The Parable of the Unfair Payroll
(Proper 20A)
10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
24 September 2023
Mission Church of the Holy Spirit, Sutherlin (Oregon)
The Rev'd Father Tony Hutchinson, Ph.D., SCP
Jonah 3:10-4:11 Psalm 145:1-8 Philippians 1:21-30 Matthew 20:1-16
God,
give us hearts to feel and love,
take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
Day
laborers have always had it rough. Just
go by any parking lot at a Home Depot or Walmart in this part of the state, where
they congregate each morning during the agricultural season from planting to
harvest, or the warm dry season for building or yard work. Look and really see what is going on. They wait there, patiently, until someone
asks them to come and work. Wages are
negotiated on the spot. They usually
take whatever they are offered. They
have no union to represent their interests collectively. Day laborers are and have always been been
easily exploitable. Throughout history,
in almost every economy, the number of people needing work has almost always
exceeded the number of jobs available, and this has meant that employers could
keep wages way low. A simple case of
supply and demand: with too many workers
for too few jobs, the value of unskilled labor was low, very low. And most
societies placed a very low value on the unskilled laborers themselves. Many societies see them as lazy, idle, and
not worth better paying jobs, though if you look carefully you normally see
that the poor unskilled workers in most places are among the most willing to
work hard, and are ingenious and inventive in making a little money and making
that little money go a long way.
In Jesus’ time, day laborers were
peasants who had been pushed off the land.
Most lived in hovels in the towns and cities, and had no means of
support other than whatever they could get by working on a day-to-day
basis. They lacked all job
security. Indentured servants, and yes,
even slaves in large enlightened households, had more security and hope for the
future. Religious leaders belittled
and reviled day laborers, calling them the “Am Ha-aretz” (the people of the
land), unclean and worse than Gentiles, just as our elites often call those
people waiting for work at those parking lots “illegals.” As if any person could be illegal, as if any
person could have so little worth.
Today’s Gospel is a parable of Jesus
about such day laborers. I think it
should be called the parable of the unfair payroll because it deals with how
angry the laborers get when they believe they have been treated unfairly by a
well-meaning land-owner, but one oblivious how his actions might be perceived
by the laborers. Like the king in last
week’s parable of the unforgiving servant, the landowner here is one of the
careless rich, oblivious to the realities of the people of the land, the
illegals.
The way the story is told, it is
clear that the landowner can’t be bothered to go through the math of prorating
the workday. As little as he is paying
these guys, it is simpler and cleaner just to give all the workers the same
wage, whether they have worked a hard eight hours in the heat of the day, or
whether they worked only an easy hour at the end of the day in the crush to get
the harvest in before sunset. And that
is in fact what lies behind the all-day workers’ reaction—they are being paid
such a pittance that the landowner is willing to throw their entire day’s wage
at the newcomers for convenience sake only.
They want more. The revolt of
those who have born the heat of the day is a revolt against what they see as an
unjust and demeaning personnel policy.
The fact that there are plenty of
people at 5 p.m. still waiting at the marketplace for work underscores the
context in which this story unfolds.
There is such an overabundance of people needing work that the landowner
can pay as little as he finds convenient, and as much as he finds least
troublesome.
Jesus’ parable asks us to wonder
about what is fair. Is fairness
determined by a mathematical formula that prorates worth by number of hours
worked and hardness of the time spent in work?
Or is fairness determined by recognizing human need and the dignity of
each person? It most certainly is not
determined by devaluing others, or treating people all the same simply because
that is easier. One of the underlying
assumptions in the story is the need for a living wage for all who seek and
need work.
The Gospel of Matthew takes this
parable and turns it into an allegory.
Those who have worked long and born the heat of the day represent one
group of people, the newcomers another, and the landowner perhaps God. Those who have born the heat of the day are
seen as stingy and heartless to the newcomers.
It is part of Matthew’s preaching to his own community’s Jewish members
to accept newly believing Gentiles.
“Don’t be stingy with God’s grace to others and don’t question it if God
is easier on others than he has been on you!” is the lesson Matthew takes from
the parable.
I am not sure if such allegorizing
does justice to this simple story that presents so many questions. But the way Matthew tells the story, does
make us ask how stingy we are with God’s grace to others. And in this, it is wholly in line with Jesus’
idea that we mustn’t demean or objectify others, belittle their efforts and
hopes, or base our ideas of fairness on a mathematical formula that determines
worth by the marketplace rather than by need.
No matter how you read the
parable—as a criticism of the resentful workers or as a criticism of the
landowner’s carelessness and lack of regard for the needs and dignity of his
employees—the story is about generosity.
“Are you envious because I have shown generosity?” asks the landowner at
the end of the story. Literally, he says
in Greek, “Is your eye evil because I am good?”
“Is your eye evil because I am good?” The evil eye here is what the Hawaiians call “stink eye,” giving a sour face at someone when you’re annoyed or angry at them. Envy and jealousy are what today’s Hebrew scripture reading is about, the story of Jonah. He is a bit of a drama queen: “I don’t want to preach to Nineveh—I’ll run away on a boat to Spain!” “The storm’s my fault! Throw me overboard, feed me to the fish!” And once back at work, he is still at it: “If you don’t wipe out all those stinkers in Nineveh, it’s just too embarrassing for me! I want to die!” “You sent the vine borer that killed the squash bush that was giving me shade! I want to die!” This guy has the stink eye to end all stink eyes. But the Book of Jonah is the reading from the scroll of the prophets assigned in the synagogue services for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most important day of the year, when God forgives his people (coming up this net week). It’s about the impossibility of escaping God by running away, and about how welcoming God’s love and forgiveness, along with the occasional hardship that comes from God, leads us to embracing grace and forgiveness for those we dislike as well.
“Is your eye evil because I am
good?”
Generosity cannot be reduced to a formula; it cannot be squeezed into a
template of worthy/unworthy or deserving/undeserving. By definition, if it’s based on any of these,
it isn’t generosity. As social critic
and satirist Marya Mannes said, “Generosity with strings is no generosity. It is a deal.”
“Is
your eye evil because I am good?” As in all things spiritual, the basic issue
lies in where our heart is. As a young
man, for several years I went about with a chip on my shoulder. Though I had learned for politeness’ sake not
to say it, I often thought, “Why don’t people just give me what I
deserve?” Then I ran into life
situations and problems totally beyond me, and I learned that the only way I could
be happy or at least reasonably content was to accept things I had no control
over. Soon, things started getting
better and I found myself thinking, “Thank God—I am not getting what I
deserve!” It’s all a matter of where
your heart is. Where before I had often
experienced Schadenfreude, or
pleasure at the misfortune of others, I now experienced joy, true joy, at the
triumphs and good fortune of others, even when I did not share in the good
fortune.
One of the reasons we talk so much
with each other at Church is this simple truth:
a sorrow shared with others is a sorrow lightened. A joy shared with others is a joy
doubled. This does not happen when we
are jealous of others, stingy with grace, always trying to control, and
self-seeking. It happens when we let go
of our concern about how we look or how people might see things, when we start
loving our neighbors as ourselves and ourselves as our neighbors.
I invite us this week to let this
parable work in our hearts. Are there
areas where we resent to good things that happen to others? Are there places where our envy and jealousy
cause us to be stingy? Do we wish God
were stingy too? I invite us all to find
ways for us to open our hearts and loosen our grip, whether on ourselves,
others, or money. This is not just the
spirituality of good stewardship, but it is the spirituality of all abundant,
joyful life.
God is generous, perfectly so, and
we too must be generous.
In the name of Christ, Amen
