Matthew 20:8-16

When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give the pay starting with the last hired until the first.’  When those hired about five o’clock came, each received a full day’s pay.  And when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each one also received the standard wage.  When they received it, they began to complain against the landowner,  saying, ‘These last fellows worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us who bore the hardship and burning heat of the day.’  And the landowner replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am not treating you unfairly. Didn’t you agree with me to work for the standard wage?  Take what is yours and go. I want to give to this last man the same as I gave to you.  Am I not permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’  So the last will be first, and the first last.”

In this parable, Jesus begins to reveal God's sense of fairness, which drastically differs from our own idea of fairness. Many cultures have shaped their wages based upon the number of hours invested. The idea is that you should be compensated in a way that reflects your investment: i.e. what you have accomplished or sacrificed. In Christ, our "wages" are determined by Jesus, who is perfectly Just. Our wages are not determined by our own idea of the amount of work we do or by popular vote. Jesus is the only one qualified; the landowner in this parable. We hold our own ideas of whether something is "fair". This parable challenges us to cast our own idea of fairness aside, and live under the merciful grace of Jesus Christ who calls us to serve, and not to be served.