Fairness

I know we've got a few avid golfers in this church. So this story might be something that you appreciate. There was a million dollar golf tournament one time which drew contestants from near and far. And many experienced golfers who had worked years and years on their game came for a share in the jackpot. Now you won this million dollars by driving the ball from the pin, and the one who reached, got the ball closest to the hole won the million dollar jackpot.

Now golfer after golfer tried to get a hole in one or at least get closest to it. One skilled veteran in particular made it six inches within the hole. Not too shabby. Then they watched as some hacker, you know, boardies and a singlet came and paid his $50 to have a go. And he swung, absolutely hacked this ball.

It flew very far, but way off course. But amazingly, it bounced off a golf cart onto a photographer's camera and went into the hole. Hole in one. What were the chances? He won the contest and the money.

Who said life was fair? Aussies. Us Aussies, I include myself as an Aussie, have a very strong concept of fairness. From an early age, we learn what this term fairness is all about. You'll hear, and there's a few new South Africans here with us this morning.

You'll hear soon the catchphrase fair go. Fair go, mate. Soon after learning the words no and mine, children from a very early age hear the handy phrase, it's not fair. Instinctively, we have this system of belief built into us about what is right and fair, comparing what we have with what someone else got given. Whether that is dividing exactly the right amount of M&Ms between you and your brother, and my brother's here and we did that a lot, making sure everyone has equal amounts, or whether it is working out a high stakes corporate buyout, everything inside us screams fair go.

Give us a fair go. We feel so strong about it. Think about it. When someone cheats and gets ahead of us, we feel indignant. We feel ripped off.

It's not fair. You've been at a company for years and years working very hard for this company, and in walks this leggy blonde flashing her blue eyes and gets the promotion ahead of you. I'm a good person, we might say to ourselves. I really, really love people. How come no one else loves me how I love them?

How come no one picks me? Am I just a wallflower? It's not fair. I lived a good clean life, no smoking. I tried to eat well, and now the doctor tells me I have cancer.

But my sister-in-law, who smoked a pack a day for forty years, is fine. That's not fair. And the list is endless of all the unfairness out there. And although we can sympathise with other people when things seem unfair for them, it really does strike home when we are the victims of this injustice. And this is the common thought process of how we get there.

Listen, if this sounds familiar. Firstly, we start with the principle that I am good and that I deserve good things. Secondly, I'm not receiving these good things. So thirdly, something must be wrong. And then lastly, who's gonna fix it?

Who's going to fix it? This morning, we're going to look at a moment of great unfairness in one of Jesus' parables. So if you have your bibles with you, let's turn to Matthew 20, and we're going to read from verse one to 16, the entire parable. Matthew 20: Jesus told this parable, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, you also go and work in my vineyard and I will pay you whatever is right. So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour, he went out and found still others standing around.

He asked them, why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing? Because no one hired us, they answered. He said to them, you also go and work in my vineyard. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the workers and pay them their wages beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first. The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.

So when those who were hired first came, they expected to receive more. But each of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. These men who were hired last worked only one hour, they said, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. But he answered one of them, friend, I am not being unfair to you.

Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money, or are you envious because I am generous? So Jesus said, the last will be first, and the first will be last.

So far, our reading. The parables of Jesus are so powerful, aren't they, the parables? Jesus takes a common situation and tells us a story with significant meaning and a message that we can remember in a context that is relatable. He puts heavenly purposes into earthly vessels, and this parable is no different. The situation is common enough.

We can understand it. There is an employer who is hiring workers, a farmer looking for farmhands. And as was the norm in the ancient world and even in places today, the employer hires day labourers. No fixed contracts or anything like that. Day labourers and finds them in the marketplace, which is the hub of people meeting.

It's like having your Facebook account open, knowing that you are contactable. You go to the marketplace to say, you know, I'm out there to talk or to work or to whatever. This part of the parable is, for the Jews listening to this for the first time, fairly normal. This makes sense. But we see the vineyard owner hiring men at four different times during this twelve hour workday, and this is where the story gets a little strange, especially the hiring at the eleventh hour.

We see that the first workers are offered a denarius for working, which is a fairly good pay, but it's a normal day's wage. They are offered this, and they gladly say, yeah, definitely, we'll work for that even if it is a full twelve hour day. But the terms for the subsequent hiring for the second, third, and fourth hiring, and it says it was the third hour, so their workday started at 6AM. So we're talking at 9AM, at 12PM, at 3PM, and then the eleventh hour, which is at 5PM.

Okay? So at these different times, he doesn't say anything about payment. He says, I'll pay you whatever is right, in fact. Whatever is right. After a big day's work, when the sun starts setting, those having worked these long hours begin to wonder, what am I gonna get paid?

