The Parable Of Unfair Wages

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard [1]

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them a denarius^[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³ “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴ He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶ About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
⁷ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
⁸ “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?’

Fr. Joseph Illo's homily follows [2]:

Everyone that hears this parable thinks how unfair life is. Jesus defends himself for giving equal pay for unequal work, and we listen with quiet resignation. Yes, God has been unfair to me many times in my life. I’ve been misunderstood by my best friends; I’ve been punished for doing good things; I’ve been cheated out of what should have been mine. I should be happier, I should be living a better life, I should be more respected in my community, I deserve a higher standing of living. Life just isn’t fair, and God’s responsible for life’s injustice.

Jesus does not disagree. In fact, he seems to bait us in this parable: “You think I’ve been unfair with you?” I won’t deny it, He says, and I’ll even chastise you for pointing it out. “Friend, take what is yours and go,” the Landowner says to the complaining worker. “What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?” Go, and do not question me.

God doesn't owe us anything, but He gives us everything anyway

I’d like to point out two things about this Scripture.

The first point is that God is God, and really, we have no right to question him. Does a gnat question the man who brushes him off? We are really nothing before God, and can stand on no authority of our own to challenge his judgments. We delude ourselves if we think we can demand anything of God. God is God, and we are not God.

There is a second point, however, and it is even more important than the first. God loves us. He loves us poor, trembling, insecure, complaining and whining gnats. I might think he is unfair with me, and that he loves that guy more than me, and that he has forgotten me. But this parable actually says quite the opposite. Everyone gets equal pay. Jesus is telling us that he gives each of us the same amount of his providence. He goes out five times during the day—at daybreak, at nine, at noon, at three, and at five o’clock—looking for unemployed people. He wanted to give honest work, and honest pay, to men that were without work or pay. Is it the fault of those hired at 5 o’clock that they did not get hired sooner? “No one has hired us,” they say. No one valued their work enough to hire them until the Landowner finds them. The worst experience is to be unwanted, and not valued, by others. Personally, I would much rather be the man hired at daybreak, working for someone who appreciates me, than that lonely guy kicking stones all day, hoping someone would hire him.

In the end, all get the same daily age. And in Scripture, that wage is eternal life. All the workers make it to heaven, because all responded to the Landowner. All came to the land of everlasting rest, owned by God, which we call heaven.

Getting to Heaven

The next time you feel that life is unfair, remind yourself that God gives each of us all that we need to be eternally happy. The next time your stomach gets sour over the fact that you’ve tried to honor God all your life but don’t feel the rewards—the next time you feel cheated—ask yourself: would I want anyone to be shut out of heaven forever? I think all of us would say that what we really want is bad men to become good men, and for everyone to go to heaven. This life is so brief, nothing really compares to the life of the world to come. So what if I have a little more grief than the next guy? The main thing is for us all to get safely to heaven.

Let us count on the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary to keep us steady in our resolve to work in just the way God wants us to, and to work for the salvation of all souls, that we may all be in heaven one day with her, and the Blessed Trinity, and all the angels and saints forever.

I agree 100 percent.


[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20
[2] http://www.frilloblog.com/, search under 2014, then look for 9/21/2014.