We expect to be paid for our work. A fair paycheck – for each day worked. My first job was as a paper-boy. I lived off of my tips for good service…for going the extra mile.
Papers in the mailboxes or gently placed between the doors, not thrown onto the lawn or somewhere on the porch… No papers in the bushes…no one had to seek them out!
Papers were always rolled. We did not have plastic bags to put them in – in inclement weather.
The bags were heavy and we walked in all kinds of Wisconsin Weather. I did the Racine Journal Times Daily and Sunday and the Milwaukee Journal Weekend edition.
People loved the coupons and the big ads.
My second job was at Marc’s Big Boy where I was a dishwasher for $1.10 an hour. I quickly moved up the ranks to “lineman” to chief KFC Chicken cook. I think at the height of my career, I made $1.55 an hour. That was big money then!
The parable told by Jesus runs against “our grain” a little bit, because everyone gets exactly the same pay – regardless of the time spent working.
That is the crux of the argument. I worked more – I expect to be paid more.
This one does not fit well with “a fair days work for a fair days pay.”
There is a sense of “injustice.” But if you listen carefully to the story – people received exactly what they signed up for…
It was their expectations that they would receive MORE – even though, they agreed to the average daily wage.
There was “no injustice” committed.
They received what they were promised they would receive.
The problem is – they “wanted more…”
“We” always want more…
If we consider the first trip to the market place – there can be little doubt that the landowner would pick the strongest, fastest, fittest and most enthusiastic workers possible.
They would be the workers that he knew would work hard all day long and give him the best results possible.
When the landowner returns for his “next trip” to choose extra workers – once again he would choose the best of those who were left waiting – to join his other workers.
And so on, throughout the day until he comes for one, last final time…
Imagine for a moment – just who might be left at the end of the day: people like the elderly, the infirm, the inexperienced, those who may have an injury or a disability.
These individuals might possibly have NOT SURVIVED the whole day in the field – but they were still individuals that had the same needs, same desires and the same aspirations as those chosen at the first of the day. They too, had needs! They too, wanted to provide for their family and loved ones. They too, desperately needed a sense of self-worth and a desire to contribute. They too wanted to build some financial security. They too, wanted to eat something that day!
It was the randomness of life – that had denied them the opportunity to work the “full day” and to be “as successful” as some of the others.
The burdens that many of them already carried – was work enough.
But still they longed to work, to make a contribution, to do what they could do. They too, at the end of the day, wanted to be able to hold their heads high.
It was the “generosity of the land owner” in this story – who shifts our thinking away from “what a person can achieve” or “offer” to “the way” in which a person and “their vary life” is “valued by the landowner.”
The landowner cares even about the “least of these” our brothers and sisters.
The land owner desires to give “value and opportunity” to even “the weakest” within the overall community of workers…”
Kind of like that belief – that everyone can do something…everyone can “contribute something to the whole.”
No one should be idle.
So this story, this parable calls into questions the way our world still operates…and how it still “devalues people” and how it “exploits” many who work long hours in “appalling conditions” – so that wealthier countries can have “cheap products.”
While it has a feeling of being unjust or unfair…it definitely is not!
The good news is not just for the privileged few – but is good news for all. There is dignity in work. And all people have a dignity to them. Who are we to be jealous or envious?