It's Just Not Fair

Homily Proper 25 Yr. B 2011

It’s just not fair.

That’s what those workers who had sweated through the heat of the day in the vineyard thought when the time came when all the day labourers were given their wages.

This guy must be nuts. After all he hired us and we work hard all day, yet we get the same pay as these other guys who have only worked a couple of hours—barely worked up a sweat.

Where’s the fairness in that?

And by the standards of our modern economic system, the grumbling workers would be right.

But this parable told by Jesus goes far beyond a dispute about paying casual workers.

Parables, as Jesus used them, are stories drawn from everyday life, but they usually have a twist, which forces us to think. It may surprise or shock us.

In a few weeks we’ll be hearing Bishop Dance introduce the parable of the Prodigal Son, which will be the subject of a six week special study throughout the Diocese.

In that parable, the elder son, like the workers have toiled all day in today’s parable, says “It’s just not fair” when he learns his father has welcomed his younger son back, after the younger son has squandered his share of the inheritance.

The elder brother has laboured long and hard for his father, yet this younger brother who has wasted his father’s inheritance, is welcomed back with a party.

In both cases, Jesus is challenging us, because we can identify with both the workers who have sweated all day, only to get the same pay as the Johnny-come-latelys, and the elder brother who has been loyal to his father, while the younger brother returned home in disgrace.

But we have to get beyond “it’s just not fair” and see what Jesus is really getting at in these parables.

In today’s gospel the grumbling workers are asked: “Are you envious because I am generous?”
Think about it. They were paid exactly as promised, a day’s wage, one denarius, enough for a family to live on. They weren’t cheated or shortchanged.

What they are worried about is others getting more than they deserve.

What Jesus is getting at is that God’s generosity, God’s grace is not something we earn, it is given to us.

God gave us this planet earth with all its bounty, for those who are good, and those who are bad. Natural disasters don’t discriminate on the basis how sinful we are.

Indeed Jesus uses this parable to describe the Kingdom of heaven because he knows his followers have difficulty understanding the idea of grace, given unconditionally and without merit.

The problem we have when we hear these parables is that we resent someone else’s “enough” because they worked less for it. They were the latecomers.

But God forgives us for our resentment, our blindness, and our greed.

God forgave the people of Israel in the story from the book of Exodus today when they grumbled about their time in the wilderness. They had been rescued from captivity and tyranny in Egypt.

Instead of punishing their lack of gratitude God provided them with food—manna and meat in the desert.

When it comes down to it, today’s Gospel lays down a larger challenge for us—no matter when they were asked to come to the vineyard to work, every person deserves a living wage, as do those who work for a minimum wage today. In the kingdom of God, no one goes to bed hungry. It is only fair.

So to link this with our world today, we see too often the idea of survival of the fittest, the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

Too often when cuts are made in government spending they affect most the people who are most disadvantaged.

We sometimes forget as Christians the radical generosity Jesus taught us, and instead get caught up, like the Pharisees, in a more pietistic approach to faith.

There is no easy answer to the challenge posed by this parable of the vineyard.

Jesus concludes with the enigmatic: “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.”
Reversal of fortune is a frequent theme in the Gospels. Things are not as they appear. God does not act as we expect him to act.

That’s why far from being a story about labour relations, and whether there should be hourly pay for day labourers, this Gospel opens up the larger question of God’s grace and how we respond to it as Christians.

How do we lead grace filled lives, truly loving our neighbour, truly loving God?