03/03/2017

Good morning. Today is the Women’s World Day of Prayer, when women around the world organise reflection and prayer around a common theme; and encourage closer fellowship, understanding and joint action, throughout the year.

This year’s theme, prepared in the Philippines, invites us to ask: “Am I being unfair to you?”

It’s a thought-provoking question. Usually when issues of fairness arise, we focus on ourselves: is life fair to me?

Today the tables are turned, and we are asked to reflect on the impact of our lives, our choices, on other people. We are also challenged to consider what fairness feels like, from other perspectives.

The Day of Prayer suggests we contemplate Jesus’ parable of the labourers in the vineyard, told in Matthew’s gospel. A landowner engages people whom he finds waiting for work in the market place, at various times in the day. Shockingly, when the day ends, whether they have worked all day, or for just the final hour, he pays them all the same.

This means those who arrived late at the market-place because of illness, or who were ignored by other employers because they were old, weak, pregnant, or with children, still got the full day’s pay they needed to sustain their lives. The landowner, says Jesus, chooses to operate such generosity, because he can.

This apparent unequal treatment delivers fairness according to the abilities and circumstances of each. It’s something more subtle than mere equality – and it means treating everyone as a unique individual.

Perhaps that’s why the theme today asks ‘Am I being unfair to YOU’ – we need to look others in the eye – whether those next-door, or neighbours from our whole global village. Our position of relative privilege may well demand not only an answer from us, but action.

Lord God, give us eyes to see when our choices are unfair to others, and courage to change our ways. Amen