“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.” Matthew 20:13-14
My guess is that anyone who has had some experience with children has encountered the dreaded accusation that they are being treated unfairly because a sibling received a share in a reward that wasn’t earned or, according to the accuser, wasn’t deserved. If my memory serves me, I think forms of this cry of injustice were the first conflicts between my children. Certainly it is a conflict as old as Cain and Abel. Whether or not our measure of rewards and worth is part of our DNA–something we are born with that serves our personal survival, we are certainly brought up to understand that rewards are earned. It is at the heart of our economic systems.
The full-day laborers in Jesus’ parable of the “Workers in the Vineyard” argue from this very position. ‘We worked all day in the scorching heat and you pay those who worked only an hour equal to us? That’s an outrage! Completely unfair. They did not earn that reward. If you pay them that, we should get more. We earned it.’
But the parable of the “Workers in the Vineyard” is not a lesson on incentive economics and scarcity models. It is, instead, a lesson on the economics of God’s love which simply and thankfully does NOT follow market principles or scarcity models. God’s love makes no sense to human self-interested notions of what is deserved and what is earned. God is generous beyond human measure in all things, especially love.
When I was in seminary, I participated in a retreat where Bishop Frank Griswold was a guest speaker (this was before he was elected Presiding Bishop). In one of his reflections, Bp. Griswold described God’s love as “profligate and irresponsible.” Those words struck me as bracing at first. How dare anyone describe God as irresponsible, let alone profligate? But on further reflection, Bp. Griswold’s point is true. By all human measures it seems irresponsible to give so freely and not count the cost or scale the reward according to what is earned. God’s love is profligate–wildly extravagant.
God’s love is NOT fair!
Not by human measure. It is given, not earned. Thanks be to God
