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.
In a time of intense economic anxiety, both individuals and communities need to reflect on the call in John 12 to claim their responsibility to shun greed, resisting it with a seemingly foolish kind of generosity that parallels Jesus’s becoming poor for the sake of others.
By Zen Hess