“It’s Not Fair!”
by Fr. Bob Cary, C.S.P.
September 23, 2017

A parable was Jesus’ most frequent and effective teaching tool. Jesus knew everybody loves a good story so he told parables.

Usually, we like to hear parables but there are exceptions. Some parables are difficult to interpret. Other parables are quite clear in meaning but just don’t sit very well with us. Some parables make us uncomfortable. Today’s parable is one of those. It may be one of the most disliked parables. If you and I are uncomfortable with this parable that is okay. Our reaction may be exactly what Jesus intends.

Now Jesus didn’t tell parables to keep the disciples and the people entertained. There is a context for today’s parable. If we look back in the preceding chapters of Matthew’s gospel we note Jesus has been teaching about the need for personal sacrifice and giving up worldly ambitions and possessions.

Peter, on behalf of the other disciples, questions the teaching. He says “Lord, here we have put everything aside to follow you. What can we expect from it?” (Mt 20:27) What is right and fair for us? Peter’s question is our question. In life, what is fair?

In response, Jesus tells a parable. Again, it is a parable about the kingdom, not of this world, but the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hires some workers who labor for 12 hours. During the course of the day, he hires other workers who labor only six or four hours or even just one hour. Then, at the end of the day, he pays all of them the same wage.

Our reaction? It’s not fair! What about equal pay for equal work? How is this just?

This story offends our sense of fairness and equity. As we think more about the situation we feel for workers who are ready to work but get passed over hour after hour. It is not fair. They want to work. We feel for workers who labor 12 hours in the hot sun. What’s fair for them? This is not an easy parable!

But then we remember. The parable is not about us. It is not about our world. The parable is not about how we manage things in our economy. The parable is about God. The parable is about the kingdom of heaven. “Kingdom of heaven” is code language for God’s will, God’s grace, God’s presence in our world. As parables so often do the outcome surprises and even shocks us. Our usual expectations are upset. God acts differently than we expect. God acts differently than we act. We heard that in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah:

“ … our ways are not God’s ways … “

At the end of the parable the landowner says: “Are you envious because I am generous?” We are envious of the generosity of God because we cannot comprehend such generosity. It doesn’t make sense to us. Too much for us! There is one important message of the parable: God loves each of us unconditionally. Our worth, our value as humans, does not reside in number of hours we work or graduate degrees we have obtained or the size of our SUV, the power of our computer, the value of our mutual fund, or the girth of the zucchini we grew in our garden. Our true worth, our lasting value, is found in God’s love for each of us.

So there is an interpretation of the parable with the focus on God and God’s love for us. That interpretation may leave us feeling pretty good. But I don’t think we should get off so easy. I said the parable was about God and not about us and our way of doing things.

I will now contradict myself. The parable is about us.

The parable has a lot to say about how we should do things in our economy.

This parable is being told everyday all across our nation. I see it every time I go by a Home Depot. At the entrances to parking lot stand individuals, mostly men from Central America or the Caribbean islands, waiting to be picked up, hired to do day labor — landscaping, loading trucks, cleaning up construction sites.

And it isn’t fair. They are there from early morning into the afternoon, wanting to work, needing to work, but with no assurance they will work.

The hiring process is not fair. Some of them have papers. They are U.S. citizens or documented aliens. They have working papers. Sometimes that gives them an advantage but sometimes not.

Some employers will hire the undocumented workers but pay them far less than minimum wage. The workers cannot complain because they risk deportation.

It is all so unfair. It isn’t fair I drive by in a car while they can barely afford bus fare.

It isn’t fair I had educational opportunities while they didn’t get to finish grade school.

It isn’t fair I was born in a land of freedom and they fled oppression.

Those workers in the parable waiting to get hired for the vineyard. Ones who get hired in the first hour, who do you think they are? They are the stronger ones, the louder ones. They are more aggressive. They know somebody.

And the ones hired last? Probably the infirmed, disabled workers, older workers, outsiders. What they have in common is that they are all day workers. They work a day at a time as they find work. They live day to day. The daily wage they received was what they use to go the market and buy food to feed their family that day. If they didn’t work that day there was no money to feed their family. There were no leftovers in the freezer. They would be forced to beg or go hungry that day.

When Jesus taught the “Our Father,” they knew what it meant to pray “give us this day our daily bread.” But they didn’t expect loaves of bread to drop from heaven. They were praying for the opportunity to earn their daily bread.

Those hired first got what they agreed to — the usual daily wage They got what they needed — the ability to feed their family that day. Paying those hired last the same daily wage didn’t in any way diminish what was agreed upon. The landowner’s generosity didn’t take from what they needed.

Indeed, they don’t claim the landowner cheated them. Their complaint: “ … you have made them equal to us … ”

The “them” are the last hired — the disabled, the weak, the elderly, the outsider — it made them equal.

The landowner is concerned and compassionate toward them. He knows they need to eat today. He does what is right and fair for them. So, yes, he makes them equal — equal in having a basic necessity of life.

In this parable of the kingdom, the landowner is the exemplar of who God is. God is mercy and justice. The parable explicates the relationship between God’s mercy and God’s justice.

God’s mercy, God’s generosity, must sometimes override our sense of what is fair, especially when it involves the poor and the vulnerable. Indeed, God’s generosity must be extravagant, beyond human reason and apparent fairness, to assure that basic justice exists.

The landowner also is the model we are called to follow. Jesus answered Peter’s question with this parable to teach us that God his Father is more interested in how we love our neighbor than how we think we should be rewarded in heaven.

Scripture scholar Amy-Jill Levine observes that Christians who are always asking others “Are you saved?” should be asking:

“Did you get enough to eat today?”

“Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

“Do you need a ride to the health clinic?”

The turning point of the parable is not whether those who have should “get more” but that those who do not have should “get enough.”

What is fair, what is right, must mean:

– that, at the end of the day, everybody has a roof over their head;

– that, at the end of the day, every child has the opportunity for a good education;

– that, at the end of the day, everybody has access to basic health care;

– and that, at the end of the day, everybody has something to eat.

That is God’s generosity.

That is God’s justice.

That’s what is fair!


Paulist Fr. Bob Cary leads parish missions. He is based at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago.

This homily is based on the scripture readings for Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017 (the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A).

The image above of day laborers is from here.