Ah this gospel story begins so well doesn’t it?

A landowner goes out early in the morning and finds people waiting for work. He sends them into his vineyard and agrees to pay them a fair wage. Then he goes out again at nine, at noon, at three, and finally at five o’clock. Each time he finds more people standing around with nothing to do, and he sends them into the vineyard too.

So far, so good.

But then comes the awkward bit.

At the end of the day, the people who have worked for just one hour are paid first — and they receive a whole day’s wage. The people who have been working since dawn watch this happening. And I think we can imagine what they are thinking. “Well, that hardly seems fair.” And if we are honest, we might agree with them. Because we understand fairness. We live in a world where we count things carefully. Who did the most? Who deserves the most? Who has been here longest? Who has made the greatest contribution? And perhaps that is why this parable can make us slightly uncomfortable.

Because Jesus seems to suggest that God doesn't operate by our system of keeping score. And that is where Jonah comes in.

Jonah has gone to Nineveh and preached that the city will be destroyed. The people repent. And God changes his mind and does not destroy them. And Jonah is furious. He actually complains to God because God has been merciful. “I knew you would do this! I knew you were too kind. That's why I didn't want to come here in the first place!” And then Jonah sits outside the city, waiting to see what happens. God gives him a plant for shade. Jonah is delighted. Then the plant dies. And Jonah becomes angry all over again. God's response is wonderfully simple: “Jonah, you are worried about your little plant. I am worried about all those people.”

And perhaps that is the thread running through both stories.

God's generosity is bigger than our sense of fairness.

We spend a lot of our lives keeping score. We remember how long we have been coming to church. We remember how much we have given. We remember the things we have done for other people. And sometimes, without even realising it, we can begin to think that God must be keeping score too.

Surely God notices that I've been faithful all these years. Surely someone who has made a mess of their life shouldn't receive the same welcome as someone who has tried to live faithfully.

But Jesus says: it’s not a competition

There isn't a leaderboard in heaven. There are no gold stars for those who arrived earliest. And perhaps that is good news for all of us. Because most of us will have times when we feel that we have worked hard and times when we have done very little. Times when our faith has felt strong and times when it has felt almost absent. Times when we have got things right and times when we have got things spectacularly wrong.

And God's generosity remains.

I am reminded of the wonderful poem Leisure by W. H. Davies, which begins: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

What happens when we become so busy measuring, comparing and judging that we forget simply to receive?

The workers in the vineyard were so busy looking sideways that they failed to notice what they themselves had been given.

And I wonder whether Jesus is inviting us to stop looking sideways.

There will always be someone who seems to have more than us. Someone who seems less deserving than we think we are Someone who seems to have had an easier life.

But the invitation of Jesus is not to compare. It is to receive. “God doesn't keep score; God keeps loving.”

That changes the way we see ourselves. And it changes the way we see other people.

It means we don't have to earn God's love. And neither does anyone else.

It means that the person who has been in church for fifty years and the person who walks through the door for the first time are equally precious to God. It means that when someone who has made mistakes turns back towards God, heaven doesn't say, “Well, it's about time.”

Heaven rejoices.

And perhaps, like Jonah, we sometimes need to learn that God's mercy is wider than our own.

So as we leave this morning, perhaps we can carry those words with us:

God doesn't keep score; God keeps loving.

And perhaps that is something worth remembering this week — when someone irritates us, when someone seems undeserving, when we find ourselves comparing our lives with somebody else's.

Stop keeping score. Look again. And remember the generosity of the God whose love is always bigger than our calculations.