Podcast of "Whatever Is Right" (MP3)
Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Through our ears, our modern ears,
this parable is odd. So let’s start with something very important, this is a
parable. The differences between the story and historic custom will make that
clear.
Historically, when looking for day
laborers, an overseer would go to the town square and would select all of the
laborers he would need for the day’s work. The overseer would be skilled in
knowing the job and the number of people needed to do the work. At the end of
the day, the overseer, probably with a household treasurer of some sort, would
pay the men and send them on their way.
In our parable, it is the landowner
who goes to square to hire laborers. Unlikely. He not only goes out at sunrise,
he goes out again at 9:00 am, noon, 3:00 pm and again at 5:00 pm. Highly unlikely. It’s
more likely that the landowner would have either been at the square solving the
problems of the world like ancient landowners did or been busy making more
deals like modern businessmen do.
Further, the simple fact that there would
still be men waiting to be hired one hour before quitting time doesn’t ring
true either. They would have either found work or not expected to work that day
because, as I just said, the overseer gets all of his workers at sunrise.
Now, as there are some facets of
this parable that don’t ring true, some of the details are dead solid perfect. The
day was long; the work day started at 6:00 am and ended at 6:00 pm, generally
from sunrise to sunset. There would still be enough time to get the staples
needed before heading back to what passes for a home to these migrant workers.
Very few had families so the single denarius would keep them marginally fed and
sheltered.
Last week I said that the denarius was
a living wage, in truth it is just barely a living wage. It would not be like
the wages of an average household in Marshall
So if we have established one thing
about this parable, it is that Jesus was telling a story, a story with a lesson
for the disciples to understand. A story that would have some elements that would
ring true to every one of his disciples and some that would be outrageous. This
is what we need to take from this parable first, it is a parable, it’s not “ripped
from the headlines” like Wednesday’s premier of “Law & Order: Special
Victims Unit.”
This is actually a good thing
because let’s be honest, I’m just as miffed that the men who only showed up for
an hour got the same pay as the men who worked hard all day long. It goes with
our mindset; an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. You work twelve
hours, you get twelve hours worth of pay. You pick so many bushels of grapes or
sheaves of wheat or hundreds of widgets you get paid for that much work. It’s what’s
right.
I know when I was young, and
somebody on Thursday said the same thing, I thought the next day would be a
real bad day for the landowner; nobody would want to work all day for him ever
again! He could get all of the “one hour labor” he wanted, but all day? No way.
These are just more reasons we need
to look at this as a parable and not as a true story.
As far as I’m concerned paying for
the work done, not paying for standing around is right, and I suspect many of
you feel the same way. Shoot, even the workers who put in a full day thought it
was unfair. This is not the way of the parable.
But then again, I’m looking at this
from my modern point of view. I come from the point of view of a man who once
managed a business that had a half-million dollar annual revenue in the late
80’s. I managed employees in the private and public sectors, and did it with a
point of view that comes from having a Bachelor of Science in Business degree.
Even with a degree in College Student Development, I am still inclined to
process budgets and create spreadsheets like the business student I once was.
I notice I’ve just spent the last few
minutes going on about what this parable is not. It’s not a real story. It’s
not based on fact. It’s not “ripped from the headlines.” It never has been and
probably never will be taught in business school. We are not familiar with
anything like it.
This is the point of view that is
familiar to most of us, but there is another. In his 1996 book “Santa Biblia:
The Bible through Hispanic Eyes”,[1]
Justo Gonzales notes that this parable elicits surprisingly different reactions
when read to typical, middle-class audiences in America
These are people who identify with the
problems of the field workers. They understand the laborer who travels in his
pickup truck trying to find work with little success, or, even if he finds
work, he is standing around waiting until the job materializes.
At the end of the parable when the landowner
pays the wages, the Hispanic congregation applauds when the laborers who worked
for only one hour get paid a full day's pay. They are not confused by this, but
understand that the people looking for work and who have been waiting for work
need a day's pay to survive. They rejoice, then, at the grace that is not
contrary to justice, but that flows with justice. They are paid what they need
and deserve rather than the wages they might have been paid had society's
concept of justice prevailed.[2]
According go Gonzales, Hispanic migrant
workers going from farm to farm to look for work at the will of the master understands
grace in ways that stereotypically Presbyterians do not. Sorry about using a
stereotype, but it applies here. Statistics show that most Presbyterians live
at an income level that is above the national average. We are more likely to be
the overseer than the migrant.
