The Urban Elite vs The Expendables
“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs
to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” [Matthew 20:1-16] Thus says “a landowner ‘ to some grumbling day laborers. We want to
believe this is reasonable. We want to think this landowner is generous. We
want to think that this is how God might treat us – all as equals. That is, we
want the landowner in the parable to be God. Yet, all the facts of the
situation Jesus describes does not represent the kind of God Jonah describes: “for
I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding
in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” [Jonah 3:10 – 4:11]
The facts of the story. The characters are a landowner, some
unemployed day laborers, and a manager who works for the landowner. And, oh
yes, the newly translated “daily wage.” The text, and previous translations, is
more specific: it was a denarius. And of course, there is the audience to whom
Jesus addresses this so-called parable.
In the previous chapter we are told there are large crowds
following him wherever he goes. During which time some Pharisees ask him about
divorce; the disciples try to fend off people bringing children to him to be
blessed; Jesus rebukes the disciples, blesses the children and says, famously, “Let
the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the
kingdom of heaven.”; a rich young man who wants to know what he has to do
to reap eternal life, to which Jesus replies “Get rid of everything and
follow me”; the disciples, led by Peter, complain that this is too hardrd,
and Jesus replies, “It will be easier for a camel to get through the eye of
a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God;” and finally he
reminds them, “But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”
It is then that Matthew has him tell this story. Presumably to clarify what he
has just been talking about. And remember, there were no chapters or verses in
the text, so this is a continuation of the story about the children and the
rich young man and access to the kingdom of God and “eternal life.”
Under the Herodian kingship of Israel as a client state of
the Roman Empire, cities ascended as economic centers, putting new pressures on
the agrarian economy. As those who farmed and fished were beset with more taxes
and tributes, that is protection money, the wealthier mercantile class in the
cities bought up tracts of bankrupt farmland, reducing the farmers to tenant farmers
or slaves. Many of whom were unemployed altogether. Our “landowner” would be
recognized by the great crowds following Jesus as one of the Urban Elites who
were now absentee landlords who would need extra laborers during planting and
harvest seasons. Thus, employing these day-laborers for only one day at a time.
They were considered Expendable. We can be sure many of them are listening to
Jesus when he says, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Despite having a property manager, our landowner personally
goes out to hire some day laborers who are in the marketplace hoping to be
hired and to earn enough to purchase a loaf of bread on way home. This is where
the denarius comes in. Our Urban Elite offers a denarius to the first laborers
he hires. It is impossible to reconstruct what a denarius was worth, but it is
unlikely to be generous as the Urban Elites were known to depress wages,
knowing they could hire an Expendable for as little a wage as possible. As he
sees the need for more workers, he returns to the market place to hire more and
more Expendables throughout the day, saying he will pay them “what is
right.” The crowd is likely thinking, “Even a denarius is not ‘right,’
but we have to accept whatever it is these Urban Elites offer.” There is no
negotiation. Take it or leave it.
At the end of the day, the landowner, who hired the
Expendables at a pittance now asks his property manager to pay the day-laborers
beginning with those hired last. He knows how those who worked all day are
going to react when those hired last also get the denarius the early-birds were
promised. The early-birds do complain. We have been in the hot sun all day long
so we deserve more. Just the reaction our perverse Urban Elite landowner
expected. It’s as if he was just waiting for the opportunity to let the
grumblers have it. In fact, he intentionally has the last workers paid first so
as to shame the ones who worked the longest! Just as the translation of
denarius as “daily wage” fails us in understanding this story, so does the
first word out of his mouth: “Friend.” The Greek here is not a friendly
term. It intentionally calls attention to the difference in social status. At
best it is something like, “Hey, buddy, what’s your complaint? We had an
agreement to a denarius and that’s what you will get.” Adding, dismissively,
“Take it and go. Get out of here!” Which to the crowd sounds like, “And don’t
let me see you coming around here ever again.” They’ve all heard it before.
And many of them, and us, likely agree with the grumblers.
We often like to think we deserve more – especially if we have worked harder
and longer than others. I learned quickly in seminary when I once complained,
like the grumblers, that I deserved a better grade on a paper because I had
worked so hard, I was reminded by my professor that it did not matter how hard
I had worked if I had not adequately answered the questions posed for the
paper.
The Urban Elite takes it one step further when he proclaims,
“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you
envious because I am generous?” I believe this is called adding insult to
injury. The firm belief of everyone back then, declared at the outset of Psalm
24, is that, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and
those who dwell therein.” Those who ‘dwell therein’ are created in the
image of God. Jesus came, in part, to remind us what God’s image is, and how
our behavior ought to reflect that image in how we treat one another. The Bible
is full of examples of how dangerous it is to say “I can do whatever I want
with whatever I have.” There’s David, who has Bathsheba’s husband killed in
battle so he can take her for himself. There’s Herod, king of the Jews, who is worried
about the succession of his kingship has all the toddlers in and around
Bethlehem killed to try to rid the world of Jesus. Or, the king in Matthew 22,
who when invited guests say that they cannot come has their city burned to the
ground. These examples suggest that “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with
what belongs to me,” is wrong on both counts: It all belongs to the Lord, and
we are to use it as the Lord desires, not to satisfy our selfish desires. God
created no Expendables. They were the creation of the Urban Elite’s systems of economic
exploitation and oppression.
The landowner does not represent God. Suggesting that Matthew’s
opening, “The kingdom of heaven is like this…” is likely ironic or even
sarcastic. “So, this is the kingdom of heaven with more of the same oppression
and exploitation that we already experience today!” The story is meant to
demonstrate the incongruity of the incoming reign of God with earthly systems
of oppression that stake their claims of legitimacy on stories like this while
pretending to be guardians of the values of this age. The truth is that not
everyone ought to be treated the same. We all have different gifts and talents.
And to buy us all as cheaply as possible cannot please God. The story means to
reiterate: The first will be last, and the last will be first. That God is
gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. When will we be more like God?
Amen.
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