Whatever is fair, they said to themselves, because that's what the farmer told these other workers, whatever is fair. And so as the sun starts setting and they're tired and worn out from a big day's work, it comes to receiving their paycheck. And strangely enough, the people who started latest first get their pay and they move on. So the excitement is building, the anticipation is building for a great pay. If these guys are getting a denarius, man, what am I gonna get for having done three times, four times the amount of work that these guys did?

Lo and behold, they get the same payment. Fair go. Naturally, they're upset. So those guys got a denarius. I should be getting more.

After all, I worked long hours in the heat of the day, they say. But in verse 13, the farmer responds, friend, I'm not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Weren't you happy to do that in the first place? Verse 15, don't I have a right to do what I want with my own money, or are you envious because I am generous?

We can relate to this story, can't we? We can relate to it. It didn't seem fair. I was raised in a family with a mum who was a lawyer. So when it comes to fairness and equity, our family operated on the motto, what goes for the goose goes for the gander.

What this person gets, everyone gets. What this person doesn't get, no one gets. So where is Jesus going with this parable? Where is Jesus heading? What does He want to convey?

What does it mean? In many ways, this parable isn't too difficult to understand. It's obvious that Jesus is talking about fairness in the kingdom of God. The vineyard represents the kingdom because elsewhere in the Bible, the same metaphor is used to talk about the kingdom of God. And Jesus begins, in fact, saying that the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner and this vineyard.

The vineyard owner is God, of course. That's also not too difficult to grasp. But who are the workers? Who are the workers? Well, it's obvious, I think, that the workers are humans participating in the kingdom of God, or people that have in fact entered or been allowed to operate within the kingdom of God.

But the main message of this parable is not the vineyard or the place or how they worked or what they did. It's not so much the fact even of these workers needing work. The main message is about the fairness of the reward. The fairness of the reward, isn't it? While we may initially listen to the story and sympathise with these labourers who worked long hard days for the same pay as those who worked one hour and got lucky.

You know, there's a farmer's saying about people who stumble into good luck without working hard. The dumber the farmer, the bigger the spuds. Or that golfer that just hacked that ball and got the hole in one. Getting lucky. While we might sympathise with the people that work hard and don't get this luck, there are several things about this parable that makes us think twice about the situation that's talked about here.

Far from this being a story of blind luck, like the dumb farmer, this story is actually about remarkable, radical grace. God, the vineyard owner, is supremely unfair, yet supremely fair at the same time. Do you realise that the labourers that the vine keeper hired received their jobs as a gift? They weren't entitled to those jobs. They were day labourers that had no contract.

The vine keeper didn't owe it to them at all. The fact that they got paid a denarius even after a fair day's work was still a gracious action. Why? Because He invited them. They had no job.

And they gladly chose to work twelve hours for a denarius. Verse 13 says, The danger that Jesus is trying to communicate here is the danger of comparing ourselves with others. Comparison, friends, is poisonous. Why do you think God warns us against it in the Ten Commandments? Do not covet your neighbour.

Do not covet his wife, his ox, or his donkey, his car, his job, his or her personality. And the question is, how do we get jealous? How do we get jealous? Get jealous by looking at their stuff, then looking at our stuff, and noticing the gap. Comparison, however, is such a normal thing to do, and it's what drives our economy.

It's such a normal thing to do, but it is poisonous, and it affects our happiness. How much happier would you be if you lived in complete ignorance of what people had around you? How much more content would you be not knowing what someone earns or not knowing what car they drive or or whatever? The whole parable doesn't talk about how much work needed to be done in the vineyard. It never mentions it.

We see the farmer going out four times to get more workers. It doesn't mention that there was too much work to be done, that he was, you know, pulling out his hair because he was not gonna meet a deadline or anything like that. It seems the farmer goes out and goes out and goes out because he wants to pay people. At one point, he asked these people, why are you just standing around? They replied because no one has hired us at the eleventh hour.

So he says, okay. Come and work for me. There's no indication that this job was massive. Nothing. It simply indicates an employer who sees unemployed people and hires them because they need work.

And that friends indicates massive grace. The farmer didn't need to give them work, but he wanted to give them help. So this is a story about a very gracious man. But now the second truth comes in, and it's so important for us today. You see, we might think that we are one of these first servants.

These people who worked hard and longest in the heat of the day. You may have been a Christian all your life, have a nice collection of Christian t shirts, have the most up to date Christian Hillsong CDs. But let me tell you, you aren't the first servant in this parable. You are the last servant in this parable, the one who got hired on the eleventh hour. You see, when Jesus told this story, He was telling it to the Jews.

Jews who were God's chosen people, the people who God loved and rescued, and for three thousand years, up to that point, God had favoured. When Jesus told this story, He wasn't talking about the faithful Christians two thousand years later like us. He was talking about the Jews who were the faithful remnants of God who would witness personally a massive in gathering of Gentile believers. The Gentile people, people who on the eleventh hour snuck through the gate. It is the Gentiles like you and me who are those lucky servants who got paid a denarius for an hour's work.

