Pent 16, year A, 2026

“The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’”

 

Hmm ok

“Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.””

I am noticing a theme….

There has never been a time in the whole history of humanity when we didn’t like to complain.  We love to complain …about work, the weather, our families and mostly we love to complain that whatever is happening is not fair.

Now, this lack of fairness could be about wages, who has to do dishes, or what hymns are chosen for Sunday.  We have this inherent sense within us that things ought to be fair, they should be fair.  Which is in direct contrast to what our parents have always taught us, that life is not fair!  And yet we continue to be surprised, and then, of course to complain about it.   Which we read was happening even back in the time of Moses. 

Poor Moses had the whole congregation of the Israelites …the entire Nation complaining against him.  We read that the Israelites complained loudly and at length that they were hungry.   Which is reasonable, they had been travelling a couple months and the supplies were running thin.  They remembered the rich meaty stews of Egypt and the fresh breads and they wished to be back in slavery where at least they had plenty to eat.  God sending them out into the desert with nothing to eat…that just wasn’t fair.  Even when the Lord provided quail and manna, people still complained despite having their fill.  They were longing for a good hot loaf, and received ‘a fine, flaky substance’.  …what is it? Doesn’t look like bread to me!  What ever it was, it was not what was expected and it wasn’t fair.  And I think that is the crux of the matter.  The word fair, is really hard to define especially because of how subjective the term ‘fair’ is.   As far as I can tell, fair seems to be used to mean ‘meets my expectations’. 

In our gospel reading the landowner went out early to hire labourers for his vineyard.  The agreed on the usual daily wage and went to work.  A days wage for a days work…seems fair.  Yet, as the day progressed, more people were hired and when the time for payment came; you can hear the lament…the grumbling as scripture calls it.  That isn’t fair! 

“These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”  We agreed to work a day’s labour for a day’s pay…that’s what we determined to be fair.  We expect the same rule to apply to everyone; you work a day you earn a day, you work an hour you should only get paid for an hour….that is fair!   We determine what is fair based on our own experience and if others do not live up to our own assessment of what is fair…we let them know!  Oh, we just love it when ‘they’ get what they deserve!

 

 

 

The wonderful moral of these scripture  stories today…. is that… God isn’t fair.  God doesn’t play fair.  God doesn’t treat people fairly… at all and then we complain.  Why are some prayers answered and mine aren’t?  Why does God seem to like some people better than others?  Why does God have all this power and doesn’t help me?  It isn’t fair!

And you are right.  It isn’t fair.  Thanks be to God!

Think about the parable in Matthew.  The day labourers have gathered in the market to be hired, and although it doesn’t mention how they were chosen, I would guess the strongest and most experienced would be hired first.  Then, as others are hired the ones who are left idle in the market at the end of the day would be those no one wished to hire.  Men who wanted to work, stayed and tried to convince people to hire them and were left behind, likely with mouths to feed at home.   We aren’t told their circumstances, just that they had not been hired despite their efforts.

How we feel about that changes with how fair we view the situation to be.  If the labours had to pluck grapes or wield a mattock, and one of the waiting labours was bent or injured…seems fair he wouldn’t be picked for heavy labour.   Yet, if that man was capable of work despite appearances and still not chosen it would be the height of unfairness.  What we read is that the landowner hires everyone regardless of their suitability and the landowner pays everyone a day’s wage regardless of whether it was fair or not, and people grumbled. Not because they had been treated badly but because their expectations were not met.

 

“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. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

We don’t want God to be generous to them…if God isn’t going to be generous to us, that’s fair.  But! If God were fair, then we would all get what we deserved.  Think about that for a minute.  When it comes to how we have lived our lives…what would it look like if God actually treated us fairly.  Would we truly have ‘earned’ our salvation?  Forgiveness? Even God’s love?

Thanks be to God that God is unfair.  Beyond fair.  Beyond generous… with how humanity is treated, because I know that I do not live up to even my own expectations.  If our salvation was based on humanities ideals and expectations of what people deserve or what we perceive as fair, we would all be in a sorry state. 

Like Israelites wandering the desert, the expectation of that there would be food enough for a nation is an unfair expectation.  The desert is not known for it’s hospitality, and yet with God all were fed, both bread and meat, and all received water, not just for a day, but for a generation.  The nation was delivered from slavery beyond expectation and cared for beyond what would be deserved or fair.  God showed his gracious forgiveness and loving compassion despite the many challenges faced in the wilderness.

Likewise, despite all our grumbling and ill concealed discontentment when we see life as unfair, God continues to love and care for us, individually and corporately.

 

 

I think that this may be one of the most difficult concepts…perhaps one of the most divine theologies that we espouse.  That God does not exist to be fair, but rather exists in a state of grace.  Undeserved loving, forgiving, eternal grace.  We spend so much time trying to prove our worth, to earn and merit what we have received.  We want to know that we deserve it…that WE did it.  At work, at school.  With family and loved ones…we try to earn their regard.  Even with God, despite knowing that we cannot I think we still try to earn our way to heaven. 

We think if we are good enough.  If we pray enough.  If we attend church enough.  Then God will love us, then the grace God gives will be fairly earned.  But that is not God’s way.  We cannot do enough to earn God’s love anymore than we can fail enough to lose God’s love.  God’s grace is absolutely un fair. 

We cannot earn it because it was granted even before we were born.  Without just cause God loved us, forgave us and provided eternally for us.  No matter what our life would turn out to be.  Should we respond to this? Certainly and to the very best of our ability…but don’t ever expect grace to be fair.

And thanks be to God for that unfair Grace.