Matthew 20:1-16

In this week’s gospel lesson, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hired workers at different times of the day to go work in his vineyard.  At the end of the day, he pays the workers who have labored all day in the hot sun the same wage as those who have only been working for an hour.  This is one of the more challenging parables of Jesus and, as is so often the case, we may miss the point entirely if we over spiritualize it or try to turn it into an oversimplified allegory.

There’s a line at the end of this parable that I keep coming back to over and over.  The landowner is speaking to a disgruntled all-day worker who doesn’t think it’s fair that he was paid the same as the workers who only worked one hour.  Most English translations have the landowner saying to the unhappy worker, “Are you envious because I am generous?”  What it actually says in the Greek, though, is “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

Is your eye evil because I am good?

That’s an amazing question, and I think it’s more to the point than “are you envious?”.  It can be taken two ways:  One is, “Are you looking for something bad here?  Are you looking for something to be upset about because I did a good thing?” The other, if you want to get really old school, is “Did someone put the evil eye on you?  Are you cursed so that you only see bad where there is good happening?” 

So how are you seeing this parable?  

Who do you identify with in this story?

The all-day laborer?

The mid-day laborer?

The end-of-day laborer?

The owner of the vineyard?

The way we see this story depends a lot on our point of view—on where we stand when we’re looking at it.  The way you interpret this story depends a lot on your own socio-economic position and life circumstances.

I think most of us tend to identify with the all-day laborers—those first guys hired early in the morning.  We resonate with them, don’t we, when they say, “What’s the deal here?  We were out there working our tails off all day in the hot sun and you’re paying these guys who showed up an hour ago the same as us?!?  That’s not fair!”

That’s a natural response.  Let me tell you just how natural.

In 2003, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta did an experiment with Capuchin monkeys.  The monkeys were taught to complete a simple task, and when they did the task successfully, they were given a slice of cucumber as a reward.  They liked cucumber, and they were all perfectly happy being rewarded with a piece of cucumber.  Until one of them was given a grape.  Then cucumber wasn’t good enough anymore.  They all wanted a grape for completing the task and if they didn’t get it, they rebelled in all the loud and messy ways that monkeys can rebel.

Even monkeys want to make sure they’re getting the same deal as the other monkeys.  Even monkeys seem to have a built-in idea of what’s “fair.” So it’s natural, I think, for us to identify with the workers who feel slighted after laboring all day in the vineyard.   

Because of that, this parable makes a lot of us uncomfortable.  The kingdom of God is like a landowner who paid his workers on a grossly uneven scale.  So what is Jesus saying here?  Is God…unfair?

The traditional way to get around all that discomfort has been to say, “Well this parable is all about Grace.  Jesus is talking about getting into heaven and the point is that the Johnny-come-latelies will get in just like those who have been working in the church their whole lives.” 

Maybe.  But what if he’s really talking about economics?  What if the point he’s making is about the practical duties and responsibilities that come with having assets at your disposal?  What if he’s talking about the duty that the rich have to the less well off?  What if he’s talking about the kind of economic dynamics that keep a whole community healthy—not so much trickle-down as flow-through?  

What if this really is about wealth, every day dollars and cents and community economics?  What if Jesus is giving us God’s model for the administration and stewardship of wealth?

And before you dismiss that idea, note where this parable comes in the book of Matthew.  Just before this parable, a rich young man has come up to Jesus and asked what he has to do to inherit eternal life.  In addition to keeping the commandments, Jesus tells him to sell everything he has, give the money to the poor and then to come and follow him.  The young man “went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”  When he saw the young man’s response Jesus said, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  That’s what leads into this parable.

Remember too, that Jesus is talking to a Jewish audience and this gospel is written to a community of Jewish Christians.  They have laws and traditions and customs that are all about making sure that the less fortunate are provided for.  

Leviticus 23:22 tells us, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.”

