There’s something I’m forced
to notice about myself every so often, and this week I realized it again: I’m
not really a very fair person.
I have a habit of thanking
people for little things – even when someone I’ve been depending on much longer
for bigger things is right there in the room.
I give money to causes that
are of moderate importance, even while minor and life-changing causes are also
looking interestedly at my checkbook.
I buy dinner for people who
don’t need it, urge more brownies on people who have already had their share,
and when I’m driving, I never pause to calculate the fairness of waving someone
into my lane, or moving ahead and letting them take their chances.
I’m not actually a very fair
person. And as any seven year old can tell you, you’re supposed to be fair.
Jesus also knows we’re
supposed to be fair. But then he goes and tells stories like the one we heard
today.
A story where an employer
blithely pays everyone in sight a full day’s wage, whether they worked less
than an hour, or the whole hot and tiring day long. If you don’t twitch with at
least a slight alarm when you hear Jesus tell this story, then you’re not listening.
This is NOT FAIR, and every one of us knows it.
It may trigger memories of
those unfair times when everybody in the group got an A, or a bonus, for a
project where you did all the work. When you’ve been waiting patiently forever,
and someone cuts in at the front of the line. When your brother who was an awful
brat all day long gets the same size piece of cake that you do.
Or it may bring memories of those
times when I was a brat all day, and
got the same size piece of cake as the good kids. Or walked up to a long
checkout line just as they opened a new register, and got to be first in line.
Or profited from a system’s unconscious bias that makes success just that much
easier for me than for others.
Every one of us has probably
had something profoundly unfair happen to us, and many of us have had something
unfair happen for us. Because as your mother undoubtedly had to
tell you at some point: Life isn’t fair. No matter how much we want it to be.
To want fairness is human, so
we usually resonate with that moment when the laborers who had been working all
day speak up and complain that it is Just Not Fair for the employer to pay the
latecomers the same wage that we’ve earned.
No matter what the employer
may say about how fair it is to pay the wage agreed to at the beginning of the
day, it feels unfair, and we’ve been
taught to pay attention to that feeling so we can learn to be fair to others.
Usually, we’ve been taught to
see ourselves as the laborers in this story – sometimes as the laborers who
receive unexpected, unearned grace; sometimes as those who feel envious and
cheated – but either way, to feel that unfairness so that we appreciate the unreasonable
generosity of God.
But perhaps sometimes God doesn’t
see us as the laborers in this story. Perhaps God sees us as the employer. Perhaps
when he tells this story, Jesus is inviting us, provoking us, not only to appreciate
God’s unbalanced grace, but to be that irrationally generous ourselves; to take
joy in giving itself, and in seeking and planning to give.
It struck me this week that
there is a good chance that this employer was probably able to hire all the
laborers he needed to get the day’s work done when he went out right at the
beginning of the day. And any fair employer would be satisfied at that point.
But this one just keeps going
out, looking for other people to include. And finds them, and goes out again, at
noon, at 3 pm, at 5…. Looking for more
people to include, never mind that the work is probably already getting done
just fine. Keeps going out until there’s no daylight left to go out in, and keeps
bringing people in, just so, at the end of the day, he can pay everyone a good day’s wage.
And when he’s challenged, he
asks, “Am I not allowed to do what I wish with what is mine?”
Maybe this isn’t a story
about fairness after all. It’s a story about wishing to be generous. Wanting to
be lavish, working for and seeking that opportunity, all day long, because it gives
you joy. Because it makes you whole.
I love saying thank you, and
I’m glad nobody tells me how unfair I am about throwing those words around.
I’m often unfair in selfish
ways, too, but I love giving unexpected gifts, and when I do, I’d rather get
nothing in return.
And I’ll bet there’s
something unfair that you love, too.
I’ll bet some of you love to cook
for people who didn’t contribute anything to the meal. (maybe particularly for people who don’t insist
on “helping”)
I’ll bet others love to help
someone out, no matter whether or not they’ve earned a helping hand.
I’ll bet some of you get joy
out of giving money, or skill, or time, without stopping to calculate the
relative merit of every single cause or purpose you give to.
I’ll bet that some of you –
maybe all of you – love being generously unfair in ways I haven’t named or
thought of, just because the giving gives you joy. Just because it makes your heart
grow warmer, deeper, stronger, or your soul delight.
And when we do that – when we
seek out and revel in the opportunity to give without weighing merit or counting
costs – we find ourselves closer to God, sharing God’s joy, living with God’s
heart in this everyday world.
I think that God wants to
tell this story about you, and me; about each of us.
I think God wants to tell the
story about how we spent the day – today, yesterday, tomorrow – looking for
people to include; about how you were confident in your unfair generosity, and knew
the joy you took in giving more than could be earned.
That’s not fair, of course,
but it is freeing. It’s holy, and heart-filling, and delightfully divine. And that
makes it a story God loves to tell about us.
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