Worker's Needs Archives - Renewed Heart Ministries

Equality, Generosity and Concern for Workers’ Needs

Posted on September 22, 2023 by Herb Montgomery

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Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

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Equality, Generosity and Concern for Workers’ Needs

Herb Montgomery | September 22, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“Three themes surface, three values that have the power to inform how we shape the present world we are all sharing: a desire for equality, generosity concern for workers’ needs. The priority is a combination of equality, generosity, and concern for the needs of the workers. What might our present economic system look like if these three themes governed us?”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.

About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

‘Because no one has hired us.’ they answered.

He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.

So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.

‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:1-16)

I cannot express in words how much I love the parable in this week’s reading. I have my own history with this story. I was first introduced to its depth of potential years ago when I read John Ruskin’s Unto The Last, an essay he published in 1860. Ruskin lifts this parable out of religious interpretations created by privileged, propertied, and powerful religious apologists who diverted readers’ attention from how they benefitted from an inequitable economic system. In harmony with Jesus’ ministry in the tradition of the Jewish prophets, Ruskin treated this parable by addressing its social and economic implications.

Let me unpack those implications a bit.

Religious interpretations typically circle around themes from individuals getting a ticket to the same heaven to populations converting “late” to Christianity. (Traditionally this has been a foundational theme of colonialism.)

Yet Jesus did not show up in his society solely as a religious teacher or spiritual guru. He didn’t even show up as a priest within the temple state of his day as John the Baptist’s family did. Anyone who reads the Jesus story alongside the tradition of the Hebrew prophets will immediately see that Jesus was standing in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition.

In the Hebrew prophetic tradition (see Luke 4:18-19), there are ever-present, ever-strong, social and economic justice themes:

Isaiah 1:17— Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

plead the case of the widow.

Jeremiah 5:28— And have grown fat and sleek.

Their evil deeds have no limit;

they do not seek justice.

They do not promote the case of the fatherless;

they do not defend the just cause of the poor.

Amos 2:7— They trample on the heads of the poor

as on the dust of the ground

and deny justice to the oppressed.

Amos 5:24— But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Micah 3:1— Then I said,

“Listen, you leaders of Jacob,

you rulers of Israel.

Should you not embrace justice?

(See also Isaiah 10:2; 56:1; 59:4,8; Ezekiel 34:16; Hosea 12:6; Habakkuk 1:4; Zechariah 7:9; Malachi 3:5)

This is just a quick cursory overview of the prophets. If we read Jesus in this prophetic tradition, we begin to see that this parable has precious little to do with getting to heaven and a lot to do with shaping our present world into a just, compassionate safe home for everyone.

Three themes surface, three values that have the power to inform how we shape the present world we are all sharing.

First, there is a desire for equality. As the grumbling workers from earliest in the day rightly say of the one who hired them, “you have made them equal to us.” For the first to be last and the last to be first doesn’t mean that they simply trade places. Trading places would only flip the hegemony upside down, replacing the present hierarchy with a new one. But in this parable “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” means all are treated equally, with no distinction between those who showed up first and those who showed up last.

This equality is a theme, not only in the Jesus story, but also in the economic teachings of the Torah and the Christian scriptures.

“This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.” (Exodus 16:16-18)

“Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality.” (2 Corinthians 8:13)

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had . . . And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.” (Acts 4:32-34)

The second theme in this parable is generosity: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

What if our guiding value was not seeing how much we could amass but generously sharing, taking responsibility for each other, and making sure everyone had enough not simply to survive but to thrive?

In our present system, an elite few has more than they could ever possibly need while others daily fight against an early death named poverty. Our society’s problem is not those on welfare but a system that creates such an expanse of winners and losers that welfare is needed. As Gustavo Gutiérrez rightly states:

“The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” (The Power of the Poor in History, Gustavo Gutiérrez)

It is this different social order based on a spirit of generosity that would make generous relief efforts obsolete, no longer even necessary. It would be rooted in a posture of generosity rather than one of hoarding.

The third and last theme is of concern for workers’ needs. Although some of the workers were not hired by anyone until the last hour of the day (‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.), they all still had the same daily needs. They may have had families that depended on what they brought home that day.

The landowner in this story is not concerned with how many hours they worked, but with using his land to provide for the needs of as many as could be provided for. The foundational concern, the priority of highest value, is ensuring these workers have their needs met. Certainly the landowner stood to gain from their employment, yet he was not focused on how much he could squeeze out of them so that he could become even wealthier. Each worker received a days wages.

I already hear friends objecting that if we had a system like this there would be people who would take advantage of it. My answer is, “And?”

Our current system has people who take advantage of it: those at the center and the top of our society. In our present system, the wealthy take advantage of loopholes to increase their passive wealth. Rarely does this social and economic class hear the New Testament words, “Those who don’t work don’t eat” applied to them. These words are usually weaponized against poor people who are accused of laziness or expected to explain and justify their poverty. We should instead understand the root cause of their economic situation: a system stacked against them.

To be clear: There are lazy people in all classes, and lazy people can thrive if they know how to work whichever level of the system they find themselves in. The theme in our reading is not how hard or how long a person works. The theme is how to take care of the needs of the laborers. The priority is not how far can we squeeze workers to enrich their employer with their exploited labor. The priority is a combination of equality, generosity, and concern for the needs of the workers.

What might our present economic system look like if these three themes governed us? There is so much talk among some Christians today about shaping our society according to Christian values. Yet whenever the values in the Jesus story are mentioned—equality, generosity, concern for workers—these same Christians label them socialist or Marxist. What if equality, generosity and wealth sharing, and concern for the needs of workers is actually the way of Jesus?

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. What shift in priorities do you perceive in our parable from this week’s reading? Share and discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.

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Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!

Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.

Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com