In Deuteronomy 15:11, we read ‘Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’

The audience who first head this parable were even familiar with other stories that are quite similar to this.   Rabbi Shimon ben Eliezar told a story about a king who hired two workers.  The first worked all day and received one denarius.  The second worked one hour and received one denarius.  Which one, asked the rabbi, was the more beloved?  Not the one who worked only one hour, he explained.  The king loved them both equally! 

In her amazing book Short Stories by Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine wrote:

 “The parable does not promote egalitarianism; instead, it encourages householders everywhere to support laborers, all of them.  More than just aiding those at the doorstep, those who have should seek out those who need.  If the householder can afford it, he should continue to put others on the payroll, pay them a living wage (even if they cannot put in a full day’s work), and so allow them to feed their families while keeping their dignity intact.  The point is practical, it is edgy, and it is a greater challenge to the church then and today than the entirely unsurprising idea that God’s concern is that we enter, not when.

   “Jesus is neither a Marxist nor a capitalist.  Rather, he is both an idealist and a pragmatist.  His focus is often less directly on ‘good news to the poor’ than on ‘responsibility of the rich.’  Jesus follows Deuteronomy 15:11, ‘Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” —Short Stories by Jesus, p. 218

Because we are who we are in our culture, I think we tend to hear this story through the filter of our Lutheran theology of Grace and we read it through the lens of a Calvinist work ethic.  We want to make it about Grace and Heaven and the rewards of hard work, so we make some assumptions about the characters in the story that probably aren’t what Jesus had in mind at all.  

But maybe we can see it differently if we slow down and ask the text some questions.

Why are those other workers in the marketplace looking for work in the middle of the day?  

Verse 3 in the NRSV says that when the landowner went out about 9 o’clock “he saw others standing idle in the marketplace.”  ‘Standing idle’ is a legitimate translation, but it’s not the only translation.  I don’t know about you, but when I hear ‘standing idle’ it has a connotation of laziness.  But the Greek word, agrou, the word that gets translated as ‘standing idle’ can also mean simply ‘without work’ or ‘not working.’

There could be any number of reasons why they weren’t working.  There could be all kinds of reasons why they showed up late to the day labor pool.

They might be caring for an elderly relative in the morning, which would be fulfilling both a family duty and a scriptural obligation. They might be caring for a sick spouse.  And maybe they simply weren’t hired by other landowners.

Jesus’ story makes no judgment on them for being late to the marketplace or simply being there “without work.”  So why do we?

We tend to focus on the workers, but the landowner needs some scrutiny, too.  Is the landowner a bad manager?  Is he clueless about how many workers he needs for his harvest?  Is that why he keeps returning to the marketplace?  Or is there something else going on here?

Timothy Thompson wrote a play based on this parable in which he depicts two brothers waiting in the marketplace, hoping for work. John is strong and capable; Philip is just as strong and willing but has lost a hand in an accident. When the landowner comes, John is taken in the first wave of workers, but Philip is left behind.  Later, other workers are brought to the field, but Philip is not among them.  John is glad to have the work, but he’s worried about his brother.  He knows Philip needs the work just as much as he does. Finally, the last group of workers arrives, and John is relieved to see that Philip is with them.  He’s glad to know that Philip will get paid for at least one hour. So imagine John’s surprise when the owner of the vineyard pays Philip a full days’ wage!  John is overjoyed, knowing that Philip – his brother – will have the money necessary to feed his family.  And when it’s his turn to stand before the landowner and receive his pay, instead of complaining as the others have, John throws out his hand and says with tears in his eyes, “Thank you, my lord, for what you’ve done for us today!”

The kingdom of heaven is like that.

God’s justice arises out of a sense of community in which we see the “eleventh hour” workers as our brothers and sisters whose needs and dignity are every bit as important as our own. 

When the landowner hired the workers he said, “I will give you whatever is right.”  What is right.  It might not be what looks “fair” to everybody else, but it will be what is right and just.  It will be what is needed.

Maybe in this parable beyond giving us a story about grace or qualifying for eternity, Jesus is giving us a model to follow.  Maybe he’s telling us how to do what is right even if it doesn’t look particularly fair.

I suppose it depends on how you see it.