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THAT DOESN’T SEEM FAIR
Psalm 128:1-6
Matthew 20:1-16
September 21, 2008

     You are a high school student, and for the past year you have busted your backside in the hardest math class offered.  It hasn’t been easy.  You’ve struggled with the homework, you’ve turned in extra-credit assignments, and you’ve led study groups to help the other students keep up.  This class is crucial in determining the rest of your life.  If you get an A in this class, you can pretty much get a full-ride scholarship to any college you want.  And, with a degree from the college of your choice you can work for any company you want.  Everything hinges on doing well in this class.  The last week of class a new kid shows up and sits at the desk beside you.  Actually, he’s not new – he has been enrolled in the class since the first day, but he never bothered to show up.  He hasn’t turned in any homework, and he hasn’t taken any of the quizzes.  The only test he takes is the final exam.  As the teacher returns the graded final exam she stops between you and the new kid and says, “Wow!  You both got an A!  How marvelous!”  How does that make you feel?  

     You’ve been a hard working employee for Amalgamated Conglomerates for 25 years.  You’ve given a full days work for a full days pay all along.  You’ve hardly ever called in sick.  A few years back when the company was in trouble you took a pay cut, you worked overtime, and you assumed more financial responsibility for your benefits.  All of that so you could reach today, retirement day.  As you finish your last shift all of your co-workers gather around, and your Supervisor puts his arm around your shoulders.  Standing on the other side of your Supervisor is a co-worker who only started with the company six months ago.  The Supervisor announces, “We have two retirements today!  Both of these men will begin a new life tomorrow with a full and complete benefit package.  Congratulations to both of you!”  How does that make you feel? 

     If you say you’re OK with that, you’re a liar.  And, it’s not good to lie in church.  If you’re honest you will admit that it’s just not fair.  Today’s pericope is about adjusting our perceptions of what is, and isn’t, fair.   Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem, where he knows he will be beaten and crucified.  He knows he will die on the cross for the sins of the world.  And, he knows that isn’t fair.  But, he is not operating from a self centered viewpoint.  He is looking at the situation from the Lord God’s perspective. 
As they travel along the road Peter (always Peter) wants to know, “Jesus, we left our families and our friends and our jobs behind to follow you.  When we get to the end of this road, what’s going to be in it for us (Matthew 19:27)?”  Jesus answers Peter with the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. 

     Being a day laborer in first century Israel was a hard life.   You didn’t have a permanent occupation.  Each morning you went to the market place and stood with all of the other laborers, hoping an employer would come and choose you.  If you’ve ever driven down Fort Worth Drive in Denton, and seen all of the illegal immigrants standing and waiting for someone to hire them, it was exactly the same.  Most employers demanded that you work from sunup to sundown.  Although, some wanted a little more – they wanted you to work from sunup until the stars were clearly visible.  This was one of the conditions which were negotiated before a worker was hired. 

     As a Jew there were several prayer periods each day, which the worker was expected to observe.  However, it was considered stealing from your employer if you stopped working to pray.  The Rabbi’s of Jesus’ day had developed a series of prayers which could be prayed while carrying a heavy load, or hammering, or harvesting.  So, you could observe your religious requirements without cheating your boss. 

     The pay for a day’s work was one Denarius.  That Denarius would exactly pay the rent, and provide food for the worker and his family, for one day.  No more.  There was no such thing as putting a little money aside for a rainy day.  One day’s work, one Denarius, one day’s rent and food.  The next morning it started all over again.  If you were too young, or too old, or too small you might not be picked for work at the beginning of the day.  If someone hired you later in the day, you would receive less than one Denarius.  Here’s the problem with receiving less than a day’s wage.  The worker in the family was expected to eat every night.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t be at full strength the next day – and that was considered cheating your employer.  So, if there was only enough money to buy food for one person to eat, the worker ate while the rest of the family watched.  How do you explain that to a starving wife and children?  The focus of your entire world was to finish the day, seven days a week, with a Denarius in your hand. 

