“Life’s Not Fair – and Neither Is God”
A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, September 18, 2011
First Congregational Church of Stoughton
United Church of Christ
Texts: Jonah 4:6-11; Matthew 20:1-16
By now, most young people have begun another school year in which they will be learning all the things they need to know about life. Well, maybe not all the things. According to one education reformer[i], there are lots of important aspects of life that kids don’t learn in school but should, and not all of them have to do with academics. Here is a sampling of some rules about life that kids won’t learn school; maybe some of us parents have actually said these things to our children.
Rule #14: Enjoy this [time of your life] while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Rule #4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. And Rule #1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. I am sure that at some point in our lives, we've all cried, “It’s not fair!” And while we may think of those words as a child’s lament, fairness – or lack of it – remains a critical issue for adults, too. In fact, studies[ii] show that it’s human nature for us to bristle when we think we have gotten the short end of the stick, especially when it happens in the workplace.
If you’ve ever had a boss who was less capable than you were, or discovered that a person with less experience was making more money, or if you’ve ever been passed over for promotion in favor of someone who was less qualified, then you know the feeling. It just isn’t fair.
And that’s the reaction of the laborers in the vineyards in Jesus’ parable. The landowner promises the workers who go out early in the morning a day’s pay. To those who go out later in the morning, the landowner promises to pay “whatever is right.” There are also laborers who go out at noon and work half the day, and some who go out at three and work the half the afternoon. And then there are laborers who go out at 5:00, and they only work an hour.
Now, our sense of fairness would say that the ones who worked the most hours would earn the most money. But in the parable, at the end of the day, each of the laborers is given a full day’s pay, even the ones who started working at five o’clock. The first ones hired protest when they receive the agreed-upon wage, complaining not because they have been cheated – they haven’t; rather, they grumble because of the landowner’s generosity towards the late-comers, who worked a mere hour. The late-comers have hardly broken a sweat, but they too receive a full day’s wage. And the landowner doesn't improve matters when he responds, "Can't I do what I choose with what belongs to me? Are you envious because I am generous? Why do you begrudge my generosity?"
We can certainly understand why those first-hired workers protest, because this parable challenges our sense of justice and turns upside down the notions of fairness and reward we have learned from childhood – that we are to work for what we get and get what we work for. But this is not a parable about fair wages or a lesson on workplace relationships. This parable is about God’s grace, and the landowner, representing God, pays the laborers based not on their efforts but based instead on his generosity.
In our Old Testament lesson this morning, Jonah is also angered by God’s generosity. Following God’s orders, Jonah has gone to the sinful people of Nineveh and told them God wants them to repent of their sins. Jonah is actually looking forward to God giving the Ninevites what – in Jonah’s mind -- they deserve for their sinful actions. But instead, God forgives them and gives them a fresh start. Jonah is jealous that God has forgiven the Ninevites; it offends his sense of fairness, so he yells at God and stomps off in a tizzy, planting himself out in the middle of nowhere to pout. But even though Jonah is disappointed and jealous and angry at God, does God turn away from him? No, God provides a bush to shelter Jonah from the sun; but then Jonah takes the great sheltering bush for granted. And when God takes the bush away, Jonah starts complaining again.
Finally God tells him, “Jonah, you only knew the shelter of the bush for a day and a night. I have known the people of Nineveh since I created them. You didn’t create the bush. But I created the people. I choose to love all people.”
This is our God, who lavishes upon us grace – the unmerited, utterly unconditional, completely free, no-strings-attached, cannot-be-earned gift of God’s love and favor.
In so many other faith traditions, people have to do something to earn God’s approval. Whether it’s using a prayer wheel, or going on pilgrimages, or giving alms to the poor, or avoiding certain foods, or performing a certain number of good deeds, or praying at a certain time in a certain position each day, or going through a cycle of reincarnations – follow this way of life, these traditions say, and you stand a good chance of gaining favor with God and eventually achieving salvation.
But this morning’s scripture lessons show us that God’s love is for everyone; we can’t earn it, and we don’t deserve it. We can spurn it; we can run from it, we can hold it at arm’s length; we can even try to kill it. But God loves us, no matter what.
And that makes grace a concept that is radical, counter-cultural, and for some even offensive. Because grace throws out our measurements of fairness, our understanding of a meritocracy where we earn things – including God’s favor -- based on our achievements. Our world might be pretty clear on who’s deserving and who isn’t; who belongs and who doesn’t, who’s up and who’s down, who’s our equal and who isn’t. But that’s not the way it is in God’s world.
God loves all people – the good ones, the bad ones, even the ones who don’t love God back. It just doesn’t seem fair. And you know what? It isn’t.
God isn’t fair, because God is a God of grace.
God loves the happy and the angry; the generous and the jealous; the do-gooders and the no-gooders. God loves those we love, and God loves those we have a hard time loving. God forgives and frees us from our mistakes of the past, enabling us to start over and over and over again. There is no sinner, no outcast, no unworthy person, no one who falls beyond the reach of God’s gracious love. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do that will make God love us less.
In spite of our anger, jealousy, or disappointment with the way life may treat us and those we love; in spite of our blunderings, our many frailties, flaws and faults; in spite of what we do or fail to do to deserve it; in spite of everything, God continues to bless us with infinite, unconditional, and boundless love.
The fact of the matter is: God is not fair! Rather, God is generous and gracious. From the most enterprising to the least motivated; from the saint to the scoundrel; from the one who has worked “long and hard in the vineyard of the Lord” to the one who shows up just in time to help put the tools away – we are all offered the same grace-filled compassion and generosity.
Is life fair? No, it isn’t, and in response we may protest, grumble and complain.
Is God fair? No again, and in response, may we simply say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen.
