Dear Friends,
Back in 2008, a parishioner of mine who worked for an international corporation had the unenviable task of having to tell his managers, who reported to him from offices around the globe, that they each had to fire a number of their employees. This was a caring, sensitive Christian who was ripped apart emotionally and physically by this task. He could have simply sent emails or called the various divisions, or he could have summoned all the managers on his team to his office at the company’s U.S. headquarters. But he found those options cold and heartless; he cared deeply for all the people who were losing their livelihoods and for all the managers who would have to fire them. And so, he chose to fly to company offices in Europe, South America, Asia, and cities throughout the United States to share the bad news directly and help them, in some small way, break the news to their staff. And he had to do this over and over again, week after week, in city after city.
When I saw him on the rare Sundays that he was at home, he would tell me, almost as confession, how many people had lost their jobs in his company that week. His anguish at the despair of all those managers and employees was palpable, made even worse by his acute awareness of the number of families affected.
The Great Recession of 2008 had begun, and I had a front-row seat.
While my parishioner was dealing with the crisis within his company, we were all watching nightly news reports about the rapidly unfolding crisis here and across the globe. Who can forget the images of dazed people carrying all their work memories in a single box as they left their office buildings for the final time? It seemed like everyone who wasn’t affected directly knew someone who was, and we were all keenly aware that the unemployment figures weren’t just numbers; each number was a real person whose life and family had been turned upside down.
As the Great Recession finally started to ease up, we all began to breathe a little easier. We watched the monthly jobs reports on the news, cheering as the employment numbers slowly ticked up. As the healing economy reached genuine health, it remained a high-priority topic on the news and around the dinner table.
Now, with the Covid pandemic affecting health, societies, and economies in every corner of the globe, we listen just as avidly for the jobs report, but now it’s the shocking numbers of unemployment applications that grab our attention. Numbers about job losses that made us gasp in 2008 are nothing compared to today’s. We’re gradually seeing some improvement, but the number of new unemployment applications every week remains staggering. The pandemic has affected our health in tragic ways, and it has also affected our economies and the very foundations of our societies.
Work defines us and enables us. Our work and the recompense for our labor are often how we measure our self-worth. How important work is on the hierarchy of our personal and national identity is reflected in how much we talk about and worry about the economy, and in how the economy is almost always at the top of the list of issues in our elections.
These realities are not unique to us and our times; even in Jesus’s time, work was a measure of individual value, as we see in Matthew 20:1-16, today’s scripture reading. As we read and think about this familiar parable, let us join together, even while we’re apart, in this prayer for illumination:
Gracious God, your Word surprises, challenges, upsets, and overturns our way of seeing and thinking. Come and find us today wherever we are, however we are. By the power of your Holy Spirit, revive that which is withering in us and renew us so that we might blossom. Erase all that limits us and broaden our vision so that we may see some of what you see and thereby glimpse the holy realm you bring to our human endeavors. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
At 6 am, as day broke, a landowner went out to hire laborers. They agreed on the usual daily wage and went off to his vineyard to work. Throughout the day, at 9, noon, and 5, the landowner returned to the marketplace and hired more people to work in his vineyard, promising to pay them “whatever is right.” (20:4) And then, “when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’” (20:8) And everyone – those who were hired last and worked only a few hours, and those who were hired first and worked throughout the day – received the same usual daily wage. Those who worked the full day grumbled and complained bitterly about the unfairness of it all.
I suspect you’re familiar with this parable. Don’t you wonder why the last ones to be hired were paid first? And why everyone received a full day’s wage, even when they didn’t work a full day? Why wasn’t the landowner bound by the rules of normal society? Yes, indeed, he was generous, but wasn’t the envy and jealousy of those who worked throughout the day justified? Did you, perhaps, think it was a mistake?
In the midst of the harsh economic conditions the Jewish people suffered under Roman occupation, Jesus surprised his followers with this parable about a kind-hearted employer who claimed the freedom to be as generous as he wished with his money. Those hearing the parable were a people who, for the most part, eked out the most meager of livings. And the parable’s ending could only have surprised them even more. They, too, must have wondered: is this a mistake?
About 25 years ago, Laurie Beth Jones published a book entitled, Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership. I remember my surprise when it was included on some lists of “best business books” of the year. There’s no question that much of what Jesus said and how he dealt with people would be wonderful leadership lessons for managers, but what about this particular parable? Would you want to use it as the foundation of your economic plan? No, I don’t think so.
This parable is not a business model. It’s not about just compensation or parity; it’s not about the necessity for a living wage in a just society; it’s not about equal pay for equal work; it’s not about how best to run a business.