So we begin to realise with humility that we are those final servants, the ones who deserve that payment the very least. But this parable also goes further, and it crushes any self righteous attitude that we have as long standing good Christians when it comes to sinners around us as well. Crushes self righteousness and the notion of it's not fair. Why does God still bless these people? Why can't these individuals hurt me?

Why can't these individuals continue living in these horrible, disrespectful ways against God, but still be allowed in the kingdom? But it's all about perspective, and we're doing that comparison thing again. Who are you? You are the eleventh hour servant. You are the eleventh hour servant and so is this neighbour who's doing the wrong thing.

So is your coworker, potentially. So is your unrepentant family member. When we say it's not fair, God says you're right. It's not fair. It's not fair.

For in all fairness, none of us deserve the blessings of God. None of us deserve to be employed, to be in His kingdom. And perhaps this is where the extension of the parable must end because workers deserve a wage, but the wages of sin is death. We deserve, by all fairness, to be left in the marketplace. God's kingdom doesn't need our input.

The parable doesn't talk about the massive need for these workers. Even our so called good work, according to the Bible, can be seen as disrespectful and degrading to God on its own. When we say life is unfair, that things haven't gone our way, God says, yes, it's unfair. And then He reminds us of Psalm 103:10. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

That's not fair. Life is unfair. So God is, in a sense, unfair, and He is unfair to us, and we thank Him for it because it is glorious. But God is, in another sense, ultimately fair and very just. The payment those servants received represents the reward for being in God's kingdom.

It is the blessing that God gives to all those who live in His nation, and that reward is good enough to labour for for twelve hours in the heat of the day, and you would do it gladly. You would do it gladly. The reward is more than enough. But this reward has come to us at a price. It came to us at a great unfairness, but to God and not to us.

And so God acts with justice even to maintain His radically unfair grace. God demonstrated His justice in Christ who bore those wages of sin in His death. God's divine justice is measured out in the cross, but it is focused on the one man, Jesus Christ, channelled through this action and spills over and saturates the whole world with this grace. So that there is no one on this planet who hears this message and can say, God has not been fair to me. There is not anyone on this planet who hears this message, who understands the gospel, who can ever say that God has not been fair.

Because in Jesus, all the righteous anger and punishment that in all fairness we deserve was executed onto Him, and it never touched us. It never touched us. Fair go. Fair go. So now because of Jesus, we may claim a place in God's kingdom as the servants who snuck in on the buzzer beater, who snuck in like the springbok against the Argentines this morning.

And we claim the inheritance not of servants, but the bible says as sons and daughters. We have by Christ's work earned a good payment for any work we do in His kingdom. So like the workers who slaved in the fields all day and the latecomers who benefit from all their efforts, how much more do we, the latecomers, benefit from the work of Christ who slaved away for us? And this, friends, has so many implications. This has so many implications for how we live.

Many people today are very concerned that our help or our generosity should only go to the deserving. To the deserving poor, to the deserving battlers, the people who treat us well enough to deserve our kindness. But we should be very careful when it comes to showing mercy because this parable smashes any notion that we ever deserved mercy in the first place. As Christians, we understand grace, and so it means we will not be too quick to give up on undeserving needy people. In very practical ways, mercy is the spontaneous superabounding love that comes from an experience of God's grace. Knowing that we are the eleventh hour servants causes a deep lasting experience of the grace of God.

And the more generous we understand this grace to be, the more generous our lives will become. We are beneficiaries of supreme unfair fairness. We are beneficiaries of supreme unfair fairness. Reflecting on this parable of Jesus, we could say in God's kingdom, life isn't fair. If it were, we would be in deep trouble.

But Jesus took what we deserved and He gave us what we don't. He satisfied God's sense of fairness and brings us the wages of His death, and the wages of His death is eternal life for us. It's not fair, and it is glorious. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this is such a simple message, but so profound.

And Father, we struggle with fairness. We wrestle with comparing things that we have with those other people have received, and we can so empathise and understand the frustration of these servants in these parables. But, Father, this morning, we realised again that we have received so much more than we deserve. Holy Spirit, plant that so deep in our hearts that we will be moved by it whenever we come to moments where we have to consider who is deserving of our involvement in their lives, who is deserving of our time, of our money, of our affections, of our love, of our compassion. Remind us, Spirit, of just how much we have received, how generously you showered us with your love.

Remind us, Lord, that we are the eleventh hour servants. Father, we pray in our workplaces, in our schools, in our universities that you will guide us in our conversations about this grace as well, that others may come to hear it, that they may join in our rejoicing. And Father, lastly, we just wanna thank you. Because really that is the only thing we can do. We wanna thank you, and we wanna celebrate, Lord, your love for us, and that you sent your son Jesus for us, and that you have opened the way for us, and that we gladly, gladly receive this denarius as our payment, as our reward.

Father, all glory to you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.