Lord, it's not fair!

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:25-35

 

 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰ So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:8-16

 

 

Any preacher is bound to enjoy preaching about the prodigal son (Luke 15) – the beautiful story of how he went away from his father and ruined his life; but then, having completely messed up, how he had a change of heart and came back home, hoping against hope that his father might take pity on him and take him back as a servant – only to receive an extravagant welcome as his father, throwing dignity to the winds, came running to fling his arms around him.

The father, of course, represents God; the son represents sinful humanity in general, but especially, at that time, the wayward people of Israel.

But there is another character in the story who it’s easy to overlook. The older brother, who has been completely loyal to the father throughout his life, resents the welcome given to his wayward brother, and tells his father so in very clear terms: “Here you are throwing a big party for this prodigal son of yours [note that cruel ‘son of yours’, not ‘brother of mine’]… well, what about me? I’ve been a model son. Don’t I deserve even better?” The father gives him a little lecture – albeit a loving lecture – obviously sad that the older son is not rejoicing like him: “I have always loved you, and always will; so come on, come and join the party!”

It’s easy to write the older son off as just a rather crabbed, sour-faced, mean-spirited individual. Whether or not he did indeed soften his attitude, put a smile on his face, and join the celebrations Jesus doesn’t say, nor does it particularly matter. We might sadly shake our heads and say, “Oh well, he’s the only loser in the end! Perhaps he mended his attitude with the passing of time; let’s hope so”.

But I remember the first time somebody came to me at the end of a sermon and said, “Actually, I can’t help feeling that the older son had a point. Was he really so unreasonable to feel aggrieved at the father who seemed unappreciative  of his faithful son”.

The standard answer to that (surely also the correct answer) is that it misses the whole point of the story. Jesus is wanting to get across the fact that there is no way anyone can earn or deserve God the Father’s love. The lost son is welcomed back not because he has made amends (he hasn’t), but because, quite simply, the father loves him. The great Bible word for this is “grace”, which means God’s undeserved favour. Not even the very best and most upright of people can merit God’s forgiveness: certainly not me; not you.

There are people who think of their standing with God as like a credit/debit balance. They seem to think “Well, I just hope that when I stand before God on judgment-day my good deeds will outweigh the bad”. But no! That just isn’t possible. A price has to be paid, and none of us can pay it. So we can only thank our loving heavenly Father that he has done so himself, through the cross of Jesus his Son.

Song-writer Graham Kendrick captures it perfectly: The price is paid./ Come let us enter in/ To all that Jesus died to make our own./ For every sin/ More than enough he gave/ And bought our freedom/ From each guilty stain.

Exactly the same truth is taught in Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the workers in the vineyard - this time not in the warm context of family life, but of what we might call in today’s parlance, “industrial relations”.

A rich farmer is keen to get his grape harvest in in the short period the weather allows. He heads off to the market-place, which in effect functions as the labour exchange, and hires some of the men waiting there. He agrees to pay them a certain price for the day’s work, starting at 6 in the morning. The experts tell us that the other hours mentioned equate to 9, midday, 3 and 5 in the evening.

There are two very surprising features to the events.

First, the farmer keeps coming back at the different intervals, right up to 5 o’clock, when the day was starting to draw to an end. That was how keen he was to get his harvest in. And it speaks of how keen God is to demonstrate his love to his people; it must have got pretty wearisome to keep coming back to try and hire an ever-diminishing group of workers.

But even more surprising is that when it came to handing out the pay, everybody got the same amount, those who started at 6 in the morning, and those who started just an hour or so before evening fell.

Here, of course, is where we see the comparison with the older son in the other story. Like him, the early starters in the vineyard felt hard done by: “Those who were hired last worked only one hour… and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day”. How can that be fair?

How indeed? But as with the prodigal son, it’s not a matter of fairness and unfairness: it’s a matter of kindness and generosity: a matter, in fact, of God’s grace.

The message for those of us who are Christians today? Never begrudge God a moment of your time, however many late-comers may seem to have come, jumped the queue and “got a better deal”. There is no deal! However hard your service may have been; however many sacrifices you may feel you have made; however much you may feel you have suffered for Jesus’ sake… it’s all to do with love, and nothing can bear comparison with that love.

Father, in the light of this fallen world it’s easy to understand the grievance of the prodigal’s older son, and of the early starters in the vineyard. But thank you that salvation isn’t a business deal. Please help me to keep firm hold of the pure unadulterated love which sent Jesus to the cross, and to rest and rejoice in it alone. Amen.