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?

On the Blessing of Vulnerability (Abram's call to go to a foreign land…)

“Now the LORD said to Abram:  Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And all clans on earth will bless themselves by you.”      --Genesis 12:1-3

     When the Lord sends Abram to a far country, away from his relatives and his father’s house, we might be tempted to simply accept it as part of the narrative –a plot device so to speak. We might not question it, or contemplate it because it feels like the introduction to a story; it feels like a “once upon a time” moment.  We are so familiar with the rest of this story, the covenant drama with the split animal bodies, the many conversations with God, the name changes (Abram to Abraham; Sarai to Sarah), the heavenly visitors who prophecy Sarah’s pregnancy, the bargaining with God and especially the sacrifice of Isaac, that this opening detail can easily get glossed over in our rush to get to the action. But reading this passage the other morning, especially after reading Romans, I was struck by the weirdness of it.  Am I crazy? Quite possibly.  But, bear with me as I chase this idea once more around the bend. 

     Here’s what I heard in my heart when I read this: God called Abram to leave the place he knew, his homeland, and leave the place where he felt secure, his father’s house, and to go to a place that God would show him –a place Abram didn’t know and where he would have no standing. Go there. Go to this foreign land where you will be vulnerable and quite literally out of your comfort zone, and by doing this you will become a blessing for all people.  What does that vision say to my life? What does it say to the world today? 

     The first thing that occurred to me was: I need to go where God calls regardless of how comfortable or safe it seems. Because where God calls us to go will often be somewhere unfamiliar and challenging, but it will most assuredly be a place of vulnerability.  Isn’t that confirmed in Jesus? To be a witness for God, is to be vulnerable, to place ourselves in the hands of others –that we might become a blessing for them.  Notice that God tells Abram that those who bless him will be blessed and that those who curse him will be cursed. That sure sounds like God telling him, telling US, that some people will accept us and bless us and others will curse us. And notice that God doesn’t give any directives as to how Abram should react to either. In light of recently reading Romans, I still had these words of Paul’s echoing in my head:

“None of us lives for himself and none of us dies for himself. While we are alive we live for the Lord, and when we die, we die for the Lord…” (cf. Romans 14:7-8)

And with that thought still in mind, I saw in God’s call to Abram a call to all Christians to leave their comfort and their security and to go forth to an unfamiliar place where you can become a blessing to those who bless you.  It isn’t our business to judge the people who curse or bless us, it is only our business to get off the couch and go out to the world where we will be vulnerable, where God will give us the opportunity to serve Him in the people we meet, the people who bless or curse us, the people who simply reach out to us in need of help, a friend, food, or a consoling hand.  And I think somehow in God's algebra of grace, being vulnerable is an essential part of the equation; it is essential to becoming a blessing. Eegads! Contemplate that the next time you feel insecure.

     If you turn off your TV or shut off your phone (or computer) for a while you may hear a voice calling you, a voice calling from deep inside of you, calling you to get up off the couch and go outside –out of your comfort zone, out of your familiar places—go somewhere and just be vulnerable. Go somewhere that you might not normally go. Is that to the hospital to volunteer? Perhaps. Or to a soup kitchen? Maybe. Quite possibly it starts with simply telling someone after mass how much you liked their singing. Ask yourself this: Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Vulnerable? Then quite probably that is where you are being called to go. 

NEXT—that other thing this reading brought to mind.