There are two opposite truths about humanity when it comes to fairness: First, as children, we all seem to have an innate, deep concern that things should be fair. A child will pick up on the slightest hint of unfairness and sound the alarm with all their might. But second, we nonetheless build deeply unfair systems and societies — and seem incapable of doing otherwise. I think a big part of this is that, as we grow older, we become better at coming at things from different angles, so that even those who remain concerned with fairness can cloud the question of what exactly fairness means. We see this question come up in today’s Gospel reading, and where Jesus comes down on it tells us a lot about the values of the Kingdom of God, and, therefore, the values we as Christians will share if we are truly aligned with it.
The passage in question is the Parable of the Day Labourers, but I think it’s helpful to understand the context in which Jesus delivers it, because it helps to shape how we interpret it — and in a way that may be a bit different from how we’d interpret it without this background. Jesus has just had his conversation with the rich young man who was proud of his keeping of the Law, yet was unwilling to give up his wealth to follow Jesus. Of course, Peter can’t help himself and jumps in and reminds Jesus that he and the other disciples have given up everything to follow him. Jesus acknowledges their sacrifices, and praise them for it, but then pops their inflated egos a bit, saying:
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. (Matthew 19.29-30)
Jesus explains this last statement with the parable from today’s reading. I won’t quote the passage in full, but to summarize: At the start of a day, a farmer hires some day labourers to work his vines for the normal daily wage. A few hours later, he goes out again and hires more. Then again at midday, and again in the afternoon. When, at the end of the day, everyone is given the same wage, the people who worked all day become indignant, saying it isn’t fair that those who only worked an hour should receive the same pay as those who worked all day. While this complaint seems fair to us, the boss isn’t having it:
“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20.13-16)
In context, the message of the parable is that, while the disciples have every advantage of having been the first, at the end of the day, it really makes no difference. Everyone is welcomed in on the same terms, and the disciples had better be prepared for that.
This teaching has fared oddly throughout history. On the one hand, it has never been challenged and has remained Church teaching in every time and place. But on the other hand, the popular understandings of monasticism and the communion of saints that emerged over the centuries do seem to have obscured it, creating a hierarchy among the faithful. But in the oldest and best understandings, the Saints are not held up as some kind of “Super-Christians,” but rather are held up as exemplary Christians — that is, the people whose way of life we might emulate. To put it in different terms, it’s not a question of the Saints surpassing some imagined bar of faith, but rather that their lives help to flesh out for us where that bar is so that we might be inspired to reach it too. If the disciples, and the Saints after them, are ‘first’ in God’s Kingdom, they are without question first among equals.
What does this tell us about the values of God’s Kingdom? In God’s Kingdom, fairness looks like everyone who participates having enough. As much as someone may say that it isn’t fair for a late hire to get the same reward as them when they worked all day long, God’s Kingdom would retort that it wouldn’t be fair for the late hire to get less just because they happened to have been invited in later.
Notice how the kind of ‘unfairness’ the Kingdom of God runs on is the opposite kind of unfairness that our own systems promote. Our systems are unfair because they’re stingy, creating hierarchies and classes, with the luxuries of the super-wealthy being the given and others being left with their scraps. By contrast, if God’s systems seem ‘unfair’ it’s because they’re generous, flattening hierarchies and eliminating classes. The given here is the not the ceiling, but the ground floor, with the benchmark being everyone having what they need.
Once again, we see the vast difference between the ways of our world and the ways of God. Our challenge as followers of Jesus is to champion and build better systems and structures grounded in God’s generosity. “Life is unfair.” That’s true. Let’s do what we can to make sure it’s unfair in the right way — which wind up, of course, being far fairer in the end.
Matthew Root 