March 10, 2025 | Be God's Family
It’s Not Fair!
Scripture: Matthew 20:1-16(NIV)
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “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.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These 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.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Devotional
“It’s not Fair!” Any parent with two or more children has heard this. Usually, it involves an older child having a later bedtime, and you get to deal with a tired (and therefore more irrational than usual) four-year-old. Any perceived showing of partiality toward one child will bring the allegation of fundamental unfairness.
Because we all have a sense of fairness, we are also sensitive to perceived unfairness. One of the largest places this happens is in the workplace. Most of us have experienced the situation where there is a co-worker who is a slacker, who gets paid just the same as you. That is exactly what this passage seems to portray; workers who show up for the last two hours of work get paid the same as the ones who toiled in the heat all day.
It’s not fair.
That’s why it took a long time for me to really understand this passage. First, we must understand that God does not think as we do. While He does have a sense of humor (that’s for another devotional), the idea of “fairness” as we know it is based upon perceptions of distribution of finite resources. The Kingdom of Heaven is not finite. God is infinite. The Kingdom of Heaven is infinite.
Dante wrote that there are nine “Circles” or levels to Hell. One of them must be for people at the gym who just sit at the exercise machine I’m waiting to use, looking at their cell phone! There are no “levels” to Heaven. It’s the same glorious place for all of us who believe in Jesus. Even disciples James & John struggled with this, as in Mark 10:37 they asked Jesus: “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
Secondly, we must understand that we don’t “earn” our way into Heaven by our own toil and effort. This is a very easy trap for suburban Americans (and typical Fishers residents) to fall into. We expect that hard work yields great rewards. It’s not an inherently bad attitude for life on earth. Heaven is different. We get there only through God’s grace, and God’s capacity for grace and forgiveness is infinite.
Regardless of when someone comes to Christ in life, whether as a teenager or as a senior citizen, rejoice for them. For they will enjoy the infinite Glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Poem
The Life-Field
Psalm 80
You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land.
Psalm 80:8-9
The LORD saw a life-field
Strewn, covered in thorns
Great boulders of heartache
Deep ruts scarred its form
This land others passed by
“It’s wasteland,” they claimed,
And then they proceeded
Its owner to blame
The LORD bought the life-field
For more than its worth
And slowly and lovingly
Cared for its earth
He cleared all the rubble
Brought steams flowing clear
Transplanted His vineyard
Blew winds gentle, clear
The tears which had salted
The unfertile ground
Were wiped away gently--
Soon joy did abound
A shoot from the Jesse
Stump grew strong and wide
With life giving myst’ry
Deep pulsing inside
Soon bud turned to flower
Then flower to fruit
All nurtured abiding
In Love’s deep’ning root
With harvest a-plenty
The LORD called for teams
To reap all the ripe grapes
A marvelous scene!
The crop was so plentiful
God’s grace was revealed
More teams were now needed
The LORD then appealed:
“Call forth, pray for reapers
Let nothing be lost
Each cluster so valued
No matter the cost!”
So into the byways
The manager went
To call forth the workers
Who were vineyard sent
With great harvest finished
Great praises were voiced
The harvest meal glorious
The reapers rejoiced
The LORD saw his life-field
Now fertile and grown
With next season’s planting
All planted and sown
And now when all passed by
Each one did proclaim,
“Since bought by the Great LORD
Just look at the gain!”