Still as we know all too well about statistics,
“numbers don’t lie but numbers don’t bleed.”[3]
Statistics speak to a people, to a nation; but they can never portray the
situation of an individual.
Getting back from the caveat and onto
the main point, on the whole we don’t experience the grace of God fashioned in
this parable as much as we experience what we would consider it being wronged by
someone who gets more than we think they deserve.
I can speak for myself, when I was
young my dad worked for TWA, Trans World Airlines. He lost several promotions
because of concessions made to labor unions in contract negotiations. Just when
one labor union would settle and he was back in line for promotion, bam, here’s
the next waiting to take what would ultimately come from him. He was quite unhappy
about the situation and that made the little boy in me upset too. So I get
this.
Maybe for me the first point is
that I don’t understand the actions of the landowner. Based on the values I
learned as a young boy at my father’s knee and a young man in college, it
doesn’t seem right. But there is one thing I can say I understand about the
parable. Something we can all understand is that it’s the landowner’s right to
do whatever he wants with his money, his land, and his crop. If he chooses to give
everyone the same pay for unequal work then that’s up to him.
Jesus asks “Are you envious because
I am generous?” Well, maybe the answer to that simple question is yes, I am.
But there’s another old expression,
a prayer if you will, that would work for his situation. “Lord, please give me what
I need and not what I deserve.” Based on our reading from last week I mentioned
that we commit $2 billion worth of sin against the Lord while we commit (based
on my adjusted figures) a paltry $7,000 against one another. In that parable
the Lord forgives greatly and expects us to forgive one another too.
This week’s reading provides us
with the idea that it doesn’t matter when we come to the party, the reward is
the same. This is one of the many ways to imagine grace.
It’s combining these two readings
that makes me stand up straight. We owe a debt to the Lord that is as great as
the value of the whole Dallas Cowboys Football Organization, and even though we
cannot repay such a debt we are forgiven. Today we see that not only are we
forgiven; but regardless of when we come to the table we are given this day our
daily bread.
Sounds familiar, “Give us this day
our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” You see,
daily bread isn’t the request for quail and manna from our Exodus reading. We
should never look to return to the fleshpots of our own little Egypt
Our debts are forgiven as we
forgive our debtors, and last week’s reading made that painfully real when the
master sent the unforgiving slave to prison and torture. This week we learn
that the master, the landowner in this parable, will do with what is his as he
pleases.
Maybe, just maybe that is the point
of this parable. The Lord God works in wonderful and mysterious ways, ways that
are far more generous than we could ever hope or imagine. It’s easy to
understand why we aren’t that generous. Economists tell us that economics is
the study of the use of scarce resources. Whenever we look at a parable of
Jesus that includes money, it is our habit to look at the wealth like a scarce
resource that will ultimately dry up. That’s our world, that’s our economics.
The glory of God is that the denarii
of the parable will never run out. In the kingdom of God
That is what makes God so
completely different than us. God’s grace and God’s mercy know no bounds. As
our parables teach us, our wisdom, our forgiveness, our ideas of what’s right
pale next to the Lord’s.
As for the interpretation at the
end, “So the last will be first and the first will be last,” I’m not sure how
well this fits. Yes, those who came last were paid first and vice versa, but
there is something more important. Those who came to the master, the landowner,
all received what was right. Whether you were hired at sunrise or at 5:00 in
the afternoon; whether you have lived your life as a disciple or came to faith
later in life, all who come receive the full day’s wage.
It was pointed out to me this week
that those who came later, those who came only with the promise that they would
be paid “whatever is right” showed more faith. Those who came later came to the
vineyard with no specific promise of wage, they only knew that they came with
the promise of whatever is right, whatever is just. They weren’t promised
whatever is fair, they were promised something different and something better.
They were promised what is right.
No, this parable is outrageous for
our ears. In the day and time we live in it seems more like welfare than wage,
but grace is the promise. We are promised whatever is right, whatever is just.
Thank God we receive this instead of what we deserve.
[1] Gonzales,
Justo, “Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes,” Nashville
[2] http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=fairness+&Search=7&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0
[3]
Walkenhorst, Bob, “Too Many Twenties.” From “The Rainmakers” CD “Skin”
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