It is Monday, and I’m going to tell you all the problems that I am having with the text that I will preach on this Sunday. I’m not sure how I’m going to preach this parable, but today, Monday, I’m just seeing the problems.

The parable is the one called “Laborers in the Vineyard.” It is found in Matthew 20, and honestly it is a little (a lot?) offensive. Jesus tells the story about a landowner, a vineyard owner, he has work to be done. So he goes out early in the morning and hires a group of workers. He tells them that he will pay them a fair day’s wage. They agree, and they start work early in the morning. Mid-morning the farmer sees that he needs more help, so he hires more workers. Tells them the same thing, that he will pay them a fair wage for their work. He does the same thing again at noon, and at three o’clock, and then just a short time before the work day ends.

All goes well, until it is time to pay the workers. He starts with those who worked the shortest amount of time, and he pays them a large amount compared to the duration of their labor. No problem yet, because those who started earlier in the day probably think he is going to pay them more based on the “hourly wage” of the latecomers. But he doesn’t. He pays them all the same thing. They worked different amounts of time, some started at six in the morning, some started just moments before quitting time. All paid the same.

First, paying workers all the same is not fair. Some worked about twelve hours, some worked about an hour. To pay them all the same is not fair. You do not get equal pay for unequal amounts of work. Sure, a CEO today may make hundreds of thousands of dollars a week while factory workers don’t make that in a year, but those are different jobs and different responsibilities, right? These were all hired hands, pulling weeds or picking grapes or pruning vines. The same work, different hours, and they all get the same? It is just not fair.

Second, what will this teach those latecomers? They probably laid in bed until noon, finally rousing up with the sun at its highest in the sky, stumble around for a couple of hours, and then come upon this work. They will probably try to do the same thing tomorrow. Why would they show up at six the next morning after being paid the same? Isn’t this reinforcing their bad, lazy, habits? Of course it will reinforce those habits.

Jesus is in real trouble this coming Sunday. Didn’t he know that Americans were going to read this story? Everyone knows you don’t do this. My children understood fair and unfair before they started Kindergarten. What is Jesus trying to do?

I’m going to try to get Jesus out of trouble this Sunday, but we may just have to deal with what he says. Come and see.