The Beauty of Grace Is That It Makes Life Not Fair

One of my all time favorite bands is Relient K, a Christian punk-pop band that got its start in the late 90s and is still around today. My favorite song of theirs, "Be My Escape" (released in 2004), is about how God wants to set us free when we feel trapped, often in prisons of our own making. There's a line in the second verse that has shaped my faith more than almost any other song I know.

And this life sentence that I'm serving I admit that I'm every bit deserving But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair

It's a childlike instinct to be overly concerned with what's fair. Growing up means realizing life isn't fair, and that's not always a bad thing. Consider two siblings who both bring home a B on a test. One gets praised, the other gets scolded. Fair? No. Right? Maybe – if one of them normally gets Cs and worked hard for that B, while the other is a straight-A student who just got lazy. Praising both or punishing both would be fair. But it wouldn't be what either kid actually needs.

The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.

I don't believe God is fair all the time. Don't misunderstand me, I believe God is good all the time. But that has nothing to do with fair. Goodness beats fairness any day.

So what else can the parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20:1-16) teach us about the grace and goodness of God? Here are a few things we should notice about the story.

Room for More Hands

Notice how good it is that the landowner keeps going back out to bring on more help. I've been in plenty of situations where just a handful of us were staring down a job that felt impossible to finish in time. A couple hours in, we'd be tired, sweating, and overwhelmed by how much was left. Then backup would show up, pull on some gloves, and get to work beside us.

That's one of the best feelings in the world. A few more hands can make an overwhelming job feel possible again.

Sure, the workers hired first showed more hustle, more assertiveness. But the job was bigger than they could handle alone, so the landowner kept going out, wave after wave, bringing on reinforcements until the load was lighter for everyone.

The commission we've been given – to spread the gospel and make disciples – was never meant to be a solo job. God keeps calling more people into the work alongside us. So will we grumble because the newcomers don't do things exactly the way we've always done them? Or will we make room and let them in?

Second Chances at 5 O'Clock

It's also worth noticing how strange it would have been for the landowner to go out hiring in the late afternoon. The text tells us why these last workers were still standing around: no one had hired them. Were they unskilled? Lazy? Disabled in some way? We're never told. We're left to imagine.

By hiring them anyway, the landowner takes a risk, but he also sends a message: these people still have value. They still have something to contribute. Maybe they have families to feed and bills to pay. He doesn't hand them charity. He hands them an opportunity to earn a wage, to walk home at the end of the day with their heads held high.

No one else took a chance on them that day. This landowner did.

God has a habit of choosing the overlooked and the written-off to do his most important work. Think about how God used Moses. David. Ruth. Mary. Peter. Jesus called a ragtag group of fishermen and tax collectors to be his disciples. Men and women the world would never call successful ended up changing everything for the kingdom of God. Yes, God calls and uses the high-achievers and go-getters. But he also calls the ones picked last for kickball, the ones nobody else wanted on their team.

Paid First, Paid Fully

Finally, pay attention to the order of payment. The landowner starts with those hired last. These workers put in one hour and walk away with a full day's wage – and they leave without knowing or caring what happens to everyone else. All they know is that this landowner is good. Better than good. Gracious. The kind of employer you'd show up early to work for again.

By the time the all-day workers get paid the same amount, they've had a front-row seat to watch person after person receive the same generous wage. It wasn't fair. But it was good. And that's exactly what made them angry – they only got what was fair.

Jesus ends the story there, but I like to imagine the next morning. A bigger crowd gathers at the marketplace. The ones hired first the day before look around and recognize all the latecomers from yesterday, standing there early and ready to work, hoping the generous landowner will pick them again.

This is what the kingdom of heaven is like.

The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.