Readings (Year A):
Isaiah 55:6–9
Psalm 145:2-3, 8–9, 17–18
Philippians 1:20c–24, 27a
Matthew 20:1–16a
Reflection: Divine justice eclipses human selfishness
God is not “fair,” and that is a very good thing. Too often, fairness is determined by my own self-interest, a pattern of behavior that begins for most people at a very young age. Think about the playground fights in elementary school or the sibling rivalry that arises during childhood. How often is it the case that we have heard a kid say (or once said ourselves): “That’s not fair!” in response to a perceived slight or a situation when someone else is given a toy, a turn, an opportunity for something that I feel like ought to have been mine first or even exclusively?
Such comparison and self-interest don’t typically disappear when we become adults either. A great illustration of this tendency appears in today’s gospel passage, which comes from the book of Matthew. This passage, in which Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who hires laborers throughout the day, follows immediately after Jesus speaks with a rich young man whose way of viewing success and security is starkly different from what God’s vision for human mutuality and care is, as conveyed in Jesus’s preaching. That passage ends with Jesus admonishing his followers: “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” The gospel has already set the scene to challenge our expectations, and Jesus’s next parable certainly accomplishes that mission.
The fictional landowner in Jesus’s story is, as is often the case, a stand-in for God. This businessman hires day laborers throughout the day, resulting in an uneven amount of work: the early hires work a full day while those hired in the late afternoon hardly work at all. The landowner orders that all the workers be paid the same wage, which provokes the ire of those who were first hired in the morning. It is here that we see a certain kind of obsession with “fairness” rear its ugly head. Surely, they insist, we deserve more than those who worked but a few hours.
But why should this be the case? As Jesus’s narration makes clear, the landowner has cheated nobody. The most revealing part of the passage reads: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
What are we to make of this parable and the consternation of those workers hired in the morning?
First, God’s sense of what is fair and what isn’t does not align with our own human sense of fairness, which is typically a thin veil covering over our own self-centeredness. The reign of God is marked by everyone having what is necessary for human flourishing, and in this setting, God does not withhold anything from anyone. All parties are accounted for and given what is necessary. Yet, it is a sense of selfishness and entitlement that drives those who have what is from the outset fair—that is, an agreed upon daily wage—to feel they deserve so much more.
Second, this parable also challenges us to grapple with the selfishness that is often coded as “fair” in our world today, a selfishness which is frequently deployed to justify actual injustices in society. The wealthy, comfortable, and powerful might spin tales of fairness that can distract from real need and suffering, promoting a false meritocratic story about how those who have much “deserve it” and those who are poor and suffering are responsible for their own misery.
Like the vineyard workers hired in the morning, some people seem to justify their greed and desire for more as a comparable reward for their hard work. Unlike the divine landowner of the gospel, most real landowners (and other businesspeople) operate according to the logic of those first-hired workers. The rules then get set to benefit a few, while the system and society’s rhetoric explain inequality, abuse, poverty, and injustice as merely a real-world reflection of fairness.
It can be difficult to accept the gratuitous love, generosity, and mercy of God. We hold each other accountable to rules of “fairness,” sometimes couched in religious language, but it is not how God sees the world. In the first reading, God reminds us that God’s way of relating to humanity is extremely different from the often sinful and selfish ways we relate to one another. God’s generosity and forgiveness are lifted up and God proclaims: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
The way God thinks and acts in history is a testament to radical unfairness, that is, unfair according to the logic of the world. What we might refer to as divine unfairness is, in fact, a beautiful sign of a generous God whose justice and mercy extends far beyond our limited capacities. For this reason, we should thank God that God is not “fair” like us, and perhaps we could be more generous, just, and merciful as God is to us.
