During my sermon on Sunday, September 24, 2023, I mentioned a TED Talk by primatologist Frans de Waal about fairness. I wanted to share the video with you. I found it to be a quite compelling video, particularly as we try and understand our own human reactions to perceived inequality. In retrospect, though, I’m wondering about the difference between the desire for fairness and our inclination toward envy and comparison.

Fairness and envy are easily confused and in watching the video, and considering our parable from Sunday from Matthew 20, I’m realizing that neither of those situations is really even about fairness. So, what is fairness? When asking basic life questions, I often find that children’s books offer a helpful perspective. In a book titled It’s Not Fair, on nearly every page, the title of the book, is exclaimed in response to a variety of apparent inequalities. Why can’t I have a pet giraffe? It’s not fair. … Why now, chicken pox? It’s not fair. Here’s a link to the book being read aloud. It is a fun book, for sure, and my favorite part is the way it ends. There’s no explanation, no attempt to justify the feelings or even try to change the feelings of the people who are comparing their own circumstances to those around them.

I wonder how children would respond to this book. I wonder how you would respond! I know that for me, my response at the end was to reflect on the ways that I’ve felt that things weren’t fair and I envisioned an empathetic and compassionate response of someone looking at me, acknowledging my feelings, and explaining that some of those things just are the way they are. Yes, it doesn’t seem fair, but it also isn’t the fault of the person who receives what we did not. Envy is what happens, though, when our perception of inequality leads us to act out of a desire for what someone else has.

Contemporary theologian Diana Butler Bass writes that “envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is a kind of protective impulse. One is jealous if a lover seems inappropriately attentive to another. You might be jealous to guard your reputation against attack or jealous in defense of familial honor. Envy is resentment, a passionate spite that can become cancerous hostility. Joseph Epstein, in a brilliant little book, called envy ‘a self-poisoning of the mind, envy is usually less about what one lacks than about what other people have.’ Envy grows from rivalry — when we are unable to see our own gifts without comparing them to the gifts of others.”

Like the capuchin monkeys, we are happy with the cucumber until we see someone else receive a grape. I want to be less envious while also seeking fairness. The more I think about our text from Sunday, the study with the monkeys, and even the children’s book, I realize that part of our calling as a faith community is to be people who strive for fairness while also seeking to avoid envy. What a challenging spot for us to be in! Luckily, this is the way of gospel, which also means the Holy Spirit guides us in community as we seek to live the Kingdom of God together here and now!