Pictures of HeavenНамуна

The Parable of the Laborers

But what if it’s not fair? Through today’s parable, Jesus is inviting us to wrestle with the radical, unsettling nature of God’s grace. Grace that confronts all our ideas about fairness and how we determine it. 

In this story, we’re introduced to a landowner looking for workers to go out into his fields. He starts early in the morning, hires a few guys right away, and agrees to pay them a denarius for a day’s work. So they go and start working hard. Meanwhile, the landowner goes back out to the marketplace four more times—every few hours—and continues recruiting people to work for him with the promise of paying them “what is right.” At the end of the day, he calls all the workers in and starts passing out the wages, starting with the last guys he hired. Surprisingly, he gives them a denarius and they go on their merry way, only having worked for about an hour. The landowner continues to hand out the payment until only the guys who’d been working all day are left. And … he gives them … a denarius.

Wait, what?! So the guys who worked one hour and the guys who worked twelve hours got paid the exact same amount?? Yep, that’s most definitely not fair. Confused and upset, they express their frustration to their employer. 

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one 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?’” Matthew 20:13-15 NIV

Did you catch that? The landowner in this story addresses our primary concern right off the bat. “I’m not being unfair to you, friend.” This statement really challenges us to consider if our mechanism for determining fairness is broken. Because everything about this story feels off! Why? It’s because we’re trained by our culture to compare to determine what’s fair. If we work longer and harder than someone else, we should make more. If we make better grades, we should get into better schools. If we train more and never miss a practice, we should get more playing time. That’s the way the world works; our mechanism for what’s fair is based on these comparison games we play with ourselves and others.

But not so with God’s Kingdom. In God’s kingdom, what’s “right” is not based on our definition of equity but on His generosity. Did you catch that zinger at the end of Jesus’ story? The landowner asks, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” Oof. Shots fired. Really though, this is just another beautiful example of Jesus indirectly confronting our hearts. We’re meant to ask ourselves that same question. Do we find ourselves stuck in bitterness or feeling envious because our God is generous? We can’t get around the grace of God. It’s who He is and who He always will be. What Jesus is showing us is that we can’t hold on to any sense of entitlement in the Kingdom of heaven, because comparison and compassion are incompatible.

Throughout human history we have suffered from this comparison mentality. In fact, the Jewish people literally refused to enter the promised land because in comparison to the other armies they stood no chance. But God has always been inviting us to trust Him and His goodness, to leave the comparison game behind, and embrace His often unsettling grace. 

Prayer: God, thank You for inviting me to something better than the comparison game. Teach me to daily counter the way the world determines fairness by being generous. I want to better know and show Your grace. Thank you for Your radical generosity toward me. Help me love others like You do. I trust You.