Text: Matthew 20:1-16
Lectionary Year A, Proper 20
Anyone who has spent any time around young children has probably heard that phrase leveled against the child’s playmates. And any parent who has had a teen has probably been on the receiving end of that very same phrase about something that the parent has done.
That is also the same thing that the group of workers hired first in the day level against the landowner — the master — at the end of the day when they discover that their wages are exactly the same as those who worked less than they did, some considerably less.
And if we are truly honest with ourselves, we too, find the actions of the master questionable in how he distributes the wages equally without regard to time worked and it would be reasonable to assume, effort made. This is a parable that offends our sensibilities and norms. Our sense and understandings of what is fair is violated.
An easy “out” in interpreting this parable can take the form of limiting it to just the spiritual realm and turning it into an allegory of the Christian walk. In this interpretation, the wages given are grace and salvation. It is something given by God at the end of the age, when Jesus returns, when those who die in Christ receive their rewards. No matter how long or short their Christian life might have been on earth, or how easy or difficult their life may have been, the same grace and salvation is given to all. It still doesn’t seem entirely fair — think a deathbed conversion of someone who lived their life indulging their desires — but it somehow feels easier to accept this interpretation.
The immediate literary context where this parable is located might seem to support this spiritual interpretation. Matthew chapter 19 includes the story of the Rich Young Man who asked what he had to do to earn eternal life. Jesus’ response was that he must sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus. The Rich Man could not, Jesus told the parable of the camel and the eye of a needle, and the disciples were flabbergasted that anyone could be saved.
Then Peter — who else? — declared that they, the disciples, had left everything to follow Jesus, so he asks what would be their reward? Jesus replies that they will receive authority, a return far greater than they had given up, and eternal life.
Today’s parable follows immediately after this.
But in the greater context of the entire gospel account by Matthew, I believe that there is more to the context than just a distant-future reward.
Let’s take a look back at the Lord’s Prayer in chapter 6. We recite this every week, so I’m sure it is quite familiar.
However, a number of New Testament scholars have suggested that the phrase “on earth as it is in heaven” found at the end of the third clause is in fact, implied at the end of each of the first three clauses. So the first part of the Lord’s Prayer should read, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
The Lord’s Prayer talks about the kingdom of heaven as not something in the far distant future, or an entirely separate realm, but something that is breaking into and being established on the earth, during Jesus’ time, during the apostles’ time, and in our time.
Thus, when we read a parable that begins, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who…,” we should read it not as a parable that is pointing only to a future eschaton, but talking about the here and now also.
And that makes this parable difficult and uncomfortable. Because we read it and can’t see how the behavior of the master could work for any length of time in actual society.
There are many themes that are found in this parable, but the one I’d like to bring out today is this: justice isn’t fair. Now, in colloquial, modern vernacular, justice and fairness are often interchangeable. But when Matthew talks about justice, especially God’s justice, it is quite different from fairness. It should also be noted that the concept of justice found in the gospel is closely related to, and could be considered synonymous with, righteousness. In other words, justice and righteousness is about doing as God would do, particularly in regards to the oppressed, the marginalized, the forgotten, and the powerless.
The master of the vineyard in the parable probably had regular employees, but perhaps this was harvest time and he needed extra workers. Day laborers who had no regular employment would come to the common, public area of their town or city, early in the morning and hope that they would be selected to work for the day. The master goes out and find some. He spells out the day’s wage and the first set of workers agree that this is a fair wage.
What is unexpected is that the master goes out multiple times after the early morning, to look for additional workers. Did he suddenly discover that there was more work than the hired hands could handle? Commentators suggest this is unlikely. It was rather, compassion, that led him back out. He knew that he didn’t hire all of them on the first round and so he goes out to see if they had all been hired by other employers, as would be expected. But he sees that there are still many workers waiting to be hired. The master does not need more hired hands, but he hires them anyway. He goes out three more times, and for these groups he promises that they will be paid what is “just.”
The master goes out for the fifth time, late in the day, already evening, with just an hour left for any work to be done outside. He finds that there are still some waiting. Some have suggested that these were workers, who, perhaps being lazy, came later in the day. Certain English translation options might reinforce this idea. But commentators from cultures where day laborers are common protest that this would never be the case. All the workers have been there since early morning, waiting to be hired.
The master, again out of compassion, hires them. He does not promise this group any pay, but they agree to work. The master could have just given them the wage he would have given anyway, but he doesn’t. Rather, he offers them the dignity of work, if even for just an hour, so that they can honorably return home to their families and report that they had worked.
At the end of the day, in another surprising turn of events, the manager of the vineyard comes out to pay each of the hired hands. If the owner had a manager, why did he not simply send the manager to hire the day laborers? Because the master wanted to be directly involved with his hired labor, and as a result was moved by compassion to go out and hire more workers than there was work.
In yet another surprising turn of events, the master directs the manager to begin paying the hired hands with the last ones hired and the first ones, last. He could have made everything easier and avoided conflict by paying in the expected, chronological order. But he does not. He wants those hired earlier to see what he does. Then he directs the manager to pay the last group hired “the wage,” meaning a full day’s pay.
As each group gets the same pay, the ones in the first group get frustrated and then angry. They had worked all day, in the heat, and yet they get the same wage as the ones who only “worked” one hour? They are not just complaining. They are accusing the master of making the last group equal to the first. The master has treated all the groups identically, and it isn’t fair!
It is important to note that no one in this parable is underpaid. And all were up early to seek employment. Even the first group, with all the complaints, was paid a fair wage. The master reminds them that they had agreed to this pay, up-front. They have no grounds for complaint. The master dismisses them and wants nothing more to do with them.
Each of the other groups was paid what was “just.” And in the case of this landowner, to be “just” meant providing all his workers a wage that they could live on for the next day. We are reminded of the Lord’s Prayer where it reads, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Some scholars suggest that “on earth as it is in heaven” continue to be extended to the three petitions at the end of the Prayer. So we could read, “Give us this day our daily bread, on earth as it is in heaven.”
For some of us, this is our prayer. We do need our daily bread provided. But for some others of us, we are in positions to help answer this petition. What do we do about this parable and the ethical, and even potential economic issues it raises?
Like most of Jesus’ parables, no clear answers are given. I think that we often do disservice to Jesus’ parables by turning them into allegories and giving them pat answers. I think that parables are meant to raise difficult questions and lead us into discomfort. So in that spirit I leave you with questions:
· Is the parable too unrealistic in its ethical demands for justice from followers of Jesus? Especially if it means some kind of literal applications of what the master has done?
· If we are employers or otherwise able to provide for others, what does a “justice” — meaning justice as God defines it — look like for those that we support?
· For those of us who are wage earners: if we see a colleague receiving what we think is “more than fair,” does this parable challenge our assumptions and how we might work through the sense of unfairness? (As long as you aren’t being underpaid?)
· If we, as followers of Christ, are to be implementing the new society, the kingdom of heaven, here on earth as it is in heaven, how do we implement the ethics of justice that this parable seems to demand of us?
Let us sit with these questions and wrestle with them. Let us see how God wants us to live out the counterintuitive principle that God’s justice is generous, but it is not fair.
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