This week’s gospel hits a lot of people hard. Jesus tells a parable of a landowner who pays everyone the same regardless of how hard they work. I’m sure you can see where the problem is.
Jesus is telling us that God is measuring by a different metric than US industry does. Equity. Saving lives. Tying fairness with everyone having, not just opportunity, but a living wage.
The parable culminates with a charge to all of those people who don’t think God’s vision of fairness is, in fact, fair: “are you envious because I am generous?” This the opposite of what we hear from today’s wealthy and politically powerful, who argue that all of these people who work for fair wages for all, who want the best for the most people, are really, secretly envious of their wealth.
Jesus doesn’t just flip the script to make us think. He isn’t being clever here. There is a point to be made.
This is how God sees us: as equal. And this is what Jesus teaches: that we strive for equity.
The reason people often struggle with this passage is because they think it has to do with merit. That we’re supposed to compensate according to volume of work. But this isn’t the equation that sits at the heart of this passage. Jesus is talking about envy and equity. And the more basic truth is that the ones most envious and covetous of wealth are the ones hoarding it.
The powerful have always envied the wealth of others. This is more demonstrably true than any envy for a more equitable system. It isn’t envy to work for the dignity of every human being. They’ve gotten motives for justice confused with their own selfishness.
In contrast to those titans of industry is this landowner who keeps hiring because more people need a piece of that pie. There is plenty of pie. And the virtue comes in sharing it, not holding it; in saving lives, not condemning them.
Their envy destroys lives. Equity, in deep contrast, saves them.