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. Even as a kid in Sunday School, I can remember thinking 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 will be needed, 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 the laborers 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 barely broke 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 shiny 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 are being cheated here!”

“How are you being cheated?” the owner asks. “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 longest is fair; rewarding those who have done the least is not.

Of course, how we hear this parable depends largely on where we picture ourselves in this line of laborers. If we think of ourselves as the ones who have been working since the crack of dawn, then it does feel like we are being cheated. However, if we see ourselves as the ones who were called into service at the last possible moment, then it may strike us that we have just received an extraordinary gift.

But if you ask me, even more important than where we place ourselves in that line is the realization of how blessed we are to be in the line at all. Remember, at the beginning of the day, none of these laborers had a job. They were just standing idly about at the marketplace, waiting to be hired. So maybe the real act of grace here is that God called us into service in the first place.