"God Is Not Fair" Septuagesima February 1, 2015 Matthew 20:1–16
In the Gospel reading today Jesus tells a parable. He tells the parable for the purpose of teaching us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. He says it is like a man who is a householder. The Kingdom of Heaven as Jesus is showing us here is not like a place or a thing or a destination. It is like a man. Jesus is showing us in this parable who God is. That’s really what we need to know about the Kingdom of Heaven. Not a place, or a what. We need to know a who. We need to know who God is. And we need to know Him. So Jesus is showing us who God is. We know many things about God, that He is all-powerful, He is present everywhere, He’s eternal. God is everything you would expect God to be; He is above all and supreme. But Jesus is showing us in this parable something else about God. He is also something that you wouldn’t expect Him to be—and that you really don’t want Him to be. God is not fair. You would expect God to be fair because you expect things to be fair. You want others to treat you fairly and you try to treat others fairly. When things aren’t fair you lament that things aren’t the way they should be. In sports, there are rules, and breaking the rules is cheating. People expect a fair playing field. They expect things to be the same for each team so that the game can be decided by the skill of the players and not by some of them having an unfair advantage. It’s that way on the playground, it’s that way in the business world, it’s that way in life in general. When you’ve been standing in a long line at the grocery store and a new one opens and the people behind you are escorted to the new line, you feel that’s unfair to you. We want things to be fair. But it’s not that way in the Kingdom of Heaven. God is not fair and Jesus’ parable may not be the thing we want to hear about God and how He works. It’s as if He’s saying, if you want a religion where God treats you fairly, then you need to find another religion. Because Christianity is not that religion. God is not fair. The way things start off in the parable seem to fit with our sense of the way things should be. The man went to the marketplace at the beginning of the day to hire workers, and they were glad to get the work and glad to get the pay. So far so good. He needs the workers, they’re ready and willing to work for a day’s wage. Even when he goes out a little later in the morning, about the third hour, and sees others standing around in the marketplace, he seems to be acting right along with how we think things should operate. He even tells them, “Go into the vineyard and work and whatever is right I will pay you.” You almost get the sense that he will pay them an amount equal to the amount they work. Now he goes again, Jesus says at about the sixth hour and then again at the ninth hour. Periodically throughout the day he went back to the marketplace to get more workers since there were still people standing around. And Jesus says that when he went out at those hours he did the same thing as when he had been there at the third hour. Presumably, he told them, “You go out into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will pay you.” Still, so far, so good. But there’s one more time he goes back to the marketplace. It is at the eleventh hour. The workday is almost done, there’s only about an hour’s worth of daylight left. It almost seems a waste of time for him to go out to find some workers for that short of a time. But he goes and he finds some. He asks them why they’ve been standing around idle all day. Because no one has hired us, they tell him. Then you go, too, and work in my vineyard. At this point in the parable, that’s all we hear of this man’s interaction with these last workers hired. There’s no talk of pay. It’s not something like, well, you only get a small portion of wages, but it’s better than nothing. There’s just the invitation to them to go into the vineyard for about an hour to get some work in and presumably a little bit of money; which is, indeed, better than nothing. Now it’s time for everyone to get their share. They’ve all put in some work, some all day, some just a little. But they all deserve to get paid and so the man tells his foreman to call all the workers and give them their wages. He tells him to call the last ones first and then continue on up until the first workers. So the last workers came, the ones who worked only about an hour, and they were paid a denarius, a full day’s wage! At this point the ones who had worked all day were probably doing everything they could to hide their excitement. A full day’s wage for those who worked only an hour! That means we’re going to get a lot more! That would be fair, right? But Jesus tells us that they received the same amount. A measly day’s wage. At the beginning of the day these workers were excited. They were going to get a day’s pay. Now at the end they’re incensed. The ones who worked little more than an hour receive a full day’s pay. How could this landowner be so unfair? And they didn’t hide their displeasure either. They grumbled at the man. “These last workers worked only an hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” You can almost hear them saying or thinking, “That’s so unfair!” In this parable we are learning who God is. We are being taught that He’s unfair. The man’s response in the parable to these workers is, “I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius, a day’s wage? And isn’t that what you got? Take your pay and go. I wish to give to these last workers as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Or are you envious because of my generosity?” Okay, so he’s generous to the last workers but apparently not toward the first. That’s how the first workers saw it. The last workers felt that they hit the jackpot, the first workers felt they got gypped. As if to put the exclamation on the point that God is not fair, Jesus closes His parable with one of His famous sayings, “Thus, the last will be first and the first last.” Any child who has stood in line knows that the last ones in line get to go after the first ones in line. Anyone who’s stood in line at the grocery store knows that when a new lane opens and those who just got to your long line and get to go straight to the front in the new line that that’s just not fair. And it’s true. It’s not fair. God is not fair. He lets the last go first and the first go last. He gives generously to those who were hired on last and gives just the agreed upon amount to those hired on at the beginning. This explains the appeal of other religions. Other religions are based on fairness. You get what you deserve. If you’re bad, you get punished. If you’re good, you get rewarded. If you live a good life God will bless you. If you live a wicked life God will punish you. We want in our religion what we want in life. We want it to be fair. We want God to treat us fairly. Instead, we get a God who is not fair and lumps everybody together. As it says in the Bible, God shows no partiality. As it says, there is no distinction, all have sinned. All fall short of the glory of God. All are deserving of eternal damnation. This is not fair at all where the manifest evil people get no worse than those of us who try to live decent, moral lives. This is what Jesus is teaching us. It’s true, God is not fair. And what do we do? We grumble, just like those in the parable who were hired first. We complain to God that He’s not fair. In response, God says to us, “I am doing you no wrong. Take what I have given you and go your way. If you want me to be fair with you then you can live by your notions of fairness.” You will get nothing more than that. You will miss out on the fullness of His generosity. You will miss that it is not in His fairness that He gives you His Son but in His generosity. He doesn’t give you what you deserve at all but rather gives you more than you could ever imagine in giving you His Son. Unfair is God giving over His Son on the cross for the sin of the world. But really, it is not unfair at all. It is the generosity of God. It is His pure mercy and grace toward us sinners. Instead of grumbling at God’s unfairness, we should be glad about it. God is not fair, but He is generous. The first become last and the last first. It’s unfair, but Jesus Himself is the first and became the last. We the last have become the first. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that. It’s like a man who is very unfair. But who shows us how incomprehensibly generous God is, giving you what He wishes to, which is forgiveness, life, and salvation. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
