20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 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.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
– Matthew 20:1–16 (NRSVUE)
Scripture offers many texts that lavishly celebrate gratitude and, at first glance, Jesus’s parable of the laborers seems to do just that. Here Jesus gives us a picture of laborers who receive a daily wage–fair pay for their work–and walk away grumbling. The landowner, often interpreted as representative of God in the parable, critiques these grumbling workers for failing to appreciate his generosity. But in this parable, the landowner is not doing anything exorbitantly generous–he is paying a series of workers a living wage. In that respect, what happens if we read the landowner not as a stingy deity who could distribute not just a single denarii but expansive wealth to each laborer but gives only what each needs to survive? Instead, it is possible to imagine the landowner as an ordinary person seeking to live out justice and equity within the social and economic constraints of his circumstances. To that end, the parable can present a model for living into God’s abundant and magnanimous reign in our ordinary circumstances.
An example of this sort of ordinary kingdom living occurred for me while I was stopped at a stoplight a few blocks from my seminary just outside of downtown Indianapolis last week. That particular stoplight has a median where unhoused individuals frequently solicit. I watched a car going in the opposite direction pull over and hand a gallon-sized Ziploc bag to the woman walking along the median. I knew what the bag was because I have attended multiple church and community events to pack care packages just like it, including items such as warm socks, travel-sized soap and deodorant, a protein bar, a bottle of water, possibly a small denomination bill, etc.
The woman accepted the bag, grinned from ear to ear, and performed a small dance of gratitude on the sidewalk. Someone in a car ahead of me in line then rolled down their window and handed her some quantity of money, for which she also expressed gratitude or, rather, continued her previous expression of gratitude. In the few seconds before the light changed and I drove away, I remember wondering whether the woman was more grateful for the bag of items or the cash and how genuine her exuberant expression was in either case.
As I pause to reflect upon the experience now, I am also reminded of the cup of hot chocolate my spouse put in my hand that morning, for which I said, “Thanks” without looking up from my computer monitor and drank in its entirety without giving a second thought to its source. And of a photo my mother sent me earlier in the same week of items she had purchased for me on sale at a local department store. I clicked “thumbs up” on the text message and continued with the work I was doing. Ten minutes later, she sent me another text saying, “Do you like this?” And I sent a longer reply. My spouse never asked.
In both instances, I was truly grateful and did, indeed, like both gifts; in both instances, I failed to perform any measurable form of gratitude for the generosity that I experience from my family on a regular basis. And yet, at 4 o’clock on a Tuesday, I found myself wondering whether I was experiencing another woman’s gratitude for a stranger’s generosity as over the top.
In our gospel text this week, the NRSVue translates the Greek word ἀγαθός as “generous” (Matt. 20:15). Although the landowner characterizes himself as generous, the laborers in the parable do not experience the landowner’s generosity as over the top. They do not overperform gratitude, nor do they even underperform or just fail to perform gratitude; instead, they complain to the landowner about how he has distributed his wages.
One explanation for their perspective is that the landowner is paying people who have all worked or, by standing on a corner waiting to be hired for day labor, demonstrated a willingness to work. All of the characters in Jesus’s constructed scenario entered into a sort of informal contract with the landowner when they were hired. In contrast, there is no such contract between myself and my family, nor was there between the woman on the median and the people who stopped to give her something. That is to say, there is a difference between a gift and a wage, and the term “generous” is most frequently applied in industrialized spaces to the former but not the latter.
Jesus constructs a scenario such that the first labourers in the story he tells do not see their wages as generous at all, but rather as routine and expected. Unlike small kindnesses I receive from my family, which no matter how routine they have become remain gifts, unnecessary, and so unexpected in nature, the wages from a day’s labor should be expected and, indeed, even required. In most industrialized societies today, laborers have the right to sue for unpaid wages.
It might be argued that the landowner is at least being generous with the workers who were hired at the end of the day, who receive the same denarius (day’s wages) as those who were hired first and worked for longer. But here is where it is important to remember that the task of waiting at a street corner to be hired for a job is onerous in its own right. Jesus does not suggest that those who were hired last for the work arrived at the marketplace any later than those who were hired first. This means that they spent their whole day standing at an appointed spot with no guarantee of any wages, remaining vigilant in the hope of work.
