At my parents’ church, one of the ways our youth group raised money was by what we called “rent-a-student.” Members of the congregation would hire groups of us to do various jobs, like weeding, painting, etc. Honestly, the money we received was more like a donation, as a bunch of high school kids we were basically useless at all chores. But it gave us at least a sense of self-sufficiency.
One weekend I was assigned to spend an afternoon doing yard work at one of the member’s homes. I had a basketball game that day, so I let the person know I would be a couple of hours late. When the time came to dole out the money, the woman informed me that she would be giving the same amount to my camp fund as she had to all the others who had worked all day. “Like the parable of the laborers in the vineyard,” she remarked. And from that time on, I really disliked this parable.
I disliked it because her action disturbed my sense of fairness. Like many kids, and many adults, really, I had and still have a very keen sense of fairness. It didn’t feel fair to the others, who had spent the whole afternoon pulling weeds in the sun, that I should get paid the same amount when I only did half the work. I was also always very aware during these fund-raising efforts that while my family wasn’t necessarily wealthy, we were definitely comfortable. My parents could pay the full amount to send me to camp. This wasn’t the case for everyone in my youth group. It bothered me that there were others who needed the money more than I did. This gift also hit my sense of pride. I am a very independent person. I always have been, but I was probably even more fiercely independent in high school. I didn’t like the feeling of charity; that I was getting something I hadn’t worked for. Now, granted, like I mentioned earlier, all of this was basically charity because we were in no way good at any of the jobs we did. My parents paid some of us to weed their yard, and then hired a gardener to come in after us. But her gift to me stripped me of even the illusion that I in any way deserved this money, and I did not like the way that felt.
So I come at this parable from a different angle then the workers hired first who grumbled when they were paid the same as those who came later, but I understand their grumbling. Like the workers in the parable, the actions of the landowner don’t fit my sense of fairness. Sure the first workers got the amount they had agreed to, but that doesn’t change the fact that they worked all day while the others worked less, some only an hour or so. Do they have a right to grumble? Maybe not since they got paid what they were contracted for. But I agree that it doesn’t seem fair.
This parable, like all good parables, messes with our preconceived idea of how the kingdom of God should work. We talk about how God is a God of justice, but if this parable is, as Jesus said it is, what the kingdom of heaven is like, then the takeaway message is the kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom of fairness. God is not fair. Let me say that again, because I feel like that is the important takeaway of this parable, God is not fair. God is just, we say that God is just and I believe that is true. But God is not fair.
This parable challenges us to consider is the ways that justice and fairness are different. Fairness is concerned about making sure opportunities are equal. When my brother and I were little, my grandmother would have us divvy things up with one of us cutting and the other choosing which half we wanted. This helped ensure the person tasked with cutting was very concerned about making the split as even as possible. Fairness can, like in the dessert splitting example, lead to equal results, but that is not its aim. Take, for example, sports. The rules of sporting events are designed to make sure that the best, most-prepared, hardest-working team or athlete wins, and the others lose. The Lions are playing the Falcons in a few hours; imagine how silly it would be if at the end of the game the refs decided that both teams deserved to have winning records because they’d both tried really hard. Sure, it’s a nice sentiment, but how would you decide who’s in the post-season?
The theological definition of justice, on the other hand, is “the ordering of society that is demanded by God in which all life can thrive.” And in order for all life to thrive, the world has to be more than fair. As theologian Rolf Jacobson put it, “It is okay if the big, strong, fast, smart, hardworking, and best-prepared win in the game of life. But God wants as many as possible of the rest of us to win in life, too.” Which actually, to get back to my sports metaphor, is also kind of how professional sports work. The Lions are playing the Falcons in a few hours, and one team will win and one team will lose, and both teams will get paid. It would be silly to declare both teams the winner because they tried, but it would be unethical to say that only the winning team gets paid. Now yes, the analogy breaks down in the face of Matthew Stafford’s record breaking one-hundred and twenty-five million dollar contract. Another way to look at it would be the dessert splitting example. My grandmother’s fairness only worked when David and I were of an age that we could both eat roughly the same amount. We’re three years apart, so when David was one and I was four, what was fair would not have been just. Too much of a concern for fairness would have made David sick.
So what does this have to do with the world of the parable? When the landowner hired the first laborers, he agreed to pay them “the usual daily wage.” As I mentioned last week, the usual daily wage was one denarius. This was enough to provide for one worker for one day. What that means at a subsistence level is, if a worker did not work for the day, and did not earn a denarius, that worker quite possibly did not eat that day. When the landlord went back later in the day and hired additional workers, he agreed to pay them quote “whatever is right.” The unspoken question here is what is right? If what is right means what is fair, then the landowner’s actions were not right. But if what is right means everybody gets to eat at the end of the day, “the ordering of society… so that all life can thrive,” then the landowner’s actions were certainly right. At the end of the day, the landowner got the work done that he needed, and the workers got enough to meet their needs for a day. Was it fair? Maybe not, but does fairness really matter if everyone got what they needed?
The challenge Jesus presents in this parable is to shift our thinking on the kingdom of heaven from fairness to satisfaction. Because what’s important to not lose sight of here is the first workers did not actually lose anything in the later workers getting more than they deserved. It’s not like the landowner took part of the earlier workers wages away in order to pay the later ones. Everyone got a denarius, everyone got “the usual daily wage.” Part of the message of this parable may be that the kingdom of heaven works on a different economy than the world. We are used to the expectation that if someone gets more then someone else automatically has to get less, but the kingdom of heaven doesn’t work that way. In God’s economy there is enough for everyone to have what they need, everyone to have enough for this day.
As I was reflecting on this, part of the Lord’s Prayer kept running through my head. Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus didn’t say, “Give us this day the bread we deserve,” or “Give us this day all the bread we’ll ever want.” Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, for enough to fill our needs today. The landowner in the parable gave all the workers enough, and that really is all that we need. We don’t need more than enough, enough is enough.
And as we read the Gospel this summer through the lens of how Jesus is teaching us to live as Christian community, the implications for how we could live out this parable in the world are staggering and challenging, but also amazing. We have a model of it right here in this building. I’ll never forget the description of Co-op Jamie Bain gave to me when I first met her. Everyone who has something extra that they don’t need brings it for someone who needs it, and then everyone gets what they need.
Of course it’s easy enough with stuff, but reading this on the heels of two weeks of texts on forgiveness, that may be the bigger challenge for us. It’s easy enough for us to give of our stuff, but are we able to give of our selves. If someone we’ve known in the past comes back, are we really able to make space for the possibility that they may have changed? Can we make space in our lives for someone who’s come later to the party?
That is a hard question, and a serious challenge. But the good news for us is the landowner is generous. And as many times as we struggle, show up late, and wander away from the vineyard, Jesus the determined landowner comes again and again to gather us in and bring us back to the vineyard, where the harvest is plentiful and there is always room for more laborers. Amen.
Definition of justice taken from Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms edited by Rolf A. Jacobson, (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 2008).
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