You don’t hear the phrase so much nowadays, but at one time it was expected in industrial relations that workers and employers alike agreed on a basic principle of a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. And we all certainly hope and expect to live, and to work for a “fair” society. If we feel hard done-by we exclaim: “That’s not fair!”

The trouble is, of course, you will never achieve a fair society. Human sinfulness takes care of that. And workers and unions alike want a fair, if not more than a fair wage, for a day which often not “fair” work! Equally, some employers look to pay less than a fair wage. We’re all greedy and want the best deal- “Never mind you. I’m OK Jack!”

Bur in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel just now we had the well known parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. And this parable shows us that, shockingly, God’s dealings with us are anything but fair! Let me explain.

We all know the story well. But let’s stand back and see what went on in Palestine in Jesus’ days. I owe my understanding to Lawrence Richard’s “Bible Background Commentary”. There were various classes of land-workers. The ones Jesus would be talking about were the po’el. They worked from dawn to dusk and hired on a daily basis, much as some migrant workers work in this country at this time of year; workers who come from Eastern Europe for the summer months and work on, often, a daily contract for a farmer.

Well, here the land owner would hire workers from the market-place on a daily basis and would receive a day’s wage and food for the day. But in practice many landowners were unscrupulous They were not noted for their generosity!

In this story we have the landowner hiring men first thing in the morning, in the usual way, and promising to pay them a denarius: that was the standard rate of pay for a day’s work. Indeed the denarius coin was minted for this very purpose. The first surprise in this story full of surprises comes when at repeated intervals throughout the day, the landowner goes back to the market and finding men waiting around hires them, agreeing simply to pay them “what is right”. This happens even at the end of the day, when the last of the hired workers could only do an hour’s work.

So: It’s evening and pay-time comes. First of all the landowner is a man of his word. He’s more than a man of his word! He began, as would be normal, with the last arrivals, and to them he pays a denarius, and so it goes. By the time the men who had worked all day got to their turn they anticipated that this generous man would give them more. But they are disappointed and start to grumble. “We’ve slaved away all day in the scorching heat and we’re getting no more than these layabouts who only stared at five o’clock. Wes hould be getting more than them!”

What then does this parable teach us, and if we’re so accustomed to it that we’re not shocked, then let’s try and hear its meaning afresh. All of Jesus’ parables are Kingdom parables enshrining Gospel truth. We are taught here about God’s dealing with us and our reaction to God’s dealing.

First this parable teaches us about God’s grace- God’s ’amazing grace’ which is the centre of the Gospel. Everything else hangs on this truth, and it all hangs on Jesus. You probably know that acronym for grace

God’s

Riches

At

Christ’s

Expense.

In this parable. as in eternal reality, God’s grace doesn’t start at pay-time! Remember, the landowner went personally back to the market place four times during the day. Whilst it was not unusual for workers to be taken on during the day, they would have been hired not by the landowner himself, but by one of his servants going into the market place. We have hear a sign that God never gives up on us. He, personally, reaches out to us again and again, and he never gives up on anyone through their lifetime.

There was another lesson for Jesus’ first audience: the Pharisees. They, the chosen, Israel were God’s people, and especially they, the religiously correct. What was he doing consorting with ‘sinners’ and outcasts- even more so with Gentiles!

Then, we look at our reaction to God’s grace- and it’s here that “the rubber hits the road”. And we can go wrong in three ways.

One- not specifically mentioned in this parable is to reject it outright. It’s quite possible to look this most astonishing gift we can ever receive, and say; “This is not for me”. That, sadly, was the attitude of the Rich Young Ruler in another parable.

Then we can be envious of others. We are, we think, the ’religiously correct’! Sadly or course, we may be just that, and we set ourselves on a pinnacle, on a pedestal. To be ’religious’ can be the greatest of all obstacles to God’s grace. Why do you think Jesus was so scathing of the Pharisees? But God’s grace is only to be received in humility. And without regard to God’s treatment of others. None of us deserves any favour from God. Our only ground is that God, as that verse from Isaiah says, longs to be gracious to us.

Then, like those labourers who had worked all day long and assumed they should get preferential treatment we start to think we can earn God’s grace. We think that if we work hard- if we do an extra ‘bit for God’ then we’ll deserve something better. We presume to think we can put God in our debt, and that is perilously close to the unforgivable sin, which lies in a rejection of the Holy Spirit’s teaching and witness about Jesus.

Let us try afresh to grasp the magnitude of God’s grace and then respond in heartfelt gratitude.