So I was reading in Matthew the other day about the laborers in the Vineyard. Something simple but seems to strike some revelation about how selfish people can be sometimes.
It reads, “And when evening came, the owners of the vineyard said to his foreman, Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first. And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.”
This is not typical payment I’m guessing, because a denarius is for a whole days work and these workers were payed for a whole days work when they possibly only worked one hour.
“Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, 
“The last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”
The workers who worked the whole day were not happy with the money that they were given because the feel like they deserve more. They worked all day, in the hottest times of the day, and felt they deserved more than the other workers who came later. This happens all the time when we think that we have worked harder or done more than someone else. We feel we deserve more, and when we don’t get it we are upset. We become greedy.
We feel like we deserve more, so we already set ourselves up to be discontent with what we are given. What we were given was not good enough.
Why does this have to be? Can’t we be content with what we are given if it is enough to satisfy the needs that have to be met? But we come with an expectation that we should deserve more. When this person was blinded by his self-interested lack of compassion for his fellow workers.” Most of the time, this is me included, we would rather meet our own needs and have some extra, than to think about the people that we are working beside and even wonder if they would have enough to put food on the table that night. It is so easy to become self-centered in the eyes of money.
I heard about this man that was paid a salary to fit his every need for him and his family. Then the extra money he gave away. Over the years he started making a better salary getting promotions, but his living style didn’t change. Him and his family lived off the same budget, the only thing that changed was that he gave more money away.
