For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard.
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to many things, including seeds and banquets, but in the Parable of the Vineyard Labourers he again likened it to a business. As the parables were stories of daily life, meant to help people understand spiritual truths, they mirrored Jesus’ own understanding of how life should be lived as well as the spiritual truths he was illustrating. As the lifestyle he described is very different to contemporary society, it follows that Kingdom citizens should not think about money and use it like everyone else. If they do, it defeats their own prayers to God that, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’.
The parable is recorded in Matthew 20:1-16. The owner hired labourers at 6am, 9am, noon and 3pm. He promised to pay the first ones one denarius each for their day’s work. That was the standard living wage at the time and what reputable employers would pay. He promised to pay those he hired later ‘whatever is right’ and I expect that they anticipated receiving less than a denarius. As there were 16 assarius to one denarius, those who started at 9am would probably have expected to be paid 12 assarius; those at noon, 8 assarius; those at 3pm, 4 assarius. But at the end of the day, the vineyard owner paid them all the same: one denarius each.
Those who had begun at 6am complained about what they thought was unfair treatment by their employer. The same would probably happen today. But what does that say about our concept of fairness? The owner had promised to pay each worker what was right and he thought it right to pay each one the standard daily wage. He knew that he was being generous by society’s standards but he was ensuring the welfare of all the workers and their families, for the good of society as a whole. Whether the workers had worked twelve or three hours, they all needed the same wage to provide for their families that day.
By contrast, Jesus said that a farmer with an abundant harvest was foolish to hoard it to finance his early retirement. He should have thought about the needs of his workers, their families and the community as well his own future. In Proverbs it says, ‘The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it’. The use of the word ‘sells’ is significant: there was nothing odious in selling the abundance for profit. The farmer’s offence was not that he failed to give away the excess. What he did wrong was to hoard it in order to manipulate the marketplace for his own benefit! (See Luke 12:16-21 & Proverbs 11:26.)
In another parable, by the gate of an unnamed rich man sat a poor, sick man called Lazarus who wished to be fed by the leftover food from the rich man’s meals. I think the rich man gave Lazarus the leftover food and that's why Lazarus stayed there. Lazarus might even have been given old clothes and other bits of 'rubbish' that would otherwise have been thrown out. The rich man did not abuse, mistreat or even ignore the poor man sitting by his gate: his offence was that he didn't inconvenience himself to help but kept him at the perimeter of his estate! The two men may have been at opposite ends of the social spectrum but although they were, quite literally, neighbours the rich man did not love his neighbour as himself! I commend the entire story to you in Luke 16:19-31, as we’ll return to it in a later Reflection to consider the rich man’s future.
The responsibility to meet need extends far beyond immediate commercial interests, far beyond the needs of the workforce or even their families, to embrace the entire community. This is something the vineyard owner understood and it’s how Jesus expects his disciples to behave.
With this in mind, look at how you’ve spent you money in the past few weeks. I suggested this exercise in the Reflection posted on 28 March and the following week explained how to categorise spending under three headings: survival, lifestyle and giving. If you’ve done that, compare how much you've spent since then on lifestyle with how much you give to help poor and vulnerable people.
Please don’t interpret my point too narrowly or legalistically. Survival costs include more than just the very basic things we need to live, like food and shelter, but incudes leisure and recreation. I am not suggesting that God expects us to eat poor boring food or dress shabbily. God does not except us to live with unnecessary austerity but to maintain a degree of comfort for our families and ourselves if we’re able to. But the issue is this. When we have met our own needs, is it right to spend more on our own comfort and entertainment than helping those less fortunate than ourselves to meet their needs or to enjoy the degree of comfort that we take for granted?
St Paul understood this very well. His rationale for thieves to reform was not so they could provide honestly for their own family and relatives only but to help all people in need. ‘Let the thief no longer steal’, he wrote to the Ephesians, ‘but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.' If we fail to do this, can we claim to be loving our neighbours as ourselves? Can we pray effectively to God that his will be done, 'on earth as it is in heaven’?
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
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