Fair
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The return of the prodigal son, rembrandt, 1699
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. -Matthew 20:1
We’ve had a string of parables on Sundays lately, and they have been challenging, as all Jesus’ parables are. His stories challenge our assumptions, they challenge our sensibilities, they even challenge our faith. Sometimes, they even seem to challenge themselves.
This Sunday’s parable is particularly challenging to our sense of fairness. The landowner pays the laborers who’ve been working since sun up in the vineyard the same amount that he pays the ones who started work a mere hour ago. What is this? Are not those who are eager early birds meant to get more worms?
This parable reminds me a lot of the story of the Prodigal Son, about a younger son who’d taken his inheritance early and gone off and wastes it in dissolute living. When he finally straggles home after losing everything, the dad kills the fatted calf and has a great, big party. The older son, who’s been out working in the fields all day comes home to find a party in full swing, and one of the servants tells him it’s in honor of his deadbeat brother. The older brother become really mad, because it is so, so, so not fair on so many levels.
But what are we to do with the Father’s generous heart, always ready to forgive and welcome? How is that supposed to work in a world in which we’re told we must earn our way - in a world that is completely transactional and commodified? How can live more deeply into a tenet of faith that seems to be so oppositional to the way the world seems to work on a practical level?
As we continue in the Season of Creation, both this parable and the story of Jonah have much to say to us and our place in the world, I’m looking forward to exploring it as we feast on the word together this Sunday.
