Prefer to listen? Here’s the podcast version of What are you worth?
The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, recounted in Matthew 20:1-16, features a parable about worth. Let me put this bluntly: this parable is an affront to every fair-minded human being. To show you why, let me write you into that story:
You get up early so you can be in the town square at dawn. Today is a good day for you: You and several others land a whole day’s job working in a vineyard, so you get started.
About 9:00, more workers show up. You strike up a little conversation, and one of them tells you he was just hired by the owner. You notice that more workers show up at noon, and still more at 3:00 PM. The owner must really want this harvest in, you think to yourself, when you see even more showing up at 5:00 — only one hour left in the workday.
The long, hot day finally brings quitting time, and the owner asks the manager to line up the workers. It’s time to get your pay. You and the other workers in your group — the ones who started early this morning with you — watch in dismay and then anger as all of you receive exactly the same pay.
“What am I worth, then?” You whisper to one of your group. “Those people worked less than we did — those over there only worked one hour! — and we all got the same pay!”
The owner of the vineyard must have heard you. He walks over to your group, and you think, Right. He’s come to his senses. At least we’ll get what we deserve.
But then, things get weird. The owner points out that, when you took the job, you knew the deal and agreed to the pay. Alright, you think, I did agree, but I had no idea these late-comers would get the same as me. The owner knows your line of thought, and answers you. “Take what you agreed to — it’s yours. I am the one deciding what to give.”
Yes, but . . . you want to say.
“Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want with what is mine?”
This is where human narrowness collides headlong with the wideness of the Kingdom. The owner of the vineyard looks you right in the eye and asks you, “Are you envious of my goodness?”
As I said, this overabundance of goodness is an affront to every fair-minded human being. That’s because our fair-mindedness is so often a mask for inflating our own worth at someone else’s expense. Have you ever heard someone say, I worked hard for what I’ve got. If they want to make it, they need to earn it.
This parable is Jesus’ way of making the point that our fair-mindedness is not how worth is calculated in the Kingdom of the Heavens.
It’s striking to me that the message about envy is delivered through a fairly common expression involving the eye. In Greek, the last sentence of Matthew 20:15 literally says: “Or is your eye evil because I am good?” You’ve heard of the “evil eye,” the glance of envy? We use that eye to see our own worth reflected in someone else’s deficits. Bear in mind, though, that it’s not the eye: it’s the way you see with it that makes all the difference.
Writing ourselves into this story helps us make sense of the gloss Jesus offers on his own parable in the next verse. “In this way, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 20:16)
Now look with your eye open: Who are the first and the last, the many and the few? It all depends on how you look, doesn’t it? I wrote you into that story as both the first and the last. From the perspective of primate narrowness, you were first. Fair is fair, right?
But in the eye of the Owner of the Vineyard, fair is everything you’ve got, and more. Striving for excellence will take you beyond your limits, and sometimes, it’s going to hurt. But it’s not a zero-sum competition; we’re in this together.
Open yourself to excellence. Live your virtue.