a professional baseball player who played 18 seasons with the New York Yankees.
When the Yankees were at their peak and were negotiating contracts for the next year, a group of reporters interviewed players as they came out of the owner’s office, and one of them asked Yogi Berra about the terms of his contract.
Berra said, “I’m going to play baseball again next year for the Yankees, and would you believe it, they’re gonna pay me besides!”
If the workers who’d worked all day had this attitude about their work, they wouldn’t have resented the people who got to work only one hour.
Another problem with the disgruntled workers in this parable is that they lack a healthy sense of gratitude.
Think about it.
Have you ever been out of work?
Have you ever applied for a job and gotten turned down?
It’s no fun, is it?
Can you remember how grateful you were when you got a call offering you a job that you needed really badly?
What happens to that feeling of gratitude once you’re on the job for a while and the “new” wears off?
Isn’t that when we start to complain and find fault?
Those who are grateful to be employed have little to complain about.
It’s when gratitude gives way to the routine that we become disgruntled, and start to envy those who seem to have it better.
There’s something else about gratitude: It keeps us humble when we stop and consider those who are less fortunate.
You know the old saying, “I complained because I had no shoes until I met someone who had no feet.”
The same holds true for those of us who are able to buy groceries and pay our bills.
There are lots of people who can’t do these things.
The more we realize how blessed we are, the more we are able to look upon the less fortunate with compassion rather than resentment.
This brings up an interesting aspect of this parable to consider.
Those who were hired to work at five-O’clock had been left standing around all day worrying about how they were going to feed themselves and their families.
Perhaps they weren’t standing around because they didn’t want to work, but because they were the least fit to work.
These people who were “standing in the marketplace doing nothing” were day laborers.
And the way that works is the people gather in a certain place to hire themselves out for the day.
Folks who need day laborers come by and pick up the people they need.
Invariably what happens is that the younger, stronger, and more aggressive people get hired first.
By midmorning, all the people left milling around are the undesirables—those who were too old, too frail, too crippled or too mentally incompetent to be hired.
In the parable for today, God’s justice is that everyone got to work, and everyone was given the earnings they needed to feed themselves and their families.
The unfairness of their differing hours of work was offset by the unfairness of their various strengths and abilities.
And this is God’s way of doing things, not that we get what we deserve, but that we get what we need.
But perhaps this parable is even fairer still.
Maybe there’s another level to all this.
When reading this parable, most of us probably naturally think it is a better deal to work one hour for a full day’s wages than to work all day for the same amount.
But those who have sent in a zillion resumes, or filled out hundreds of job applications and are still waiting for someone to call know otherwise.
It is soul-killing to wait and wonder and hope.
It is soul-killing to have our destiny controlled by someone else whose name we don’t know.
It is soul-killing to wonder if we will be able to buy groceries for the dinner table.
It’s far better to sweat in the hot sun all day, secure in the knowledge that we will be able to feed our family that night.
And so, let’s ask ourselves is it better to live most of our lives without Christ—without faith—without prayer—without hope—and to pay the cost of discipleship only in our last days?
To imagine that those who say “yes” to Christ on their deathbed have struck a better “deal” suggests that we don’t really value our relationship with Christ—that we value the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow rather than the joy of knowing Jesus.
It’s like valuing a piece of art only for its price tag—and failing to appreciate the way that it enriches our life.
Yes, the irony of this parable is that when it comes to experiencing God’s grace, those who grasp it early in life, or first, are indeed the more blessed.
How much greater a gift is it to live a life in, with, and through Christ?
How much better is it to live a life with hope and love from an early age than to realize you need Christ only on your deathbed after a lifetime of loneliness and despair?
Isn’t it wonderful that Christianity knows nothing of the concept of superiority?
The world says, “You get what you deserve!”
In God’s Kingdom, “We all get what we don’t deserve.”
Again, though, we all get what we need.
Of course, in this parable, God is the landowner and we are the people waiting to be hired.
The idea of salvation coming to us free of charge, with no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct we have, and that is because we live in a world of ungrace—a world where life isn’t fair.
But God is Fair.
He loves us all equally.
He searches each of us out.
He died for us all.
There’s a play by Timothy Thompson based on this parable in which he depicts two brothers vying for work.
John is strong and capable.
Philip is just as willing but has lost a hand in an accident.
When the landowner comes, John is taken in the first wave of workers, and as he works in the field he looks up the lane for some sign of Philip.
Other workers are brought to the field, but Philip is not among them.
John is grateful to have the work, but he feels empty knowing that Philip is just as needy as he.
Finally, the last group of workers arrive and Philip is among them.
John is relieved to know that Philip will get to work at least one hour.
But as the drama unfolds, and those who came last get paid a full day’s wages, John rejoices, knowing that Philip—his brother—will have the money he needs to feed his family.
When it comes to his turn to stand before the landowner and receive his pay, instead of complaining as the others, John throws out his hand and says with tears in his eyes, “Thank you, Lord, for what you have done for us today!”
Why does Jesus tell this parable?
If we look back at Chapter 19 we will see that the disciples ask Jesus, “Who then can be saved?”
And Jesus answers, with humans this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
…But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard…”
God’s grace is beyond what we can fathom.
God’s love is beyond comprehension.
Life is hard.
It’s unfair.
It can be extremely cruel and unforgiving.
But God is not like that.
If you are still standing around in the marketplace without Christ, He is still looking for workers in His vineyard.
No matter your age or what you have done with your life, He wants you to come and be part of His Kingdom.
The work is not easy, but it is more rewarding than anything else in the entire universe.
For God is generous and He loves you.
Can we all say together, “Thank you Lord for what you have done for us!!!”
Praise God.
Amen.
