The Last shall be First

My friend was grumbling about unfair treatment at the work place; about how it seems that people who don't work as hard but get the same amount of pay at the end of the month. And he remembered a story from the Bible:

There was a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, "You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you." And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing; and he said to them, "Why have you been standing here idle all day long?"

When the day was over the farmer paid each worker one denarius. Each one was paid exactly the same amount; there were no exceptions. But the workers who had been labouring since the beginning of the day complained that it was not fair to pay everyone equally. They had worked all day and the last workers had only laboured a short time. The farmer answered that how much he paid his workers was his choice.

"Take what is yours and go your way, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?" Thus the last shall be first, and the first, last.

Something to think about...