I came upon the sweetest video clip on YouTube in which six year old Kole complains to his mom that it is not fair that his nine year old brother is allowed more independence.

Check it out at the following link:

KOLE: “LIFE BE’S NO FAIR!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXE0fHiULVM

Poor little guy, we’ve all been there and as a parent I have had the same conversation countless times with my kids. It’s hard for a six year old to understand that mom is not being fair, but mom is doing the right thing. You cannot give a six year old and a ten year old the same responsibilities, freedom, and privileges. Let’s take the example of cutting meat with a butcher’s knife: It will help the ten year old to gain independence and self confidence, but the six year old? Well, most probably a visit to the Emergency Room! Yet, the six year old will rightly feel that s/he is being treated unfairly like a “baby.” That’s parenting for you! You cannot even deal with your children in the same manner, because they have different personalities, temperaments, strengths, talents, needs, and weaknesses. Instead of trying to treat my kids equally I try to treat them as individuals with their own specific needs. It may not be fair, but it is just.

But it is not only kids who feel slighted when they are not being treated fairly – we will experience it many times in our own faith journeys. Face it: God is not always fair. Anyone who claims that God is fair is making a statement that is not found in Scripture. When you read the Bible stories you’ll make a quick discovery that God doesn’t deal with all of us equitably.  But God always does what is right; therefore God often treats us differently, not because God is fair, but because God is just.

Unfair does not equal unjust. But sometimes we confuse these two concepts with one another as the workers did in the Parable of the Landowner in Matthew 20. In this parable the landowner hired different workers at different times throughout the day. At pay-time he shows unexpected kindness and pays the workers hired later in the day the same wages as those working since early that morning. Is this unfair? You bet it is! But is it unjust?

Let’s talk more about this on Sunday,

Kobie

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 8:43 pm and is filed under This Sunday's Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.