Turning our sense of fairness upside down

 ‘…So the last will be first, and the first will be last’ (Matthew 20:16)

Matthew 20:1-16 (Year A: Trinity+14)

In the story of the vineyard we encounter a strange paradox. Expressed in contemporary language the metaphor involves a casual labour scheme where workers are hired at different wage rates: those arriving late get a significantly higher hourly rate and the same daily rate as those who started early in the day. A recipe for industrial strife, surely, if ever there was! 

And what sort of employer would give away part of his profits to pay one particular group of workers a higher wage rate for no reason than they arrived late. Rewarding indolence and encouraging conflict among the other workers? Not to be taken or applied in the workplace today, such a story was meant for a purpose – to shock and even scandalise the listeners. God’s rules of fairness, forgiveness and priority are not always aligned with our rules and norms.  Going after one sheep while 99 are left on the hillside is not what might be regarded as an efficient use of management time. Putting on a party to celebrate the return of a shrewd prodigal son is not exactly a motivator for the son who has been loyal and well behaved all those years. Forgiving a thief and admitting to heaven at the last hour without insisting on a lengthy prison sentence seems unfair to those who have gone the penal route.

Based on a theology of God as the Chief Accountant and Law Enforcer, human theories of divine justice and retribution speak of merit, reward and punishment. Merit, according to this school of thinking is based on an accumulation of virtuous actions and prayers. A net debit or a net credit is logged at the end of the earthly journey. The remaining debt is addressed in a theologically necessary purgatory from which debt relief and write-down is achieved (even counted in a precise number of ‘day’s although the temporality of a post-time state is challenging).

The metaphor of the vineyard in the 20^th Chapter of Matthew along with other parables turns this notion of the Chief Accountant God on its head. Moreover, it seriously challenges ‘normal’ human rules and expectations. It brings the listener back to the very idea of God as unlimited, unconditional love who invites us and gifts that love on each of us. In that sense and in the sense that Saint Augustine applied it we can say shamelessly:

• Christ alone
• Grace alone
• Trust alone

Because ultimately we do not stand on our own efforts and merit.