“That’s Not Fair!”

Matthew 20:1-16

When our children, Sam and Abby, were young, fairness was a guiding principle at our home. It was so important that both Sam and Abby got the EXACT same amount of everything, and when they didn’t, the fair police came out, sirens blazing. For example, “Why do I have one waffle and he has two? Why does she have cereal, and I don’t? How come my sports drink is purple, and his is green?” One example in particular stands out in my mind. The children’s vitamins we bought at the time had three colors. Both kids had to get the color they wanted every morning. When colors became scarce, one of them would pick through the bottle until they found the last pink, orange, or purple one, leaving the other child unhappy. (Even though they pretty much tasted the same) Then one of the kids would say, “How come she got the last orange one? That just isn’t FAIR!”

We really want life to be fair, don’t we? But let’s face it, life is often unfair. The office manager at my last church used to say, “Fair? Oh honey, Fair is where they take the pigs.” Life definitely isn’t fair for most livestock…

Travel back almost 2000 years, and life wasn’t fair then either. Jesus had just talked to a rich man and told him to give away everything he had, saying he would find treasure in heaven. Then Jesus told the disciples how hard it was to enter the kingdom of heaven. Peter’s fair alert went off. Peter said, “Wait a minute! We have left everything to follow you. We walked away from our careers, our income, our families. We have followed you all this time, and for what? We’ve done all this, and you tell us that it is hard to get into the kingdom? Still? That doesn’t seem fair, Jesus.”

First, Jesus answered Peter, "You will receive a reward 100-fold for following me." But then he said to them, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be a servant to all.” Even though their reward would be great, they would have to live a life serving others. Then Jesus said, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” I’ll bet Peter said under his breath, “I knew there was a catch to this.”

The last shall be first? That statement certainly doesn’t seem fair. What if the two best teams in the National Football League played all the way to the Super Bowl, and then suddenly the commissioner of football got on the news and said, “Well, we’ve decided the two teams with the worst records will play for the title this year?” (At this point in the season, it looks like the Cleveland Browns would be one of those teams.)

Jesus further illustrated his point with this story about the landowner and the vineyard workers. What is this parable about? This is an illustration about how the world is supposed to be, and an echo of the coming kingdom of God, a kingdom rooted in justice and mercy. It also illustrates how, in God’s economy, no one is left standing idle because of lack of opportunity.

The vineyard in the parable represents Israel, as seen in other prophetic images in Isaiah (5:7) and Jeremiah (12:10). The vineyard is a well‑known biblical symbol for God’s people and the work of God. In Hebrew Scripture, prophets regularly use the vineyard image to represent Israel and God’s covenant community. For example, Isaiah 5:1–7 describes God as a vintner whose vineyard is “the house of Israel,” and Jeremiah 12:10 likens God’s people to a vineyard under unrighteous shepherds.

In this parable, the vineyard also symbolizes the kingdom of heaven and the people of God. The vineyard’s work—tending, pruning, and producing—mirrors the spiritual calling of God’s people to bear fruit in God’s purposes. 

The landowner represents God. The fact that the landowner hires workers throughout the day and pays them all the same wage illustrates God’s grace and generosity toward all who respond to the call of faith, regardless of when they come.

The day laborers in this parable are us. In the first century, day laborers were among the most vulnerable in society- no work meant no food for their families. The day laborers were hired in the marketplace (the agora) for a day’s wage of one denarius. They were free people, not slaves, often hired for hard, low‑paying labor.

So, we have day laborers all hired at different points during the day.

• First‑hour workers – Those who joined God’s work early in life, often representing the “first” in the kingdom, such as the disciples or long‑time followers.
• Later‑hour workers – Those who came to faith or entered God’s service later, including Gentiles or “last” in human expectation, yet still receiving the same reward.
• All workers – Collectively, they symbolize all who accept God’s invitation, whether early or late, and are included in the kingdom. The parable overturns human expectations of merit‑based reward, showing that God’s mercy is not earned by length of service but given freely to all.

Farmers always seem to panic at the thought of losing even a small part of their harvest. Jesus describes a common practice in his day during harvest time that still happens today. When I used to work at a Christian camp in Sonoma County, where wine grapes grew and needed tending for much of the year, I can remember seeing farm workers standing on corners, being picked up at various times throughout the day, and climbing into the back of a farmer’s truck. In the same way, the landowner kept on going back and hiring more workers. Landowners will hire workers right up to the 11th hour to ensure the harvest is completed. Yet, what he did strikes us as exceedingly unfair. Why does everyone get the same wage despite not working the same amount? That’s not fair!

It is interesting that the landowner made the first hired hands of the day wait for those who had been hired last to receive their denarius. Those hired first would have left the vineyard, happy with their day’s wage, had they not seen the last workers receive the same pay. Instead, the landowner, God, wants to illustrate a point about what is fair.

This story answers Peter’s question about fairness, but not in a human sense. What isn’t fair in our eyes is fair to God. Jesus reaffirms those who had been called from the beginning. The disciples would receive their pay, their heavenly reward for following him and dropping everything.- Those who have borne the burden of the day’s heat in the vineyard of God’s people would be rewarded for their faith.

Yet Jesus also defends God’s sovereign liberty to extend mercy to others who come to faith and serve much later in life. The last ones hired get the same wage. Our Creator does not have to give an account to anyone for mercy given to others, or to make things seem fair to us. The same mercy Jesus showed Peter when he first met him- “ Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man;”  the same mercy Jesus showed to the woman caught in adultery as her accusers surrounded her; the same mercy the father showed to the prodigal son when he returned home; the same mercy God extends to each of us whenever we too accepted the call to faith is the same mercy God offers to all people at every stage of their lives. That is what is fair to God, and no matter how frustrated we may be about it, that is how our God works in this world.

At my first ordained call in the 1990s, I received a phone call from a woman who explained to me that her husband was dying. She asked if I would come out to his hospital bed and talk with him, for he wanted to accept Christ into his heart before he died.  I came out to the hospital immediately. It was a privilege to be part of this moment, and I could tell he was close to death. I asked him if he was ready to let Jesus into his life, and he nodded as vigorously as he could in his weakened condition. We said a prayer together, spoke with the family for a while, and then left. The next day, I learned he had died. What this passage tells us is that he received the same amount of God’s mercy as I have, even though he was one of the last ones coming into God’s vineyard. God did not love this man any less than me, and the reward of faith was the same for us both.

This passage shows us a glimpse of the coming kingdom of God, rooted in justice and mercy. The truth about God's amazing mercy is this: God deals with people, not according to what they deserve, but according to God's grace and mercy. We are called to do the same.

• “God has shown you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” — Micah 6:8
• Theologian Anne Lamott writes,  “Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to the miracle of apology, given and accepted, to unashamed humility when we have erred or forgotten.”

From a faith perspective, mercy operates as an active, unearned gift — a practice that mirrors the way God’s mercy operates without merit. Mercy levels the playing field and makes the world more just.