09.22.02 - That’s Not Fair! (Matthew 20:1-16)

That’s Not Fair!
Matthew 20:1-16
September 22, 2002
St. John United Methodist Church
David Beckett, D.Min.

My mother was a teacher who loved to read to her class. One of her favorites was Judith Viorst's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Alexander awakens in the morning and says: I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. After a bad day at school and an even worse time with the dentist, Alexander continues his book of lamentations: Lima beans for dinner and I hate limas. There was kissing on TV and I hate kissing. My bath was too hot. I got soap in my eyes. . . I bit my tongue. The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think I'll move to Australia.

Do you ever have days like this? Days when nothing seems to go right, days when life appears to be unfair? There is a real possibility that one of these days is happening to you right now. But you enter this church building and put on your church smile and pretend that nothing is wrong.

With three teenagers in our home there is not a week that goes by without someone yelling, "That’s not fair!" Children seem to be especially sensitive to perceived injustices when they are on the short end of the fairness stick. This is easy to understand. From the moment they can walk and talk children are taught to share their toys. They are supposed to wait in line. They are to be nice to others. So when a boy cuts in at the school lunch line others cry out, "That’s not fair!" When parents give one child a consequence and a different one for a sibling, the cry is, "That’s not fair!"

Injustice is a reality that can create strong feelings, even physical feelings. Two years ago I made my first venture into electronic trading on eBay. I made a successful bid on a portable computer for Jenny for college. The seller sent me the unit, but failed to tell me that a key was missing. He also did not send me some of the promised accessories. When I persisted he finally sent me a profane email and I gave up. For several months, every time I remembered this fiasco, I felt a physical pain in my gut.

Where does this sense of injustice come from? It might help to understand some history. In the Greek-Roman world, mercy was a character flaw. The ideal was justice. This was the moral climate in which Christianity was born and taught that God is merciful and desires humans to be merciful. There was a deep philosophical clash between two value systems. One favored justice and fairness. The other favored mercy and grace. Personally, I think this notion of unfairness also comes from competition. Built in to American culture is the idea that we are to produce a better product, be better athletes, get better grades than others.

Missionaries in the Canadian arctic taught children to run relay races. They were mystified when the children in the lead slowed down until the others caught up so they could all cross the finish line together! The idea of winners and losers was foreign to them.

At first glance this parable of Jesus appears to be about those who lost, about those who experienced injustice. A landowner had gathered people at various times of the day to work in his vineyard. When they all were paid the same wage, those who worked all day were upset and likely cried out, "That’s not fair!" But the landowner paid them fairly and made it clear that it was his right to pay the others more.

Writing on this subject, Luis Leon, said, "The parable opposes two deep-seated views of human existence, two worlds if you will, between which (we) go back and forth all of our lives. They are the world of merit and the world of grace. The full-day workers lived, or at least worked, in a world of merit. They believed in a merit system and like most believers in a merit system, they considered themselves meritorious, deserving of their reward. Now, for some people to feel deserving, others, obviously, have to be undeserving. In this parable, they are the last-hired. So in the eyes of the day-long workers, the owner's graciousness becomes injustice. Instead of seeing themselves as self-absorbed, they see the landowner as unfair, and the tragedy is that they estrange themselves from the source of graciousness."

Do you ever feel that you move between the world of merit and the world of grace? How do we hear God’s word of grace in church and then live it out in a world filled with laws and legalism? Don’t you ever see injustices and something inside you cries out, "That’s not fair?" Politics in your workplace make it clear at times that some people get special treatment. You wait patiently in traffic being funneled to one lane while another driver speeds down the shoulder and cuts in. You’re divorced and observe a happy family at the mall. You’re tempted to think, "That’s not fair." We move back and forth from the world of grace into the world of merit. One moment we don’t care how much good comes to others. But in the blink of an eye our spirit shifts from feeling joy for the good fortune of others to jealousy.

A story is told of the lady who had a stranger appear at her door and simply handed her a $100 bill. She was dumbfounded! Then the same thing happened the next day….and the next…and the next. For thirty straight days this stranger gave her $100 without explanation. On the 31^st day the lady was waiting at the door when she saw the man coming down the street. But then he passed her house and walked up to her neighbor’s house, and gave her a $100 bill! The first lady was indignant and yelled at the guy, "Hey, where’s my $100 bill?"

It’s easy to think that when life is going our way that somehow we deserve it. We come to expect it. We even plan for it. This parable is not so much about the injustice of workers getting paid the same for different amounts of work. It is about God and God’s mercy and grace. Sometimes it appears that some people are receiving more of God’s grace than others. But as Christians we live, not in a world of justice, but of grace.

Luis Leon writes, "We know we don't earn or deserve what God has given us. We don't worry about someone getting away with something for we ourselves are getting away with something and, oh, how joyful life becomes when you understand that in this world salvation is a gift, not a reward for work well done."

A word of caution. We’re not talking here about social injustice and standing up for others whose basic civil rights are being denied or abused. We’re talking about our attitudes when others get favorable treatment.

In his book Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes, Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions when read to typical, middle-class audiences in America compared to Hispanic audiences.
Most people are perplexed that someone who had worked for only an hour should be paid the same as someone who has worked for eight hours. It seems patently unfair. Moreover, most people don't understand the fuss. The logic is so clear, typical Americans cannot understand on what grounds one could argue the fairness of Jesus' approach.
When the story is read or studied by a Hispanic audience, however, the reaction is quite different. These are people, Gonzales says, who identify with the problems of the field workers. They understand the laborer who travels in his pickup truck trying to find work with little success, or, even if he finds work, he is standing around waiting until the job materializes.
At the end of the parable when the landowner pays the wages, the Hispanic congregation applauds when the laborers who worked for only one hour get paid a full day's pay. They are not confused by this, but understand that the people looking for work and who have been waiting for work need a day's pay to survive. They rejoice, then, at the grace that is not contrary to justice, but that flows with justice. They are paid what they need and deserve rather than the wages they might have been paid had society's concept of justice prevailed.

So we will likely continue to feel at times that life is not fair. But let us at least understand that to claim life is unfair for US is different than life being unfair for OTHERS. God calls us all to work for fairness and justice for OTHERS. And there will be times when we are called to stand up for ourselves as well. But this parable teaches us that God can be generous and gracious to whomever God chooses. When we witness God blessing others it will likely be revealed to us that we are either living in the world of merit or the world of grace. I don’t know about you, but I want to live in the world of grace. And by the grace of God so can you!

The St. John Web Site needs your input! Click here to leave feedback

Site statistics.