It’s a phrase heard on playgrounds and in the minds of adults the world over: It’s not fair. From children who perceive some difference in the size of cake slices to adults who get passed over for promotions, we all long for fairness. We have this mentality, especially in the United States where the American philosophy is: if you work hard, you will be rewarded. We hang on to this idea of fairness.

So, with this longing for fairness, we come along Jesus telling a parable such as the one we have before us today. When I read this parable, I immediately think, "Not fair!" This parable seems to say that God’s ideas about fairness cannot possibly be the same as our ideas about fairness.

The owner of the vineyard goes out to the marketplace and hires a bunch of workers to work in his fields. This first group of workers bargains with the owner about the amount they will be paid for their work. Then the owner goes out three more times to the marketplace and hires more workers. He promises to pay them "what is right." Finally, the owner goes out again to the marketplace just an hour before quitting time and finds still other workers without anything to do. So he tells them to go into his field to work.

It is interesting to note that we aren’t told if there was a specific reason for the owner to hire more workers. We aren’t told that the job that needed to be done was so large that he had to keep hiring more and more workers in order to complete it. In fact, when the owner speaks with the last group of workers, he doesn’t ask them to help him complete this big job. Instead he hires them because of their need for work and not his need for workers.

But we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. When the bell signaling that it is time to quit work rings, the owner instructs his manager saying that those who were hired last should be paid first. As the manager presses the usual daily wage into the palms of those who were hired last, a cry of joy must have erupted from the back of the line.

The usual daily wage for a day laborer in Jesus’ time wasn’t much. Indeed it was only what was necessary for one to survive for that day. Unlike today when we have payday once a week or once a month, day laborers during Jesus’ time were paid at the end of every day’s work. In fact, laws in the Hebrew Bible forbid a master from withholding pay from his laborers for even a night. The reasoning for this is that in order for them to make it to the next day, the laborer needed the money. This is living paycheck to paycheck to the extreme.

I can imagine what might have been going through the minds of those who had been hired last. As they were waiting throughout the day in the marketplace to be hired they must have seen what their day was going to be like. As the day wore on, they realized that without work there would be no food for their table tonight. But when the owner of the vineyard came to them and offered them just an hour’s work there must have been some glimmer of hope. Perhaps they would earn enough for just a small loaf of bread to share with their family. It wouldn’t be much but at least he wouldn’t come home empty-handed. It would at least ensure they wouldn’t starve that night.

Then, can you imagine their excitement when they looked down at the coin placed in their hand at the end of the day? That coin – that daily wage – meant nothing less than survival for another day. With that coin, they received nothing less than the chance to live another day. So of course they whooped and hollered when they saw what they had received. They had been given life.

But then there are those at the front of the line – those workers whose clothes are drenched with sweat and juice from the grapes they have been hard at work tending all day long. When they heard the whoops an hollers from the back of the line they must have craned their necks to see what was gong on at the back of the line. When the news of what the workers at the back of the line had received for payment reached them, their mouths must have started watering at the thought of what they were about to receive. However, when the manager reaches them they also receive the usual daily wage.

Immediately, the grumbling begins. Why should they receive the same as those who worked only an hour? But even as they grumble, they hold in their hands the wage that will give them the same thing that it gave those who were paid first – life. The coin in their hand will give them the opportunity to survive another day.

In the scripture passage from Exodus we hear about the Israelites grumbling to Moses and Aaron that they are starving out in the wilderness. They begin to think fondly of their time enslaved to the Egyptians where they at least had food to eat. God hears their grumbling and sends them manna and quail. The catch is that they are only to collect what they will need for one day. If they try to keep anything for another day, it will rot. So each morning the Israelites wake up to find that all around them God has spread out for them all they will need to survive another day. As they exit their tents each morning they see the gift of life that God has given them.

The owner of the vineyard offers life in a similar way. Across the board, the owner of the vineyard has paid his workers with nothing less than life – life for everyone. The opportunity to live another day. The main difference in the workers is how they receive that life they have been given. Those who were at the back of the line and had only worked an hour received that life with joy. Excited about the gift they have been given, they go about the remainder of their day living their life to the fullest because they know they have been extended grace.

Those at the front of the line accept their gift of life differently. Instead of jumping for joy at the gift of life they have received, they grumble. They grumble about not receiving more life than the others. They grumble about not receiving more grace than the others. After all, they deserved it – so they thought. But can we ever deserve grace? Isn’t it the very nature of grace that we don’t deserve it?

Now if I were to go with one of the more traditional interpretations of this parable, I would talk about how those of us gathered have come early into the field. Though there are others who will come to work after us, we will all receive grace and we should all be happy with what we receive. If I were to take this traditional interpretation of this parable, then I would want to share with you about how we should rejoice that God is gracious and that God extends grace to everyone, even latecomers to the faith. If I were to take this traditional interpretation of the parable, I would talk to you about people who became Christians on their deathbed or while imprisoned – those conversions that we sometimes look upon with skepticism. I would tell you about how much God loves these people and extends grace to them.

But what if we were to look at this parable with a different interpretation? We can think of ourselves as the workers who slaved away in the hot sun all day and therefore deserving of greater pay or greater grace. We, after all, are faithful followers of Christ or at least we try to be. But what if instead of being at the front of the line there are others who are ahead of us? What if there are others who are more deserving of God’s grace? What if when the grace is handed out, we find that we are the ones in the back of the line whooping and hollering that we have been given much more than we could ever deserve?

What if we were to celebrate the grace to live another day? We pray together asking for God to provide us with our daily bread. We pray for God to give us what we need to make it through another day. We pray this not because we are deserving of it or because we have earned it but we pray it because we are confident in God’s grace. Because God is gracious, that grace to live another day has been pressed into our palms. Will you whoop and holler?

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who handed out life to all he encountered – especially to those who did not deserve the grace. Christ hands out to us nothing less than eternal life. There is nothing we can do to become worthy of this gift. All we can do is receive it with joy.

Thanks be to our gracious and generous God.