Hired Last and Paid the Same. Is God Unfair?

Hired Last and Paid the Same

Retired Pastor's Column

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 20, 2026

‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?

from Mathew 20:1-16

This gospel, I think, strikes many of us as being somewhat unfair. The real question is, what is the "usual daily wage"? And are we really earning it?

As most of those reading this know, I worked in the airline industry for over a decade after trying out the monastic life and before entering the seminary. Unlike many other iprofessions, every person in every work group, from pilots down to the people who clean the planes, are ranked strictly by seniority, their hire date. Everything. When I was hired at American, President Reagan had just fired the striking air traffic controllers, and airlines needed emergency part-time temporary help. It was an extremely competitive position in which it seemed like a thousand people showed up for the entrance test, and they were hiring only 60 of us temporary workers.

I was unemployed and I felt that it would be interesting. Of course, we all wanted the job and we hoped it would become permanent, but it seemed unlikely. Nevertheless, by some miracle, I managed to get one of those coveted 60 jobs and eventually, it become permanent full-time and later I went on to agent jobs I truly loved. One issue that never left me: they hired us in three different groups of 20 with three different start dates and gave us a choice which group to pick. It took six weeks of intense training to learn all the computer language I needed to work as an agent with passengers. It was very difficult.

I chose the second of the three start dates, and from that date until the day that I resigned, 10 years later, I was outbid for shifts by everyone that was hired in that first round. This was important because I ended up with shifts like 4:00 to midnight with Tuesday-Wednesday Tuesday off for several years because of that one decision. The only thing unfair about it was that I didn't know to choose the first hire date group.

Monastic life is similar in that your rank, or as they call it, "statio," is based on when you entered the monastery, not your physical age. Therefore, somebody much younger than you might be your senior in religious life. It all depends on when you entered. It's not unfair, it's just the way the system works. You can see this clearly when the monks at Mount Angel Abbey here come in for mass. They walk in in with the most senior monks entering last.

Jesus makes it clear that he doesn't hire this way. We all get the same wage. There's no benefit to us in the sense of getting a better shift, or your prestiger or your pay even. Those who work for an hour get the same pay as the ones that work all day. Why does Jesus use such a seemingly unjust example? Our "daily wage" is eternal life, and no one deserves this. No one is earning it. When we are "hired" by the Lord, it means that we have accepted him as our savior, and we get to work fulfilling his mission for us in the world, doing his will, and having faith in him.

Those who work (practice the faith) longer have the privilege of having a longer relationship with him. They may get to know him better or have more opportunities to serve. We all have different missions that God gives us. Some seem more important than others, but he promises us all the same thing, which is eternal life.

Our place in heaven may be different, but that's not totally determined by our actions either. Rather, it's the will of God and our cooperation with it as well as we can. It's up to him as to where he's going to place us in the next world that we so look forward to. We are earthly creatures who are not in any way immortal in our earhly bodies, or that we could of our own efforts achieve spiritual bodies and live forever. This is to be "like God" in the sense that we will never die and can no longer sin, that we will be perfected as human beings in complete happiness one day. None of this we are earning now.

Therefore, Jesus is really saying, "Why are you serving me? What is your reason? Are you just looking for a reward?" That's not love. Children need to be bribed to do what they're told to do, or threatened with punishment, but we are supposed to be following Jesus out of love.

Choosing an example from my own life as a priest, there are many rewards for the life that we live if we love what we're doing, but to me, the greatest honor is just to have been asked. Some priests come in later in life, and some come in in their 20s; I was ordained at 40, so I was a midlife vocation but we're all priests. I was grateful simply to have been asked. All of us should be grateful that Jesus has called each of us to a mission in life. We're all important to God, whether priest or layperson. Jesus has a special place for you on Earth and in the next world. We just have to remember that we're not earning our way into heaven. We do what we do for Christ because we're trying to love him and please him.

Father Gary