Parable of the Day Laborers

Scripture is full of stories and instructions and parables that I don't like.

Like, what do you mean I have to love my enemies?

What do you mean I have to forgive seven times seventy seven times?

What do you mean I have to forgive others their debts the same way that my debts have been forgiven?

What do you mean I am being sent out like sheep among wolves??

What do you mean I can't prepare my defense in advance?

What do you mean I'm not supposed to worry about anything like flowers in a FIELD,

And this parable from Jesus is one of the stories that people have the hardest time with:

What do you mean if I work all day long I'm going to get paid the same as the person who showed up just under the wire. Does my work not mean anything? Does my anger not get to mean anything? Do my grudges not get to mean anything? Does their laziness not get to mean anything? Does their tardiness not get to mean anything? Do their sins not get to mean anything?

This is one of the wonderful consistencies of scripture - inside of scripture and out of it - people chafe against the things that God instructs. The things God says so rarely feel fair, at least against our culture and our economy that function so much based on this really deeply ingrained sense of earning and deservedness.

There are just so many examples of this tension:

The rich young ruler is made sad by Jesus's instruction to sell all of his belongings and give the money to the poor, if he really wants to do right by the Kingdom of Heaven. It's a CRAZY instruction, and we might do anything we can do to eschew the heart of the instruction.

Jonah, the prophet, who after he makes it out of the whale, crashes out over God's instruction to go to the city of Nineveh and tell them to repent, because he knows that they will and he knows that God will be merciful and he doesn't think they deserve to be saved.

The people who heard Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan were forced to name that the person who they were the most biased against, culturally, positionally, could be the person who was most following God's call to serve.

I guess what I want to name is that at the middle of all of this, can be a resistance to grace because it doesn't feel fair. When debts go unpaid, when wrongs go unpunished, when work goes uncompleted, when biases go unconfirmed, when the ledger is ultimately not tallied by you or me, it just feels wrong. Somehow.

And yet, for as much as I read in scripture that I wince at- that feels too generous, too naive, too imprudent, I sort of have to temper that against the world as it is- too withholding, too exacting, too vengeful- and acknowledge that that way of living is not exactly working out all that well for us either. I think we're all feeling pulled taught between the two ends of this spectrum, and like we're having a real cultural level argument of which end to lean into to fix what ails us as a humanity. Will it make things better for us to become more generous or more withholding? Will it make things better for us to become more naive or more exacting? Will it make things better to become more forgiving or more vengeful?

Matthew 20:1-16

The parable of the vineyard workers

20:1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

20:2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.

20:3When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

20:4and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.

20:5When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same.

20:6And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?'

20:7They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.'

20:8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.'

20:9When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received a denarius.

20:10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.

20:11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner,

20:12saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'

20:13But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?

20:14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.

20:15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

20:16So the last will be first, and the first will be last."