Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145 or 148:1-8, Philippians 1:21-27, Matthew 20:1-16

“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour, he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 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.’

The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men 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.’

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take you pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Having grown up in a family with six siblings, one of the frequent cries that my parents heard was one of “It’s just not fair”. You know, “How come he gets to stay up later?”  How come she gets to stay up as late as I do, I am older?  How come he gets to choose what to watch on TV? How come she doesn’t have to help with the household chores? How come he gets to be in charge when we are home alone? How come I have to watch the little ones when you are gone? How come we have to share the last piece of cake?” The most frequent and least satisfying response heard to these heart-felt cries against the grave injustice experienced by one of us was: “You are right. It isn’t fair. Neither is life, so be quiet and live with it.” Probably the wisest response to the last piece of cake complaint though was this: Mom would make one of us split it and then the other one would get to choose which piece they wanted; the grave injustices of sharing.

It reminds me of a story about a mother who on a Saturday morning had time to prepare a special breakfast for her two young sons. As she was preparing the blueberry pancakes in animal shapes, her sons, Kevin – 5 years old and his younger brother Ryan – 3 years old anxiously waited for this treat. The boys began to argue over which one should get the first pancake… The mother saw this as a perfect opportunity to teach a moral lesson so she sat them down and said. “If Jesus were sitting here today, He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.’” The boys were silent for a moment as the lesson began to sink in. Then Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “OK! Ryan you get to be Jesus.”

Children see fairness as the standard. They are especially keen on fairness if they believe that they have been treated unfairly. And of course all parents have to answer to that same complaint, “It just isn’t fair.” Children, though, rarely raise the issue of fairness when they are being favored. In fact, almost no one raises the issue of fairness when they feel that they are favored or privileged.

This attitude, these feelings of personal injustice actually carry over into our adulthood and color our relationship with others. Children, with this well developed sense of fairness, seem to feel in many ways that there isn’t enough love or attention or approval to go around and must constantly compete for their fair share.

If we as children have learned to see life as a constant contest for power, wealth, approval, and fame, we as adults will always be on the alert for things that are not fair – that is, situations in which we feel that we are not given our well deserved rewards. We want to get the best grades, the best job, make the most money, and have the nicest home or car. We may strive to get ahead as we “look out for number one." And we complain loudly of sulk silently, when favors go to someone we think is less deserving that ourselves.

Today’s parable hits home with me. You see – I look at myself as a very conscientious person. I set high standards for myself, I pride myself in my position in life and in the successes in my work. As I have moved up the ladder in my career, I have now come to a place where I am responsible for a number of employees. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn in this position is that not everyone else shares my worth ethic, not everyone else shares my organizational abilities, and definitely not everyone with whom I work shares my same world view. I have had to come to terms with and accept what others, with different abilities and different priorities, can offer in their employment and in their lives. I could be disappointed with what I perceive as a lack of effort and ability; I could rant and rave about what I may see as lack of concern, sloppiness or just plain laziness. It has not been an easy lesson for me to learn as my role has evolved from one of dictating or mandating and action or results to one of encouraging, developing and coaxing others to perform to the best of their abilities. I have had to learn not to apply my personal goals and standards to other. And you know, at times, “It just isn’t fair.” The parable today is like that in many ways, “It just isn’t fair.”

Let me tell you a modern version of the story of the workers:

With that many workers the store was stocked by the end of the month and the manager called everyone together, lined them up and paid them. The lowly, poor workers who had come for just the final week were first. They hadn’t been particularly productive, due to their lack of basic skills. But as they approached the table, the manager handed the each of them 20, $100 dollar bills. (For anyone struggling with the math, that is $2000…) Imagine their reaction! It could have been more that they had ever made in their lives. And of course, imagine the reaction of those who had been hired at the beginning of the month. They got excited!! “We worked hard all month long, we worked much harder and accomplished much more, I wonder what we will get paid!!” When their turn came, they also received 20, $100 dollar bills. They got upset; they called the international Stuff-Mart Union and lodged a protest. “It’s just not fair. We deserve more than the losers you hired last but you gave us the same.”

It is just not fair. We hear that age-old cry and we understand it. If you had worked the whole month, you might feel the same way. And if you had only worked the last week, how might you feel? Blessed? A little uncomfortable? A little guilty for getting the same pay for less work?

