Reflection on the readings for the 20th September, the 16th Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Jonah 3:10-4:11; Matthew 20:1-16
Today’s reflection is by the Vicar, the Revd Canon Jonathan Cain.
It’s not fair!
Anyone who has spent any time with young children—especially siblings—will know this cry well. It erupts with great force over the smallest things: unequal slices of cake, who gets the blue cup, who sat in the front seat last time. It’s not fair! It is the anthem of childhood justice.
And while adults may not shout it quite so freely, the sentiment lingers. We learn to dress it up in more sophisticated language, but the feeling is familiar. We know those moments when something in life leaves us quietly muttering, It’s not fair. A promotion overlooked. A diagnosis that arrives out of nowhere. Someone else’s good fortune arriving just when we are struggling. The cry may be quieter, but it is still there.
So, when we hear Jesus’ parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, it is no surprise if that same instinct rises again. It’s not fair. If that was your reaction this morning, then the parable may well have done exactly what Jesus intended.
Let’s recall the story. A landowner goes out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. They agree on the usual daily wage—a denarius, enough to live on but not a fortune—and off they go. But the landowner keeps returning to the marketplace: mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon, even an hour before sunset. Each time he finds more people still waiting, still hoping for work, still needing a wage to feed their families. And he sends them too into the vineyard.
At the end of the day, the landowner does something unexpected. He pays the last workers first—and he gives them a full day’s wage. Those who worked only an hour receive the same as those who worked all day. And so, the cry rises: It’s not fair!
But Jesus is inviting us to look more closely and understand the distinction between what is fair and what is right. The early workers receive exactly what they were promised. The landowner honours the contract. No injustice is done to them.
But what about those hired late? Why were they still standing in the marketplace? In the ancient world, as today, day labourers lived on a knife-edge. Work today meant food tomorrow. No work meant hunger. To be hired late was not a leisurely choice—it was economic precarity. It meant hours of waiting, hoping, fearing. It meant returning home with less than you needed.
So, who is worse off? The early hires, with a purposeful day and economic certainty? Or the late hires, with an empty day and the dread of returning home with nothing?
When the landowner pays the late hires a full wage, he is not giving them a bonus. He is giving them what they need to live. He is restoring dignity. He is ensuring that children are fed and households survive. He is acting not out of fairness but out of compassion.
The economic lesson to the workers is not those who have ‘get more’ but those who have not ‘get enough’. This is not a parable about rewarding effort. It is a parable about meeting need.
Jesus’ economic focus here is subtle. We often hear him proclaim “good news for the poor,” but in this parable he may also be speaking directly to the wealthy—the landowners, the employers, the ones with power to shape the lives of others, who may have been familiar with this scripture from Deuteronomy chapter 15: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed…” (Deut. 15:11)
The landowner in the parable embodies this open-handedness. He uses his resources not to maximise profit but to maximise mercy. He pays what is right, not merely what is fair. He gives according to need, not according to merit.
And Jesus wants us to feel the tension. He could have told the story differently. He could have paid the early workers first, sent them home content, and then quietly given the late workers their unexpected blessing. No one would have complained. No one would have cried, It’s not fair.
But Jesus wants the cry. He wants the discomfort. He wants us to confront our envy, our presumption, our resentment. He wants us to see how quickly our sense of justice becomes self-interest.
This is where the parable turns from economics to grace.
In the previous chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus the following question: “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” (Mt. 19:27)
Peter wants reassurance that his long service will be recognised. He wants to know that he will be at the front of the queue. He wants fairness—fairness that benefits him.
The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is part of Jesus’ reply to Peter. And in the parable Jesus says: in the kingdom of heaven, no one gets more because they have done more. No one earns a greater share of God’s love. No one accumulates spiritual credit. The miracle of grace is not something that can be deserved or measured.
Grace is not fair. Grace is not earned. Grace is not a reward for effort or longevity or moral achievement. Grace is gift—pure, undeserved, overflowing gift.
If we take Jesus’ invitation at the beginning of the parable to imagine the kingdom of heaven and then understand the wages in the parable, not as a denarius, but as representing Jesus’ promises of forgiveness and eternal life, the wages of the kingdom, then the whole story shifts. The question is no longer, Who worked longest? but Who received the gift?
Those who come late into faith, late into discipleship, late into repentance—they receive the same forgiveness, the same welcome, the same eternal life as those who have laboured all their lives long.
If your instinct is still that this does not seem fair, then maybe consider the difference between a life lived trusting in God’s promises and one of existential precarity. Those who trust in forgiveness and eternal life, and live this as truth, are invited to enjoy the present moment free from the hurts and failures of the past and free from fear of the future – free from fear of death. Living out this trust and enjoying the present moment is the abundant life that Jesus promised.
And in heaven, the “enough” or abundance of God will make all earthly comparisons petty and meaningless. No one will stand in glory and say, It’s not fair. No one will resent the mercy given to another. No one will wish they had received more.
Because in the kingdom, there is no scarcity. There is no competition. There is no hierarchy of holiness. There is only the overflowing generosity of God, poured out on all who come—early or late, weary or hopeful, broken or whole.
The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is not meant to reassure us that life will always feel fair. It won’t. It is meant to reveal the heart of God—a heart that gives not according to merit but according to need; a heart that delights in generosity; a heart that welcomes latecomers with joy; a heart that refuses to let envy diminish grace.
And perhaps it invites us to look at our own lives with fresh eyes. Where do we cling to fairness when God is calling us to compassion? Where do we resent the blessings of others instead of rejoicing in them? Where do we forget that everything we have—everything, even life itself—is gift?
Friends, as we journey together, may we learn to trust the generosity of God. May we learn to celebrate grace wherever it appears. And may we discover, in God’s kingdom, that his “enough” is more than enough for us all.
Amen.