Jesus is not our CEO. Jesus is the Christ, our Lord and Savior, and Jesus is talking about something else here.
Jesus gives us the key to understanding this parable with his first seven words – “For the kingdom of heaven is like. . .” (20:1) This is one of Matthew’s many kingdom parables. These are parables that illustrate the kingdom of God with situations here on earth. In this kingdom parable, the landowner is God, and, as Isaiah, whose prophesies Jesus would have known well, says, “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting.” (Isaiah 5:7) God, the owner of the vineyard, brings more and more laborers – more and more witnesses, missionaries, spreaders of the faith – to work for God’s holy realm.
But still, I hear you say, what about the injustice of paying those who hardly worked at all the same amount as those who worked all day in the hot sun? How is that the kingdom of God? Once again, is this a mistake? It seems impossible that Jesus made a mistake…Do I hear you trying to figure it out by thinking that maybe it’s one of Rich’s famous translation complexities?
It’s not a mistake, and it’s not a translation problem. This parable is not about justice or equity or fairness; it’s about God’s abundant grace. God, the landowner, is not concerned about who should be paid first or about payroll equity. God, whose only son, the teller of the parable, would suffer and die for our salvation, is concerned instead to generously welcome all into God’s realm.
If there’s a mistake, it’s ours. Our mistake is to make comparisons among the laborers. In Jesus’s day, this parable may have served as a justification for his association with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is telling us that even though their service to God and the Jesus movement came late in their lives, they, too, are accepted in the kingdom. They, too, receive the grace of God, as do all who labor in God’s vineyard, that is, all people of faith and witness. God welcomes us all, no matter how hard or how long we work in God’s vineyard.
Our mistake is to think that something as common as payment overrules the incomprehensible generosity of God’s grace. Our mistake is to overlook the compassion of the landowner who “saw others standing idle in the marketplace,” (20:3) bereft of the dignity of work.
There is much from our Christian faith that we should and must take into consideration as we address issues of justice in our community, nation, and world. We are justified in our concern for gender pay equity, for racial pay equity, for access to work, and for the necessity of an adequate living wage.
But this parable is not about our human-to-human or even our human-to-creation interactions; this parable is about the kingdom of God, where all are welcome, whether they come to the gospel at the break of day or just before the sun sets. We are required to follow the word and commandments of God, but we don’t earn our way into the kingdom of God.
It’s not a question of justice, but rather of grace – unearned, freely given, available to all who toil in the vineyard, including those who labor for long hours and those who labor for only a few hours.
When I think about the kingdom of God, it inevitably makes me consider the end of my days. I don’t yearn for justice then; I am all too aware of how human and finite I am. I know how often I’ve fallen short. Instead, I pray that God will consider me in the light of God’s divine, abundant grace that this parable promises. With God as the vineyard owner, I am thankful for the magnificent promise of the parable: that God will exercise the divine right “to do what I choose with what belongs to me.” (20:15) Thankfully, what “belongs” to God is generous, abundant, and eternal grace. We are all late in the day workers, and we can rely on our faith that God will choose to treat us with grace rather than our limited human notion of justice. Thank God!
Joys and Concerns:
For those who are suffering from the effects of Hurricane Sally and the wildfires in the west, for all those who risk their lives to respond, and for all those who have lost their lives to these disasters.
Grateful prayers for the life and work of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and prayers for wisdom as our leaders in government decide who will replace her on the Supreme Court.
For our Jewish sisters and brothers as they begin to observe the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
For all who struggle with the Covid pandemic as it affects their health, their families, their security, and the economy.
For all who mourn the loss of friends and loved ones to the virus; may the magnitude of the rising numbers not make us numb to the real people behind those numbers.
For the stateless refugees in Greece now made completely homeless after their meager shelter was destroyed by fire.
For all, here and throughout the world, who struggle with homelessness, hunger, and dislocation.
Continued prayers of encouragement and support for all who are seeking to learn how to heal the injustices growing from the racism and bigotry that continues to stain our nation; may they and we find the energy and commitment to persevere in this challenging work.
Let us pray together:
O God, you call us to labor in fields and in cities, in places of wealth and knowledge and in places of poverty, among the powerful and among the disenfranchised. You call us to labor wherever your children live and move and seek to find meaning in their lives. As we witness to your love, grant us the courage to live without judgment or jealousy; grant us the humility to rejoice in labor; grant us the wisdom to see our weaknesses and errors and correct them; and grant us the insight to identify our strengths and use them to aid our brothers and sisters. Thank you for the opportunity to labor in your vineyard. This we ask in the name of the Great Teacher, Jesus Christ. Amen.