So why did Jesus give us this difficult example? To understand this story, I think we first have to understand to whom Jesus was speaking. Jesus was addressing not only his disciples, but he was also addressing the Pharisees. These religious leaders what gotten the notion that the kingdom of heaven was their personal possession and that they were in charge of who got to worship and enjoy a relationship with God. The Pharisees had forgotten that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to God so Jesus, in relating this parable, was meeting them head on. He said in effect, “You are good people. Right? Everyone knows this and respects you for it. That is the reward you bargained for and that is what God gives you. As for the others, the sinners and the poor, they have their own unique relationship with God. He will do with them as he wants, for you are all simply workers in the vineyard. God is owner of this vineyard, and has absolute authority to establish wages and pay rewards according to God’s will alone.

But, aren’t we at times like modern day Pharisees when we say, “How can that bum be allowed in the church, he smells bad, looks unkempt, and he behaves strangely. Surely he cannot be a believer?’ How can that person maintain that she knows God when there is nothing fruitful of her faith, she is poor, there is always trouble in her life. Surely God wants something better for the kingdom.

When it comes down to it, the issue becomes that our sense of fairness or justice is based on what we think we deserve. Let’s think about that question for a moment: What do we deserve? Do we deserve to have nice homes, cars, clothes, toys? You might think, yes, I deserve those things. I work hard for them.

But do we deserve to have the good job that enables us to afford these things? You again might think, yes, I deserve to have a good job. I went to school for a long time and worked hard to climb up the ladder to get where I am.

But did we deserve to get that first job or have the luxury of a higher education? Did we deserve to be physically healthy enough to work every day, and to have the mental abilities to have some success? You might think, yes I deserve the opportunity for a university education because all Californians deserve to have those opportunities.

Do we deserve to live in California or in the United States where there is a sense of security and continuity instead of living in a troubled area of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, or the Sudan? Each question leads us on to this final place: we don’t deserve any of it.

Out of generosity God puts us in this life and out of generosity God puts us in a relationship with the spiritual, with the divine. It is a pure gift; nothing more and nothing less.

I believe it is this attitude Jesus is trying to create within us through this parable. He wants us to recognize that everything we have is an incredible, generous gift from God. We do not deserve, we haven't earned it, we have been given it as a gift. And secondly, we have been entrusted with the responsibility to be good stewards of all that we have been given. We are to recognize God as the owner and manage everything for God’s glory not our own. The final part of this attitude is our relationship toward “the last” or “the least”. In our society, who are “the last?” I think it includes the unemployable, the street people, the tough teens, those in prison, the single mom with four kids struggling on welfare, the mentally and physically handicapped, the poor immigrant, and the lonely senior citizen.

Really, God is not fair. God has not been fair to any one of us. God has been better than fair. God has been and remains above all “generous”. This fact is what undermines our worldly system of merit and worthiness and hard work. This fact is what we “the firsts” of the world have a hard time accepting. God is a generous God! That is why the last can end up being first. That is why people who only get started at the end of the day can still get a full portion of God’s love. God is a generous God, who delights in giving not what is deserved but takes joy in lavishing people with the gift of love.

This is the genius of Jesus’ parable. It starts with a common scene that everyone would have recognized in that time. But the ending is a great surprise. The story keeps building toward the climax, by sending the landowner back to the marketplace every few hours to hire more workers. If it were us, if we felt generous, we might find people to work after 9 am but even if we felt generous would have probably cut it all off by noon.

This story, though, keeps pushing God’s generosity farther and farther out, beyond any of our expectations. It is this final twist found in all parables that makes us pause and rethink our assumptions of how the world works and how God’s kingdom works. The ending may confound us or daze us but at least it will startle us out of our preconceptions. It is only after we confront the paradoxes, the unexpected outcomes, that we can be engaged with a new insight. We can then find ourselves face to face with the Kingdom of God and will be challenged to a new understanding of ourselves. Instead of understanding or explaining the parable, the parable explains us... Parables can make us find something new, lose something old and chose a new understanding of God’s generosity. It is not fairness but generosity that is the only factor determining what happens at the end of the day.

God is not fair. God is better than fair because God is generous. As we examine ourselves, our attitudes and actions; I encourage each of us to move through a time of reflection. I believe that the other side of that self reflection will be an attitude of gratitude and rejoicing. We are workers who have made it through the day and whenever we began, the landowner has given us far more than we deserved.

This week let us

Secondly: Accept God’s generosity. We can not earn it nor are we entitled to this generosity. Accept the gift.

Finally: Live God’s generosity. Treat others with humility and compassion. Don’t be envious of others and do someone and unexpected favor this week.

Amen