The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. (Mat. 20:1-16)
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Merit finds no home in the kingdom of heaven; the kingdom is founded on grace and mercy. That sounds good, but there is a jarring corollary to this reality: Because it is founded on grace, the kingdom of heaven is inherently unfair.
Of course this particular dimension of the kingdom is no different than everyday life as we know it: The rich get richer an the poor get poorer. People will take advantage of other people in order to get ahead in life. It is true that there are cultures where the community is held in higher regard than the individual. In those cultures it initially appears that everyone is happy with the principle of “share and share alike.” But when observed in a larger context it also becomes apparent that in these communal cultures, tribes will war against tribes in order to gain advantage over others. Even in these settings the rich tend to get richer and life is unfair for everyone else. It is simply the way of sinful humanity to take, take, take, with little regard for how it affects others and mere lip service to the more altruistic principles of fairness and justice. It is why human societies need laws, police forces, armies, and systems for meting out penalties.
This parable would indicate that God’s view of things is surprisingly similar to our own. Unfairness is not a product of sin and the fall, rather our attitude toward fairness and unfairness are rooted in our own selfishness, which is a manifestation of sin. God interacts with people (individuals and groups) with little regard for how those interactions affect others. God doesn’t even give lip service to fairness because God neither plays fair nor demands fairness from his people.
Fairness can be interpreted to mean two different things. On the one hand, it is treating everyone in a manner that they deserve, with each person receiving their due. This is certainly not how God treats us. We would all be judged harshly if he treated us as we deserved, but God acts with grace toward the sinner and is longsuffering even toward those who are obstinate. When fairness isn’t used in the absolute sense (of getting what we deserve) it is used in a comparative sense. If I give the first child three candy bars and the second child only one, the second child will feel I have been unfair because he was not treated the same, compared to the first child. Both were treated graciously, but since it was not the same, the second child perceives the act, while gracious, to be unfair.
But the kingdom of heaven is not about human comparisons, although Christians are more familiar with this fact in the context of sin. In the Parable of the Publican and Pharisee for instance (Luke 18:9-14), the Pharisee thanks God that he is not like other men. By comparing himself with the Publican, the Pharisee is able to think of himself as righteous; or at least more righteous than the Publican. The Publican, on the other hand, simply compares his own life with the righteousness of God and is left beating his chest, crying, “Have mercy on me a sinner.” Which one was made right with God? The Publican. The Pharisee’s observations may have been factually accurate, but such human comparisons are not part of the Kingdom sensibility, and by judging his own righteousness superior to that of the Publican’s, the Pharisee demonstrated both his lack of righteousness and his unwillingness to rely on God’s grace. The only means of discovering God’s grace is to use the absolute standard of God’s righteousness rather than comparing ourselves with a sliding scale of human righteousness.
The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard deals with the same underlying attitude, except the issue is not the extent of human righteousness, but rather the extent of divine grace: I received excessive grace from God, but that person over their was given grace three times as excessive, by my estimation! That’s not fair!! When we compare ourselves with others we demonstrate that our eyes have strayed away from God and onto other people. When our eyes stray, our feet cannot be far behind.
It is not up to us to determine whether our righteousness is greater than our neighbor’s. Similarly, it is not up to us to determine whether our neighbor has received a larger share of grace than we have. Instead, the kingdom sensibility is to thank God for the excessive grace he has showered on us. In turn, the kingdom sensibility is to cry out (as in the Prayer before Communion), Thou, O Lord, “didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” It is upon that basis and that basis alone that I can ask that God have mercy upon me.” After all, in the end we are all given much more than we deserve or can even handle. That’s the nature of God’s mercy and grace.