I T’S NOT AN UNFAMILIAR SIGHT, even in today’s world. People gather at a day-labor employment agency or a recognizable street corner or a union hall, hoping someone will pick them for a job, if just for the day.
It’s a tough way to make a living. Martinez clambers into a van around 4:40 a.m. every morning to travel from Stockton to the Napa Valley — about an 80-mile ride. By 6:30 a.m. he is at work in a Napa vineyard. Twelve hours later, he returns to his two-bedroom apartment. Martinez says, “You get home, you shower, you eat a couple of tortillas with whatever is here.” He gets to see his kids’ faces and give them a hug before going to bed at 9:30 p.m. The kids complain about not seeing him enough. “It’s hard for me as a man and as a father,” he says.
www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration
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AT 6 A.M., SOME DAY-LABORERS ARE OFFERED a job picking grapes. The landowner offers to pay the usual daily wage. (Today in Napa Valley, California growers pay up to $16.00 an hour.) The workers agree to the going rate, they shake hands with the landowner and head out to the vineyard — excited to have work for the day.
Now, this particular landowner needs more workers. We don’t know why. The phrase “found still others standing around” doesn’t denote laziness, just unemployment. They want work but no one has hired them. They know the damage of a day without work. No work is no food. No work is no rent money. No work is another day falling deeper into poverty. The landowner hires them and promises to pay “whatever is right.” They agree, shake hands and go off into the vineyard. This happens at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and finally at 5 p.m. Quitting time is 6. Not an unusual story at this time. People nod their heads as Jesus tells this story. They see this lived out daily.
But the parable takes a twist. Instead of paying the all-day workers first, the landowner pays the single-hour workers first. The all-day laborers stand there and watch payroll being handed out. This is where trouble comes.
All the workers are paid the same. Not the same rate per hour. The same. One denarius. Those who worked 12 hours get one denarius. Those who worked six hours get one denarius. Those who worked a single hour get one denarius. If this were Napa Valley, the one-hour workers would get $128 just like the all-day workers. The all-day workers are angry. Who wouldn’t be? They are upset because the landowner made those later workers “equal to us.”
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IT’S AN ARGUMENT WE SEE TODAY. There is a call for minimum wages to be raised to $10 or $15 per hour. An owner of a garment factory in California said a $15 minimum wage would affect the morale of the skilled workers who work for him. Sewing the kind of technical garments that his company produces is a highly skilled trade, and employees who’ve perfected the trade won’t be happy if they’re earning the same wage as someone who’s 17 years old working their first job.
www.ocregister.com/…/los-angeles-ungracious-response-to-min….
In 2015, the owner of Gravity Payments in Seattle said he would boost minimum pay gradually to $70,000 by the end of 2017. This is for all staffers, including low-paid customer support representatives. Those above that threshold got $5,000 raises. As a consequence, Gravity Payments lost two of their rock star employees, both of whom thought it was unfair that other employees were getting big raises, while not contributing as much to the company’s success. They felt their value to the company had been diminished.
https://www.inc.com/…/p…/does-more-pay-mean-more-growth.html
https://www.cheatsheet.com/…/the-70000-minimum-wage-exper…/…
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“I CHOOSE TO GIVE TO THESE LAST the same as I give to you.” How we react to the way the landowner pays the people hired to work in his vineyard depends on the state of our own hearts. We can respond, “Oh, what a generous employer!” or we can say, “Isn’t that terribly unfair?”
In giving so liberally to those who had worked only a short time, the landowner takes nothing away from the laborers who worked all day. It’s not that he gets to their payroll and says, “Oops. I don’t have enough for you.” He reminds those who feel cheated, “I am not being unfair to you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?” Then he gets at the heart of the problem by asking the grumblers, “Are you envious because I am generous?”
As he so often does, Jesus turns customary rules and expectations upside down. He is not concerned here with labor relations or market-based economics. Here Jesus exposes envy in the human heart and vividly illustrates the mercy and generosity of God — generosity so liberal that it confounds not only our logic but also our sense of justice.
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THE FACT IS, NO MATTER HOW LONG we work or how hard we try, we can never earn God’s love or his salvation through our own efforts. God freely loves us. He is eager to welcome all of us into his kingdom — sinners and latecomers as well as the upstanding and hardworking. Unreasonable? Yes. Outrageous? Absolutely. That’s the extravagant nature of divine mercy.
Let’s wrap up with a “suppose.”
Suppose the all-day workers walk home with the one-hour workers. Together they all rejoice over the generosity of the employer. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? If we are able to rejoice in God’s grace for all, without comparisons and without envy, we live in shared joy and caring appreciation for everyone.
http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/may2012p13.htm
— Keith Cardwell
