Matthew 20:1-15
For all his wonderful stories about God’s love and grace, sometimes the stories Jesus told made his hearers mad. Like this parable which seems purposefully designed to antagonize the listener. When we discussed it at the ‘later in the day’ version of Beach Chair Theology, Garvey MacLean recounted how in one church he served, a parishioner angrily exclaimed: “This is the worst passage in the Bible! It is so unfair!”
Yet… is it really unfair? The first workers the landowner hired readily agreed to the usual daily wage – a denarius, which was a very fair sum for a day’s work. It wasn’t until they saw what the others were paid, those who had only been told they would be paid ‘whatever is right’, that the first workers felt cheated and expected more than had been agreed upon.
Is it because human nature has trouble with someone else getting more than the perceived fair share? Is it because of a compulsive and competitive need to compare ourselves with others? Is it because you and I have expectations about what our work is worth, and that our self worth is intrinsically connected with our wage? Or, is it simply because we cannot abide someone else getting something for nothing? In the early morning version of Beach Chair Theology, one of our members quipped: “You can bet that next time all the workers won’t show up until 5 o’clock!”
Now, my hunch is that for many people the reason this parable seems unfair is because, if this is meant to be a parable about the kingdom of God which for many means the kingdom of heaven, then Jesus was messing with the expectation that those who have lived a good life, worked hard, been respectful and played by the rules deserve a reward. And the others who haven’t done all those things, well, sorry, but they lose out on any reward.
However, in this parable, the landowner didn’t play by the rules! He changed them – without letting the first workers know ahead of time! Everyone got a reward. Where is the justice in that, we wonder, which is an honest reaction from a human point of view.
Yet therein lies the problem. Jesus is inviting us to look at the parable from God’s point of view. Don’t you wonder why the landowner kept going out every three hours or so and hiring more laborers? The landowner had great urgency that workers enter his vineyard, and he wanted to make sure that all who were idle in the marketplace had an invitation and opportunity to work! All were needed at every hour and all were treated alike in what was paid. In God’s eyes, everyone is worthy and equal regardless of how long or hard or not at all one worked. And the wages reflected that.
If you and I stay focused on the first workers’ complaint of unfairness, where a hierarchy of wages determines one’s status in the world, and where justice means ensuring people are in their proper place, then you and I will remain stuck in the values of the marketplace.
But if we understand that the real point of the parable is the householder’s generosity of extending need and invitation to all, and that the supposed ‘reward’ is not heaven, nor is it justice but instead, acceptance; then we will be better able to grasp that the kingdom means God has an urgent need for all of us to belong and for all of us to know ourselves as equal in worth.
That still doesn’t mean you and I can change overnight the inequity in wages between cities like South Portland and Cherryfield. And it doesn’t mean that we can fix anytime soon what I think are unfairly low wages for Head Start teachers, nursery and elementary school teachers and nursing home workers – people who care for the most vulnerable among us at the most critical times in their lives and for that worth alone should be paid a far more generous wage.
Still, to consider this parable from God’s view of fairness does invite us to stop comparing ourselves to others. It invites us to stop assuming wages equal worth, and just maybe this parable will spur us to work for God’s justice rather than our own. Because God’s justice, God’s economy has nothing to do with math, and everything to do with grace.
Amen.