It Isn’t Fair
We are a culture obsessed with fairness. Whether you have kids, coworkers, friends, or a spouse, I’m almost positive you’ve heard, “But that’s not fair!” at least a couple of times even in the past week or two. When my pastor asked me to choose a parable to present, he asked me to try to do so without notes. What was my first thought?
“But that’s not fair! You’re setting me up for failure!”
Those who don’t know me might be shocked to hear I feel I’m a terrible public speaker. Maybe I am and I like to think I’m better than I perceive myself to be! I write for a living, so I feel much more comfortable writing out what I plan to say and then proceeding from there. I like to feel like I’m reading a story out loud to a group of people. After all, Jesus loved telling stories. So much so, that we have plenty of parables to choose from. I ended up selecting Matthew 20:1-16.
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
I think there are a few lessons that can be taken from this particular parable, but I’ll narrow it down to three.
All are equal in God’s eyes
In this parable, I interpret the “landowner” to be God. From the very start, we see He agrees to pay the “workers,” or in this case, believers, a denarius for the day’s work. That’s all there is to it — wage in exchange for labor. There’s no catch, no fine print, just do the work and get paid, simple as that. As the day goes on and the landowner looks for more workers, we see he says something a little different: “I will pay you whatever is right.”
We don’t get much more elaboration here. The only thing we know is that some people worked longer than others. We know nothing about the quality of the work they did. I don’t know about you, but in the time I’ve been in the working world, I’ve learned age and experience have little to do with the quality of work being turned out. Some people work more efficiently than others and can get more done faster than someone who may be a bit slower with technology.
So, when those hired first came to the front of the line and complained about receiving the same pay as those who hadn’t worked as long? Seems a bit like sour grapes to me. Of course, it goes back to the human longing for fairness. However, when we remove the emotion from this scenario, we see the landowner did nothing wrong. The workers got exactly what had been promised - nothing more, nothing less.
This world is inherently unfair. We are not owed fairness, nor does God promise this life we are given will be an easy one. What we are promised is we can take solace in Him when we deal with unfairness. It’s in the same book as this parable:
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)
In God's eyes, all individuals are equal and worthy of His grace, regardless of their past or present circumstances.
No matter what stage in our faith walk we are, we all receive the same reward in the end when we remain faithful
The trap life-long Christians fall into is one of pride. We know all the Bible stories by heart and can quote a few verses off the top of our heads. We’ve probably never known a life without Jesus in it, and perhaps our “salvation story” isn’t a big dramatic one. My pastor calls it “salvation envy” or something along those lines. I’d like to think the workers in this parable who started from the beginning are just like that.
As God, or the landowner, goes about and searches for other workers, we can interpret the various times, nine, noon, three, and five, as people who come to know the Lord at different points in their lives. They stop whatever else they are doing (or not doing) and come “work” in the field. By the end of the parable, we know regardless of how long they worked, they all receive the same reward.
I look at the reward as salvation, in this instance. One can live their whole life according to the Bible. You can go to church every Sunday, give to the poor, and work an honest job for 35+ years. But this doesn’t make you any better than the one whose heart is in everything they do, even if they give their heart to Jesus late in life.
We need to ask ourselves why this upsets us. Should we not be happy for those who have come to know how good God is? We may or may not know their backstory, or even think it’s unfair that “they did everything wrong, and I did everything by the book. So why are we receiving equal treatment?” But in this action, we see the “landowner” is even kind when rebuking the earliest workers for thinking this way. He calls them “friend” and gently explains why there is nothing unfair about the situation. He gives abundantly not to be unfair, but because he has the means to bless these workers financially.
The fact of the matter is salvation is for everyone. There is nothing we can do to deserve it more than the next person.
Romans 3: 22-24: 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been serving God - what matters is the heart and intention behind everything you do in His name.
The real reward is people come to know the kingdom of heaven
I think the verse that encapsulates the point Jesus is trying to make in this parable is something similar to what he says in Mark 2:17: “...It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The people who were already working in the field from the start were employed. They knew what they were working for, and weren’t ripped off at the end. They got what they were initially promised. What isn’t fair about this? It’s only because they turn their eyes away from the end result that they look at things from a selfish perspective.
When the landowner finds the group of people around five o'clock, he asks, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’” They reply, “‘Because no one has hired us.” I read this as “Because no one told us there was work to be done.” In other words, they hadn’t been told about Jesus. If they knew from the start, who’s to say they wouldn’t have worked the full day, or in this case, lived their whole lives better?
We need to stop judging and looking at things from a “what’s in it for us” point of view, and instead do something that will end in a better result for those who now want to be a part of the kingdom of heaven. Not only this, we should look at what we have received from God, be thankful for it, and then be ready to “share the wealth” in any way we can.
So now I ask you - how many times have you received treatment far better than what you deserved? We seem to have no problem when it’s us, but always complain when we compare. We desire mercy but become stingy when we are shown an opportunity to pay it forward. The next time we feel the words, “But that isn’t fair” itching to emerge, I want you to remember something - it wasn’t fair that Jesus had to suffer and die for our sins. And yet He never uttered this phrase.
Jesus said in Matthew 9:37, “...The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Any time we have people interested in hearing about the Kingdom, we should be more than happy to share, for the Good News we’ve reaped is far greater than a day's wages.
