Jesus’ parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is a little like taking medicine—you know it’s supposed to be good for you, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. In fact, even as a kid in Sunday School, I can remember thinking that there was something about this story that just didn’t add up.

The way Jesus tells it, a vineyard owner goes out first thing in the morning to hire some laborers. He offers them a fair day’s wage—a denarius—and they all agree. However, by nine in the morning, it becomes clear that additional workers are needed, and so the vineyard owner returns to the marketplace to hire some more. He does the same thing at noon, and again at three, and yet again at five, when most of the hard work has already been completed.

Then comes the moment they have all been waiting for (some longer than others)—it’s time to get paid. Beginning with the last to be hired, the owner presses a single, shiny denarius into each of their hands. It’s an exceedingly generous act, considering that they have barely broken a sweat; and of course, it causes the others to begin calculating what their compensation will be.

But before they can work out the arithmetic in their heads, they, too, are presented with a single denarius. “This is not fair,” they cry out. “You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and scorching heat. We’re being cheated here!”

“How are you being cheated?” the owner asked. “You are receiving exactly what you agreed to work for—and more to the point, it’s my vineyard, and my money. Am I not permitted to do as I please with what belongs to me … or do you begrudge my generosity?”

You bet they do! Like most of us, they have an innate sense of what is fair and what is not. Equal pay for equal work is fair; equal pay for unequal work is not. Rewarding those who have worked the hardest is fair; rewarding those who have done the least is not.

It’s a difficult lesson to learn, to be sure. But how we hear this parable depends largely on where we picture ourselves in that line of laborers. In other words, if we think of ourselves as the ones who have been working since the crack of dawn, then it does seem like we are being cheated. However, if we see ourselves as the ones who were called into service at the last moment, then it may strike us that we have just received a tremendous gift.

But even more important than where we place ourselves is the realization of how blessed we are to be in that line at all. Remember, at the beginning of the day, none of these laborers had a job. So maybe the true act of grace here is that God called us into service in the first place.