“But He answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'” Matthew 20:13-15
“The employer in Jesus’ story did not cheat the full-day workers by paying everyone for one hour’s work instead of twelve. No, the full-day workers got what they were promised. Their discontent arose from the scandalous mathematics of grace. They could not accept that their employer had the right to do what he wanted with his money…
Significantly, many Christians who study this parable identify with the employees who put in a full day’s work, rather than the add-ons at the end of the day. We like to think of ourselves as responsible workers, and the employer’s strange behavior baffles us as it did the original hearers. We risk missing the story’s point: that God dispenses gifts, not wages. None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us comes close to satisfying God’s requirements for a perfect life. If paid on the basis of fairness, we would all end up in hell.”
Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997) 62.
I am thinking about the teachings of Jesus linked to work this morning as I am spending a few days with 20 pastors at Camp Spofford in New Hampshire discussing ways to help people connect their faith and work in God’s economy.
Yancey nails the heart of this text: “God dispenses gifts, not wages.” God’s economy is rooted in the scandalous (think: “shockingly heavenly”) mathematics of grace. Only once we grasp this math, can we rejoice that we get to be workers in God’s world.
Many times in my life I have thought like the all-day workers. There’s no grace there. I find a chip on my shoulder that thinks “I earned what I have” when in reality, all I have is the fruit of God’s grace. Rather than be envious today, let us all rejoice because God is so generous.
And let’s imitate His generosity in extending grace richly to others!