And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
'These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day's burden and the heat.'
--Matthew 20: 1-16
There is something quite comforting in the argument for fairness. It asserts an equilibrium in the world that often doesn’t appear to be there, but that we think should. The argument for fairness in any situation implies that there is a minimum to what we deserve: at least what is fair. And what we see in this week’s parable from Matthew 20, is a story of fairness turned on its head. It is exactly the ones who are demanding it, who have already received fairness. They received a fair day’s wages, mutually agreed upon before they went to work. And yet, when they see that others have received the same amount for less work, they feel cheated. They –in a sense—regret their agreement, regret the terms of their contract—so to speak-- and allow themselves to hope for more; then, in their disappointment, they complain about “fairness.”
Why? Because none of us truly wants what is fair. We want something more, we want abundance, we want something like grace. Perhaps even charity. But we hide behind a word like “fair,” because it seems safe. It announces that we are only asking for what we think we deserve, what we feel we have earned—what is fair.
But the thing is, life isn’t fair. And—my thought is: we should be grateful. I remember a night back in 1981-82, when I was driving home from work late at night. I think it was when I worked backstage at the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. (I like writing that. Actually, I was working backstage at the Tower Theater, but that was the show they were putting on when I worked there.) Anyway, I was driving home about midnight on a Friday night after a long day at UST, and then a long night guarding the stage door at the Best Little Whorehouse… And as I drove down Memorial Drive in my old white Honda Civic (a stick shift, no AC, and only an AM radio), I remember stopping at the light at Memorial and Westcott. I pulled up right next to a police car with 2 policemen already waiting at the light. I looked over and nodded to them. One of them nodded back. I sat there for a bit, and then something happened, maybe I was changing the radio. KILT used to broadcast a concert from Gilley’s on the radio and maybe I had been listening to it and when it went off I probably started to change the channel, looking for something else. Anyway, clearly I got distracted and for some reason put the car in gear, let off the clutch and slowly and brainlessly drove right through the still red light --with a police car sitting right next to me. Very quickly I realized what I had done and slowed down as I expected the police car to flip on its lights and pull up beside me. But, instead after about 20-30 yards, the cruiser pulled beside me and one of the officers rolled down his window and gave me a tsk tsk gesture and a silly grin. Then, shaking their heads and laughing they drove on. Fair? I should have been pulled over and given a ticket. But, out of kindness, out of compassion, out of grace, the officers simply let me off with a very gentle warning.
None of us really wants what is fair. We want grace, we want compassion, we want love. We want to know that we were noticed and that we mattered. We want to be appreciated so much that someone would give their life for us, if it came to that. We want the love of God to overwhelm us, because—and I think this might secretly be true of a great many of us—we don’t feel like we deserve it.
And so, in our insecurity, too many of us resent it when another person receives abundance and seemingly undeserved blessings. We resent the new employee who receives kudos and honors their first month on the job when we have done our job for years and never felt praised or even particularly noticed.
And yet, there is another element to this parable that might too easily be overlooked. Like many parable, it begins with these words: The kingdom of Heaven is like…
The Kingdom of Heaven is like this… It’s not a place of fairness. It is a place of blessing. It is a place wherein the first will be last and the last will be first. What we must learn to realize is this: if that is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like—then that is a good thing, and we must learn to see the world, through that lens, we must learn to see our own life through that lens. We must learn from the parable to refocus our attention on the truth. Grace isn’t about fairness, grace isn’t about getting what we deserve, our fair share; grace is about love and if we just look at the Cross, we will get a beautiful reminder of how much fairness matters to God.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like… a place where everyone is welcome, no matter when or how they come, and all will receive the same thing, in the same amount: the Love of God, overflowing, more than we could have ever imagined, or even hoped for. Because God isn’t fair, God is love.
