The parable of the wages: envy & the generosity of God

“These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us
who bore the burden of the day and the heat…”
--Matthew 20: 1-16

Is Heaven a place of reward where if we have faith and if we live right we will receive our prize –our just wage?  Is that what this parable is about? Or is Christ teaching us something else? Something about the Kingdom of God that transcends our idea of “reward?”

Sunday at mass, the priest spoke of Heaven as the just wages of those who have faith, and then he kind of wandered off on a tangent about John Wayne (yes –that John Wayne) having a death-bed conversion.  And there was a brief interlude in his homily about death-bed conversions and how that is all it takes to earn your reward, like those laborers who came only at the last hour and yet received a full wage.   This insight, troubles me.  Not that it isn’t true, but that it feels like the wrong approach to the lesson at hand. For instance, if a death-bed conversion is all it takes to earn an eternal reward in Heaven –why on earth should I bother with morality and devotion and self-sacrifice –especially in my adolescences, and then there’s my twenties and thirties –when I’m trying to explore and experience life (and maybe forties and fifties, when it’s time to savor some of… oh dear…)? Anyway, shouldn’t I just wait for my death-bed and offer myself to Christ then?  To paraphrase Jesus, there’d be a lot more celebrating in heaven with the conversion of such a sinner (cf. Luke 15:7)!  So, it seems like a win-win!  And yet, I know that this isn’t the right approach.

Do you see why this parable has always troubled me?

There is something valid in the complaints of the workers who have worked in the heat of the day.  They have borne the brunt of the work, and the owner will earn the better part of his profit due to their effort. And yet, of course, the owner is right: they have no reason to complain. They received the wages they agreed to.  Still… something else seems to be happening here. Which, of course, is why I am still writing.

If we come at this parable from a different point of view, we might learn something not only about the question of laborers, vineyards and rewards, but also –and more importantly—about the Kingdom of Heaven. 

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that was a householder, who went out early
in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. –Matthew 20:1

This is a story not about just wages, or generosity or envious workers; it is about the Kingdom of Heaven.  To me this is key. We are getting a glimpse of Heaven through the words of Jesus. Heaven is a place of generosity, and envy has no place in Heaven, that is another of the key lessons I think we can all agree on.  But, for me, that envy is still an important part of this story.  And why is that envy so important? Because through the laborer’s envy we catch a glimpse of where the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t found.  Clearly, it isn’t in the wages.  And so, we must ask ourselves what image of the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus offering us here?  I propose that it has something to do not with the wages, and not with the number of hours the laborers work in the vineyard, but instead with our acceptance of the call. 

I think Jesus is showing us that the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t about a reward we receive either for a life lived well or for a death-bed conversion.  If the Kingdom of Heaven is a reward that we receive at the end of our life, then we are back to the question of: why bother with morality or justice or sacrifice during the 4 score years allotted us? Why not wait and claim your golden ticket during your last hours? Life will be easier, and you get the same wage as those who fasted and prayed every day for 75 years –so, why not?  Why not? Because the reward isn’t paid at the end, perhaps it isn’t paid at all.  What if our focus on the laborers and the wages was all wrong to begin with?  What if the Kingdom of heaven was like a man who went out and called people to work in his vineyard?  What if the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t symbolized by the wages but by the call?  And what if the laborers who are being envious are not simply a portrait of people who missed the point, but a portrait of Christians who missed their call?

Why should we take up our cross and follow Christ?  Because if we do, if we endure this suffering now, we will receive a great reward at the end?  Maybe… But what if it’s because that is the reward? What if the reward is the Cross?  

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you,

and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your

reward in heaven…” –Matthew 5: 11-13

What if our reward for a faithful life lived well isn’t eternal streets of gold, harp music and an all-you-can-eat buffet that always has fresh crab-cakes and plenty of shrimp?  What if our reward is found in living that life?  What if the real lesson of this parable isn’t that we shouldn’t question the generosity of God, but that we need to learn to recognize it?  Whether you are waiting for a death-bed conversion or going to mass every morning, I’m saying: don’t wait around in hopes of some future reward?  The reward is at hand. Seize it. Live it.  If you look closely at the model of Jesus, I think you will see: the reward isn’t in the wages –it is in the life; it is in the laboring; just as the glory of God was revealed not on a throne, but on the cross.  The workers who were envious were wrong, not because they wanted more than the workers hired at the end of the day, but because they were too blind with envy to see what they had already received. They had been given a full day in the vineyard. A whole day working for God. If you had the choice, where would you rather be? Standing around on a street corner waiting to be called? Or working in the vineyard of the Lord?  What if the generosity the landowner speaks of isn’t just revealed by the denarius he pays to the late workers; what if it also found in the call he gives the first?

