Unfair

“Take what is yours and be gone. I choose to pay this last one the same as you. Have I no right to do with my belongings as I please? Or do you look resentful because I am generous?” Matthew 20:14,15

We all hate to feel cheated; one of the first cries of burgeoning youth is, “That’s not fair!” “Fair”, of course, depends on our definition. When I was a youth pastor we had monthly activities, often some sort of team sport given a wacky twist. It rings in my ears, just like it was yesterday, after giving, say, rule #3, a trio of more voices harmonize “That’s not fair!”

This always puzzled me. I had applied the same rule, equally, to both teams. It would be unfair indeed if one team had to abide by the rule, and the other was exempt. To make one football team tackle its opponent while the other merely had to grab the player’s flag would be entirely unfair.

What they meant was, “I don’t like the rule!” The sense of fairness was more about the universe (our Saturday hour on the field) behaving the way they expected it to (rules being exactly as they wanted them to be based on any number of preconditions.) So, hearing rule #3 and disliking it, they cry “Unfair.”

That is what happened in the parable Jesus tells. A farmer hires four sets of workers at progressively later times of the day and sends them into his fields. At the end of the day, starting with the last ones hired, he offers them a full days’ wage. Excited about the prospect of getting four times what they expected, the first group hired arrives at the pay station. Surprisingly, they are offered the same pay as the last group to be hired.

They protest, “Unfair!” They didn’t like the rules. The farmer had promised that first group a whole day’s wage, and that is what they received. But, hearing that those who hardly worked at all received the same as they had been promised, they reasoned their pay would be comparatively increased.

The problem was, they reasoned according to “justice” not according to “grace.” It was indeed “fair” because it was the farmer’s money to do with as he pleased. He had not cut the first group’s wages; he paid them exactly what he promised. He exposed a sort of resentment in that first group that I think many of us are prone to. They weren’t upset that they got what they were promised; they were upset that someone else got more than they deserved!

You see, we love grace, so long as the people on our side are the ones receiving God’s smile. But, let God give His mercy to someone who has hardly any of our credentials, and watch out, we feel the hackles go up, our faces become flush, and self-pity force the same utterance, “That’s not fair!”

It is only unfair because we are doing math the old way. We are adding hours of work to get the total grace deserved. Jesus’ math is entirely different. He starts with how much He has to give, and gives accordingly, regardless of how many hours someone has put in. We may not like it, we may cry, “Unfair,” but that is God’s way of doing business, and He is serious about it!

“Do you look resentful because I am generous?” That is Jesus’ question to us when we act disturbed because someone barely out of spiritual diapers is enjoying God while we are grudgingly going about the “business” of “serving” God. Our own language betrays our outlook. It is “business”, not enjoyment. It is “serving”, not gratefulness.

It would make all the difference in the world if we would get our eyes off ourselves and onto the cross where Jesus paid for what we never deserved in the first place—eternal life. It would make all the difference in the world if we would get our eyes off of others and onto the cross where Jesus paid for the least of these as well!

If we will only refocus, we will rejoice with those who benefit from the extreme grace of God. We will stop trying to package up the gospel into our liking, listing rule after rule to decide who deserves to be “in”, and learn to take grace for what it is; the last thing on earth we ever deserved!