Indeed, the woman I encountered on the street median was expending significant work and energy with no guarantee of return, positioning herself on that median and actively soliciting from those who passed by. I do not know her story or why she was not employed at the 4 o’clock hour or whether she is employed at other hours and attends to that street median in between those hours because the wages she earns are not “generous” enough to meet her needs.
What I do know is that no central marketplace in Indianapolis enables day laborers to efficiently find legal work. And even if there were, the economic system is broken enough that there is insufficient work, wages, and other interventions to sustain the livelihoods of many people in my city. Based on the general acceptance of the premise of Jesus’s parable, similar economic hardships seem to have been prevalent in first-century Galilee as well. But, in Jesus’s parable, at least those who were hired at the beginning of the day could expect to own a denarius–a day’s wage enough to cover the sustenance of basic living expenses. In contrast, today most U.S. cities have such an enormous gap between the minimum wage and the actual living wage that even laborers who work a full day cannot guarantee that they will earn enough to house and feed their families.
In this context, I wonder, is it “generous” to simply create opportunities for people to work? To pay a person a living wage? Or, worse, to pay a person a minimum wage? To offer a stopgap care package to those who might otherwise fall through the cracks? I would venture that it is not generous, at least not in the same way that, from a place of comfort, I experience a gift from my mother or a hot drink from my spouse. The latter are excess–more than what is needed. The former is excess only in the sense that it is more than expected, but very likely still not as much as is needed. The Greek word ἀγαθός more generally means “good, useful, beneficial.” Translating it as “generous” can create a false sense of entitlement, in which the landowner paying each laborer a living wage is conceived of as excess–a ceiling, rather than a floor.
I would suggest that the landowner is better characterized in v. 15 as “useful” or “good.” In this case, Jesus is characterizing God’s reign as an economic system in which everyone receives, not at the whim of a benevolent giver, but according to the equitable accounting of a good God who provides for us what is useful for each. To that end, the performances of gratitude I experienced last week ran in reverse of the economic reign Jesus models in the parable. I failed to express gratitude for what was a pure gift, while a stranger in the middle of the road expressed gratitude for what she needed and was equitably owed. This is not to say that gratitude, even for what is earned or owed, is ever inappropriate when genuinely placed. But in this parable, God’s reign is not characterized as a system of performance, but rather, one of justice and equity. The basic assumption of Jesus’s parable is not that one must act a certain way for the giver, but rather that it is good and right and beneficial for all to have a daily living wage, with no strings attached.
I would suggest that the landowner is better characterized in v. 15 as “useful” or “good.” In this case, Jesus is inviting his followers to live into a reign of God in which we are good to one another not out of charity or benevolent whims, but as an embodiment of God’s reign.
Parables are powerful teaching tools because their meanings are multivalent. If one reads the landowner as God, then this parable celebrates the equitable accounting of a good God who provides for us what is useful for each. If one reads the landowner as oneself or a fellow human, it is possible to read God as not only providing what is useful for each person, as human economic systems may constrain us to do, but, through the richness of creation, providing an overabundance of good. (In the latter case, it is possible to characterize the creating God as truly generous in ways that human systems rarely allow.) Either way, God’s reign is characterized as an economic system in which everyone receives, not at the whim of a benevolent or capricious giver, but from the abundance of a God of justice and equity.
To that end, the performances of gratitude I experienced last week ran counter to the economic reign Jesus models in the parable. I failed to express gratitude for what was a pure gift, while a stranger in the middle of the road expressed gratitude for what she needed and was equitably owed. This is not to say that gratitude, even for what is earned or owed, is ever inappropriate when genuinely placed. But in this parable, God’s reign is not characterized as a system of performance, but rather, one of justice and equity. The basic assumption of Jesus’s parable is not that one must act a certain way for the giver, but rather that it is good and right and beneficial for all to have a daily living wage, with no strings attached.
