We celebrate God’s goodness. In our minds God being good primarily means one thing: that he will be or should be good to us. However, God’s goodness is displayed in many ways to many people. How do we handle it when God is good to others?

Look at the parable in Matthew 20.

The story is well known and straightforward. A landowner goes out early in the morning and hires all the day laborers he finds. He goes out several more times throughout the day, each time hiring more workers. Finally, shortly before the day’s work is done, he finds men who have had no work all day. They will likely go hungry without pay, and so he sends them out to work the last little bit of the day for him.

The first workers had an agreement with the landowner for a standard day’s wage; but to the others the landowner only said he would pay fairly. And indeed, they were in no position to negotiate.

At the end of the work day the landowner had his foreman pay the day laborers, starting with the last hired. Out of goodness and generosity he gave them a full day’s wage. They would be well fed and able to provide for their families for another day. The first workers, who had done much more work than those last, were expecting to receive more. They were expecting to be differentiated in some way from those who had only worked a short time. Yet they were all paid the same. The early laborers complained and said to the landowner, “you have made them equal to us” referring to the last workers.

The landowner replies that (1) he was doing no wrong to the early workers because they had agreed on a day’s wages, and (2) he has the freedom to be generous to others. The early worker’s attitude is summed up in that they “begrudged the generosity” of the landowner.

Jesus Tells the Parable

Let’s just do a quick fly over of this text. In the previous chapter, Jesus had some hard contact with the religious beliefs of the day, and challenged many of the Jewish assumptions. To put it simply, contemporary Jewish beliefs judged a man’s spirituality on his adherence to Jewish tradition and the Law, as well as his success in life (how much God had blessed him materially). This means that the rich and powerful as well as the religious elite were considered to be the most spiritual people and the most important to God.

Jesus turned this on its head. After accepting children, who had no power, possessions, or religious clout; he turned away the rich young ruler, who had all of these things in abundance. His disciples, shocked by his actions, wanted some assurance, that all of their sacrifices would amount to something. Jesus kindly assured them of an eternal reward; but said something strange “many who are first will be last, and the last first”.

The rich young ruler had diligently worked his way to the top; and it was the expectation of the Jews that God would pick people from this top strata. Yet Jesus was in the habit of calling people from the lowest rungs of society and behavior, who were willing to forsake themselves and follow him wholly.

It was still as Samuel had said all those centuries ago, God sees through all the bluff and bluster on the outside. God is not like humans, who can’t see past the masks people wear.

The parable of the laborers in chapter twenty is designed to flesh this out further. In the story, the landowner represents God, who goes out and first finds a people to work for him. These represent the Jews. Later more laborers are added, yet they are all paid the same. This is viewed as unfair by the first. The Jews, particularly the religious leaders, had developed a sense of entitlement – a perceived monopoly on God and his blessings.

The religious elite of Jesus’ day, in all their entitlement had sneered at the sinners and tax collectors Jesus had taken meals with (a symbol of acceptance), and in some cases called to follow him. The Pharisees could not abide such low-lifes being counted viable for spiritual blessing. Yet God has the right to be good to people. Any people he chooses. Christ had already carried the gospel as it was to Samaria. Before too long Paul would take the complete gospel into the heart of the Gentile world as they knew it. Luke records for us in Acts some of the violent Jewish responses to a Gentile-accepting faith. The equality of the gospel was not acceptable to the Jewish elite. Gentile sinners could come as they were to this Jesus, and have access to God. The very thought was infuriating, despite the same offer having been first extended to them.

Equality only humiliates the arrogant.

Begrudging Goodness

Note the key complaint of the early workers. They didn’t gripe that the later workers received a day’s wage, nor would they have put up a fuss with their own fair wages if they had not had a comparison. The complaint is, “you have made these people like us”. The early workers wanted favor and superiority over those they looked down on. They wanted the fact that they looked down on the later workers to be validated by the actions of the land owner, and they weren’t.

Then came the most annoying part for early workers. The land owner shows that he was just in his treatment of them, and that he is good. He decided to be generous; and not only do they begrudge him his generosity, but his generosity highlights their selfishness. His goodness serves as a revealing contrast to their ill-will and prejudice.

Goodness did not concern the early workers, only comparison. To them the point wasn’t what the last workers got, or what they got; it was the unacceptable fact that they both got the same amount.

As humans, comparison is one of our most fundamentally petty habits. We tirelessly seek to identify our own worth by those people we pass up in life. We are in an endless and pointless race to have a better job, a shinier car, a bigger retirement fund, a cleaner house, and more toys than someone else.

Often religious people nod sagely, bemoaning those poor materialists racing to keep up economically. Yet we Christians have our own set of pointless races for comparison. We tirelessly pursue attention at church, or from the pastor or other church celebrity. We pride ourselves on having longer prayers, quieter children, more hand-shakes, and more theological knowledge than someone else. These races for comparison are our self-appointed value markers, and we can get pretty miffed if someone else gets the recognition or respect we feel befits our place in the races.

Conclusion

So now we comes back to the matter – God is good. God is the landowner. Who are we?

Because most of us are Gentiles, we may tend to assume that we are, of course, the humble and grateful late workers in the story. Are we? Although the parable likely had the coming church age in view, the identifying characteristic of the early workers in the story is not their ethnicity, but their expectations. They had a sense of entitlement, and a desire to not be lumped in with the riffraff.

Many of us grew up in Christian homes, even multi-generational dynasties of “full time” Christian workers. We may have gone to Christian college or seminary. We may have poured our effort into theology books and charts, or into climbing our way up the pecking order of a church. We have a lot of religious investment, a lot of work in the landowner’s fields.

Are we ready for God to be good to those from whom we would withhold goodness?

Are we ready to be counted equal with people we desperately want to look down on?

Are we ready for God to promote others, while we diminish?

I’m not talking about seeing those you like advance, carrying your team’s flag forward. I’m talking about the other guys. The other church. The people with the other theological position. The people with lower standards. The people with higher standards. Are you ready to rejoice when God blesses them?

Under Grace,

John Fritz

John Fritz is the Volunteer Coordinator for Thoughtful Life Ministries and the primary author of the Thoughtful Life Journal, which is published weekly from March through September. The purpose of this blog is to challenge and encourage those who have a desire to cultivate a more meaningful walk with Christ. Visit our Homepage to learn more about the ministry and our annual two-week summer Discipleship Program for teens and young adults.