     Jesus tells Peter about a Landowner who has a vineyard.  At the beginning of the day (most likely just before sunrise) he goes the market and hires workers to pick his grapes. They negotiate a contract.  Almost certainly they agreed to work from sunup to sundown, for one Denarius. 
The Vineyard must have been very large, because as the day goes on the Landowner has to keep going back to the market to get more workers.  The Bible says he kept going back to the men who were ‘doing nothing’.  That’s kind of an unfair phrase.   They weren’t loitering and wasting time.  They just hadn’t been picked yet, which means they must have some kind of defect which made the employers fearful they wouldn’t get enough work out of them.  There is no negotiating a contract with these second round workers, the Landowner simply promises, “I will pay you whatever is right.”  In the absence of a contract the workers would have expected a proportion of a days’ wage.  If they worked a half of day, they expected a half a Denarius.  If they worked a fourth of a day, they expected a fourth of a Denarius.  The very last workers picked could only get in one hours work from a twelve hour day.  They certainly expected to only get one twelfth of a Denarius. 

     At the end of the work day the Landowner gathers all of the day laborers around, and makes the decision to pay them in the reverse order of how they were hired.  The men who only got in one hour of work will be paid first.  Surprisingly, no one is bothered by this.   You would think the guys who had put in a hard, hot twelve hour day would want their money first.  Imagine everyone’s shock when the one hour workers get a full Denarius!  I’ll bet those workers were giddy!  They had been trying to figure out how to tell their families, “Only Daddy gets to eat tonight.”  Instead, everybody eats!  We all get food, and the rent gets paid!  We make it through one more day! 

     Everybody else gets excited as well.  You know why?  Because they’re doing the math in their heads.  The one hour workers got paid twelve times more than they deserved.  Hey, that means for each hour you work you get one days’ pay!  If you worked six hours you get six Denarii, six days pay!  They guys who had been hired first have already figured out they’re going to get two weeks pay for one days work.  Every one of those workers is already planning a vacation and spending that money.  So, imagine the shock when every one of the workers gets one Denarius. 

     Jesus is telling this parable to make a point.  In this story, who got cheated?   No one!  No one received less than they deserved.  The twelve hour workers negotiated one days work for one days pay, and that’s exactly what they got.  Everyone else received an undeserved and unmerited blessing.  Instead of getting what was fair, they got better than they deserved.  But, no one in this story is treated unfairly. 
Jesus is telling us a parable about heaven in response to Peter asking him, “What special reward do we Apostles get for leaving our lives behind to follow you?”  Jesus’ answer is, “You get Heaven!”  Wait a minute.  What about the Disciples, who didn’t follow as closely as the Apostles?  What do they get?  They get Heaven!   Well then, what about the Am Ha Aretz, the people of the land, the day laborers who didn’t follow you at all, but believed in you?  What do they get?  They get Heaven!   Well, that just doesn’t seem fair.  We’re back to the two students who get an A, or the two workers who retire with the same benefits.  That just doesn’t seem fair.

     Let’s talk about fair.  However, instead of using a self-centered viewpoint, let’s look at fair from God’s perspective.  In recent sermons I’ve come down pretty hard on John Calvin.  But, let me tell you where Calvin was dead on.  When he says that none of us deserves heaven, that all of us deserve eternal damnation, he is right on the money.   The Bible says every one of us is a sinner, and the fair and just punishment for sin is eternal death (Romans 3:23, 6:23).  Fair, is for everyone to go to hell.  Unfair, is for anyone to go to heaven. 

     In the United Methodist Church we spend a lot of time talking about mercy and grace.  Let’s define those for a second.  When we don’t get what we do deserve – that’s mercy.  When we do get what we don’t deserve – that’s grace.  Jesus tells Peter that no one is being cheated.  Everyone who believes in him is getting more than a days pay for a day’s work.  None of us deserves to go to heaven, but God’s outpouring of unbelievable, and undeserved grace, opens that door to anyone who would put their faith in Jesus Christ.  ANYONE. 

     Whether you are an Apostle who left family, friends and job behind to follow Jesus, then subsequently were murdered because you wouldn’t recant your story about him being resurrected on the third day.  Or, whether you are a twenty first century woman, struggling to raise your children with knowledge of the Savior, in a world where glorification of self is the only acceptable god.  Or whether you are an ax murderer, who waits until your final appeal has been rejected by the courts and no phone call is coming from the Governor.  And who makes the decision as they strap you in the electric chair only a split second before they flip the switch that Jesus is your only hope for salvation – the situations are all exactly the same.  None of us deserves heaven.  But, all of us will receive heaven because of God’s immeasurable, unfathomable, grace.