The Parable of the Bad Personnel Policy (Proper 20A)

 

Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, 11th century Byzantine illustration

 

The Parable of the Bad Personnel Policy

(Proper 20A)

8:00 a.m. Said; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

21 September 2014

Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
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 that parking lot in Talent 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 that lot in Talent “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 bad personnel policy 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 unfair 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?”

Jonah and the Gourd Vine, 1999, Jack Baumgartner

“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.  It about not being able to escape God by running away, about welcoming God’s love and forgiveness and the occasional hardship that come from God, and welcoming 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 our sisters and brothers 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 

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The concluding Collect that I used today for Prayers of the People, as world leaders prepare for the Summit on Global Climate Change and the U.N. General Assembly, was this:   

--> “Through greed, we have established an economy that destroys the web of life. We have changed our climate and drown in despair. Let oceans of justice flow. May we learn to sustain and renew the life of our Mother Earth. We pray for our leaders, custodians of Mother Earth, as they gather in New York City at the climate talks. May they negotiate with wisdom and fairness. May they act with compassion and courage, and lead us in the path of justice for the sake of our children and our children’s children.”  Archbishop Desmond Tutu