God Isn't Fair

“Does God love Osama bin Laden?” my friend asked me while we were Skyp-ing.

“Yes, I believe God loves everyone,” I said.

“You have got to be kidding!” she replied.

“God hates nothing God has made.  God created all human beings, therefore God loves all human beings.  I am pretty confident though that God did not like Osama bin Laden’s behavior.”

“So, do you think bin Laden’s in heaven?”

“Yes, most likely he is.  Unless, of course, he doesn’t want to be there.”

“That’s hard to believe,” my friend said. “He may want to be there, but his actions certainly would prove otherwise.”

“I know,” I said.  “It’s just that I can’t believe that when brought face-to-face with the forgiveness inherit in the love that is God that anyone could resist.  Therefore, unless we find ourselves rejecting it, we will all be together in that place.  God isn’t fair.”

We ended our conversation and I thought to myself, “Well there’s a new definition for grace – God isn’t fair.”  The parable Jesus tells about the laborers points up the generous and unfair justice of God. 

From a 21^st century perspective, this parable is a labor union nightmare.   To be honest, it’s a corporate management nightmare also.  Who in their right mind would pay someone the same wage for less work?  Who would settle for a system that doesn’t take seniority into account?  No one.  This parable is simple craziness.  From the point of view of the people Jesus would have been talking with – people who had no land of their own, people who depended on the generosity of others – this parable is equally crazy.  No one in Jesus’ time would have believed this parable to be true.  However, contrary to modern listeners, they would have believed that truth was present in it.

The truth is that the landowner was not paying people according to what they merited, but according to his own generosity.  In other words, none of the laborers could truly earn their wages.  Another truth was that the landowner went out several times to gather people to work in the vineyard.  In that time – and to be honest even today – if you are not chosen in the first round of the morning, you probably would not have work and your family would go hungry.  Going back and retrieving the marginalized workers at midday and at the end of the day said that the landowner wanted to include everyone who was there.  

The landowner was practicing social justice – an imperative to strive for a society that excludes no one.  Jesus was telling the people of his time that eternal life was theirs, and it didn’t matter when they accepted the invitation.  That’s great for the latecomers, but then as now, it annoys the folks who have been working since dawn.

Let’s face it, it is human nature to grumble when we see something that we think is unfair.  It’s unfair that this person got a job over me.  It’s unfair that that family has more money when I’m working just as hard.  It’s unfair when someone younger than me gets more recognition when I’ve been at this longer than they have.  But, we need to take care.  Grumbling can quickly lead to resentment.  Resentment then leads to jealousy and envy. 

This jealousy/envy is something we need to take seriously.  The 1^st century Christians did because of their Mediterranean cultural experience.  Jealousy or envy was called “the evil eye”.  In fact, I actually looked at the Greek for this passage – don’t faint – and indeed that is what is said.  The Greek says “ is your eye evil because I am good?”  The modern scholars have misinterpreted this piece of the parable.  It’s too bad. The “evil eye” statement gives us an even deeper appreciation of the generosity of the landowner and the strength of his statement in the parable.

To the people of Jesus’ time, the eye was the window of the soul.  If anyone had an ‘evil eye’ then that person would be said to have the power to project their jealousy or hatred to another just by looking at them.  Avoiding their glance would be a high priority.  Many amulets and charms were created to distract those persons who were thought to have the “evil eye”.  People who were disabled, or different in any way were always suspected of having this power of the “evil eye” – leading others to think that illness or deviance or disability could be ‘caught’ – therefore, persons became marginalized. Sadly, not much has changed in this regard.

I believe that the point of this parable is not only to acknowledge the overwhelming, over reaching, unfair generosity of God but also it is a warning to us.  To be envious of someone because they seem to be getting more money or more recognition or more material reward is a step toward a dangerous journey.  When we do this, we knowingly or unknowingly place people in the margins of our community and demonize them.  If instead, we stop obsessing about our material wealth and concentrate on the astounding generosity of God, we can see that there is enough to go around and that all of God’s creation is good.

We have all been given work to do and the gifts and talents to do that work.  We have no time to be jealous of other people’s gifts.  We need to use that time to develop and appreciate our own.  We should stop being angry about people who inherit the kingdom at the 11^th hour and instead rejoice that they are included in God’s forgiveness.   When we find ourselves doing good because we think that it will ensure ourselves a place in paradise we should remember that God’s generosity has made it possible for us to work at all. 

Jesus’ parable asks us to let God be God and get over ourselves.  God isn’t fair, and you and I are in along with everyone else.  It would behoove us all to learn better how to get along and be gracious with each other, especially with those people we tend to marginalize.  You just never know who’s going to come in late, sit down next to you and share equally in the heavenly banquet.

Amen.