What's in your ark?

“The waters swelled, lifting the ark
until it floated off the ground…”  -Genesis 7:17b

The ark floated off the ground.  It rose up –and then, as the waters rose, swelling, it floated away.  The ark is what survives the flood. The ark and all that is in it. So, what we put in the ark is very important.  And I am pondering now… what have I put in my ark?

Think back to the original story. What did God have Noah put in his ark? Two of every living thing, male and female.  All life. All living things. Basically, God told Noah to value life; every living thing, from the wisest owl to the dumbest ox, from the mighty elephant to the lowly mouse, predator and prey—all living things. Life itself. Put it in your ark! Protect it. Value it. And when the flood waters came and the ark floated of the ground, that was what was saved. Life itself, that was what was in Noah’s ark.  What is in your ark?  That’s what I am asking myself these days. Like that commercial—What’s in your wallet?

What’s in your ark?  I think that is a question I couldn’t have imagined before this flood. Without the surreal experience of the past few days, I wouldn’t have realized the importance of this very basic, very essential question.

Yesterday we went back to Carol’s house (my mother-in-law).  We wanted to see if the water had gone down and we could get into her house and salvage a few things. Instead we learned that the water had risen. The knee-deep water from Sunday was now perhaps waist or even chest deep in places. And, while he was checking our ID, the policeman who was there told us to be careful. An alligator had been spotted in the water on one of the streets.  So, instead of going into her house we stood around –about ½ a mile away—just staring at the vastness of the water and thinking about all the things we should have got out of the house on Sunday morning –when we still had the chance.  And astonished that this is what our world had come to –the flood waters rose, they swelled, and there was nothing we could do about it…

But standing there, we were approached by a City of Houston worker who had just been talking to another woman. He came over to us and asked us where our house was.  Lynne explained to him she was hoping to get into her mother’s house but it was too deep. He asked for the address and she told him and he handed her his phone. He said there were pictures on it of all the houses on the flooded streets.  He told her she could look through the pictures and send any that were helpful to herself. At least you’ll have that for insurance purposes, he said. He showed her how to navigate through the pictures and how to select them and send one to herself. Then he left his phone with her and walked away to check on someone else.  When she finally found a picture, it was frightening. The water looked like it was over halfway up the front wall of the house. Maybe 5 feet deep.

As we stood there, a few other neighbors were gathering nearby and staring at the water with us and another man and his small boy came over and asked if any of us wanted to borrow his canoe and go in and take pictures of our houses.  He said someone else had just borrowed it, but when that person got back we could take a turn.  His little boy, maybe 8 years old, offered to go for us if we didn’t know how to paddle a canoe.  

Think about that: all over Houston in small and great and even heroic ways people are offering help, even putting their own lives at risk to help one another.

“The flood waters swelled, lifting the ark until it floated…”

What are you you putting in your ark?

The other side of this is: as we drove up to try and check on my mother-in-law’s house, the policeman was there at the barricade checking IDs. Certainly, he might have been there to make sure no one accidentally drove into the waters; protecting us from our own foolishness. Wen he told us about the alligator we laughed.  He didn’t.  I suspect, more than anything, he was there to protect the almost abandoned neighborhood from looters.  The news keeps warning us about looters and scammers who are coming to these troubled places to take advantage of a horrible situation.

“The flood waters swelled, and the ark floated off the ground…”

When the flood waters swell, your ark will begin to float… what will be in it?

There is another ark in the Bible. The one that Moses builds. In the days of Noah and the flood, God tells Noah to place all living things in it.  In the days of the Exodus, He had Moses build another Ark as a dwelling place for His own presence among His people. Put the thing you value most in the ark. Life. God… What do you value most?

In both places God gives pretty detailed directions for the ark’s construction; He is clearly concerned with the making of the Ark. But I think that may be because He is even more concerned with what we put inside it.  And because He knows that the floodwaters are coming. They always do.  And God knows that whatever we put in that ark, that is what will survive the flood.   That is what will begin to float when the flood waters swell.  What are you putting in your ark?  Yesterday my wife gave the keys to one of our cars to a friend who had to be rescued in the middle of the night from her flooding house.   And before that she learned that a neighbor needed formula her baby and we were off to the store.  What will survive your flood? Faith, love, generosity, kindness, compassion, courage, a reassuring smile? or will it be: selfishness, greed, cunning and hate?   In Houston, mostly we have seen only the good –but in places, sadly, we have seen all of these floating in the flood waters around us.

Like the commercial asks: What’s in your ark?