2023.09.24 | It's Not Fair!
“It’s Not Fair!”
Rev. Brenda Loreman
Designated Term Associate Minister
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Seventeenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Matthew 14:13-23
Think back for a few moments to your childhood, or—if that’s a little challenging—to the childhood of your children or grandchildren. What words were most frequently heard coming out of your children’s mouths? I’d like to think that I often said, “I love you,” or “Thank you,” or “Let me help.” But I’m afraid that I probably said other less loving things more often than I’d like to admit. How many times did I say, “That’s not fair!” That’s not fair!” How many times have you heard this coming out of your children’s mouths—or out of your own?
It’s not fair that I have an earlier bedtime than my brother (even though he’s six years older than I am). It’s not fair that ALL my friends are seeing that movie and I don’t get to (even though it’s rated R and probably inappropriate for me). It’s not fair that I worked really hard on that assignment and still didn’t get an A (even though math is really not my best subject).
You’ve probably heard similar things from your own children, or remember saying them to your parents. It seems that all of us are born with an innate sense of fairness, which is mostly a good thing. When fairness develops into maturity, it is the foundation for social justice. It’s people with a sense of fairness who abolished slavery, who instigated the civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights movements, who changed voting laws and marriage laws and created Medicare and Social Security and many other laws that make our society a more just and livable one. “Yes, our innate sense of fairness can lead to a strong and life-giving sense of justice.
But not always. Because our innate sense of fairness tends to be somewhat ego-centric. We tend to assess fairness, as the examples from childhood demonstrate, in terms of what seems fair not only to us but also for us. We tend to measure fairness […] in terms of our own wants, needs, hopes, expectations, often with little—or at least secondary—regard for the wants and needs of others. And unfortunately this doesn't end with childhood.” We tend to think of fairness in terms of equality, that everyone should receive the exact same treatment and the exact same reward. This assumes, of course, that everyone begins in the same place, with the exact same circumstances.
What we fail to recognize is that for everyone to have a similar outcome, we need to think in terms of equity—the idea that everyone gets what they need to get to the same end result. There’s a cartoon out there that’s often used to illustrate the difference between equality and equity, of kids trying to look over a fence to watch a ball game. Equality gives every kid one equal box. Equity recognizes that every kid is different, and some may need two boxes, while some need none at all, and for some, a box isn’t even the right sort of help.
This is a simple concept when applied to boxes to enable kids to see over a fence. But it gets a bit more complicated when we’re talking about fair wages for a day’s labor.
Which brings us to our parable from Matthew’s Gospel. Let’s be honest. How many of you identified with the laborers hired early in the morning? Given that we’re generally hard-working, virtuous folk, we can easily see ourselves in those hard workers that toiled all day in the hot sun and expected to be fairly compensated for their work. Like them, we can see ourselves making the assumption that, since the vineyard owner was generous to those hired last, he would be especially generous to those who worked so hard. We can even identify with the grumbling of those workers, who assumed that would be some sort of quid pro quo for the landowner’s generosity.
But, like always, Jesus is here to upend and challenge our assumptions. For those who assumed that the Kingdom of Heaven, as he calls it here, was going to be the same sort of triumphant empire as the Roman occupation, only with the right people in charge, Jesus says, no, that’s not how it’s going to be. For those who assume that there will always be a social hierarchy, with winners and losers, superiors and inferiors, insiders and outsiders, honored and shamed, Jesus says, no, that’s not how it’s going to be. For those who assume that his prayer, “give us this day our daily bread” really means, “give me this day my daily bread,” Jesus says no, that’s not how it’s going to be. For those who assume that the Kingdom of Heaven is rooted in God being equal, or fair, Jesus says, no, that’s not how it’s going to be.
Because the Kin-dom of God isn’t based on human economics, or human hierarchies, or a human sense of fairness. This isn’t a parable about fairness. This is a parable about generosity. Because the Kin-dom of God is rooted in God’s generosity and love. “It’s not about equality or proper disbursement of wages but about a gracious and undeserved gift. It is not about an economic exchange but, rather, about a bestowing of grace and mercy to all, no matter what time they have put in or how deserving or undeserving we may think them to be.” It’s a parable that teaches us that God’s love, grace, and generosity are not transactional or conditional.
This parable, at the beginning of Chapter 20 in Matthew’s gospel, is right in the middle of a section of the gospel in which the teachings of Jesus question and challenge traditional first century conventions about societal and household hierarchies. Throughout Chapters 19 and 20, he upends patriarchal and hierarchical notions of marriage, wealth and poverty, and imperial power. In each of the teachings, Jesus describes a community of equity, where everyone has enough and no one has too much. In describing the Kin-dom of God, he seeks to create something new, an alternative household of God’s empire, a place where everyone receives “daily bread,” no matter who we are or what we do.
Jesus encourages us to see others not through our own sense of fairness, but instead with the eyes of God. Instead of grumbling that those who were hired last should not be paid even the meager standard wage, can we instead see those latecomers—who are quite probably the ones who are elderly, sick, disabled, weak, and inexperienced—the way God sees them, as beloved children of God, who are just as deserving of God’s generosity as those hired first?
Can we turn from our pride and envy and hardness, our emphasis on status and social hierarchy, our emphasis on fairness, and instead rejoice that God is generous? Can we turn from holding grudges and grumbling when things don’t go our way, and let go of the stuff in our lives that keeps us from being joy-filled and grateful people?
Can we? I’d like to try a little interactive exercise with you. At the ends of the pews, you should find some index cards and pens or pencils. I also have some friendly assistants here who have more cards and pens if I wasn’t quite generous enough.
On one of the cards, I’d like you to write down some resentment, some grudge you hold in your hearts, something you believe you lack, or something of which you are envious—some way in which you are behaving as one of those grumbling laborers in the vineyard. Honesty matters, so be honest.
On the other card, write some blessing, some areas of abundance, something for which you are grateful, in your own life or, just as importantly, in the life of someone else.
Once you’re done, I invite you to hold each of those cards face down in the palm of each hand. Notice that, physically, the two cards weigh the same. Yet spiritually, existentially, one of these cards is weighing us down, like chains secured to an anchor wrapped tightly around our hearts, while the other is light as a feather. One of them encourages us to grab on and close our hand tightly in a fist; the other one encourages us to open our hand and receive generosity. Which will you choose? Because you can only keep one of them.
During the hymn following the sermon, I’m going to come around with a shopping bag, and I want you to choose one of your cards to give up. Which one will you choose to give away, and which one will you choose to take home as a reminder?
We have a choice how to see the world—through the lens of fairness, or through the lens of generosity.
Which will we choose? Jesus calls us to choose the hard path to the Kin-dom of God, the difficult way that upends all our ideas of fairness and equality, that leads us out of scarcity and fear and the things that make us close our fists and grasp for more, and into the Realm of God where everyone has enough, where we all have our daily bread, and where love and generosity rule. May we walk that road with Jesus, to a new life of abundance, courage, and faith. Amen.