Editor’s Note: I have begun being a regular contributor for the weekly Lectionary Reflections column of the Stewardship of Life Institute. Beginning this week, I will share beginning excerpts to each of those posts and then link with the larger post available at the Stewardship of Life Institute website. Generally, I currently offer reflections for the fourth Sunday of the month.

Key Verse: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15)

“But it’s not fair daddy!” This isn’t the most common statement I hear as a father, thankfully. But it is one that I hear from time to time from my kids. I often hear it when one gets an experience that the other doesn’t, or when one gets to ride in daddy’s car, and the other in mommy’s. Perhaps you can relate? I think Jesus probably can based on the parable he tells and that we hear from Matthew 20 this week.

This week’s Gospel parable concerns a landowner, laborers, and the landowner’s benevolence to put everyone to work and to pay “whatever is right” (Matthew 20:4). But what constitutes what is “right” might be up for interpretation. It certainly does not seem to match the common human conception of what we might call fair, and there is a lot of wisdom to recognize in this. The question of fairness, though, really doesn’t come into play until the landowner begins to compensate the laborers for their efforts. Jesus tells the story, “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first’” (Matthew 20:8). The landowner is apparently compensating in reverse order, which is perfectly his right.

The landowner went out to look for workers frequently during the day, to the point that there was apparently no one who might have been unemployed. It reminds me of the line in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The landowner is providing so that all might have what they need for daily living. This is a beautiful example of abundance in God’s love. It’s also an example of God’s unlimited grace. But that’s where we start to have problems as people. Our human nature says that some should have more than others. We buy into notions of scarcity, whereas that some will get more and others less. But at the heart of this parable is a rebuke of that notion. For in God’s economy, there is enough for everyone. No one is greater than another, for all have the shared identity of being beloved children of God…

Click here to: Continue Reading this reflection at the Stewardship of Life Institute