BARGAINERS AND BEGARS

25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A.  Matthew 20:1-16a

AIM: To help the hearers trust not in their merits, but in God’s mercy.

          It seems terribly unfair, doesn’t it? Even a child can see that is isn’t right to pay people who have worked all day in the blazing sun no more than those who have worked only an hour. Many years ago I spoke about this parable to some wonderful Sisters in St. Louis with whom I lived for seventeen years. When I had finished reading the story, I could see an elderly German Sister in the front row frowning.

          “They all get the same,” she said. She was pretty burned up about it.

          We should be burned up about it. If we’re not, we haven’t been listening: or the story is so familiar that it no longer disturbs us. To understand the story we have to realize that it is not about social justice. It is about God’s generosity. If Jesus were telling the story today, it might go something like this.

          A rancher in one of the “salad factories” of California’s San Fernando valley is eager to harvest his crop before a threatened change in the weather. So at dawn he’s off to the hiring hall at the edge of town. The men he finds there are able-bodied and eager to work. But they also know their rights. They bargain with the rancher about the conditions of work, and about their wages. When they strike a deal, they feel good about it. The work will be hard, but they know they will be well paid.

          At intervals during the day, the foreman tells the rancher that more workers will be needed if they want to get in the whole harvest in time. So the rancher makes repeated trips to town to hire additional help. Each time the workers he encounters are less promising. The men he finds lounging around in mid-afternoon are the dregs of the local labor market: drifters, panhandlers, winos. While those hired at dawn have been working in the hot sun, these men have spent another day idle, reflecting glumly on the hopelessness of their lot. There is no bargaining with men like that. As much out of pity as for any real help this sorry lot can offer, the rancher tells them: 

          “Get into the truck, fellows. There’s work for you out at my place.”

          At quitting time, those hired last are first in the pay line. These are the men whom life has passed over. They have learned through bitter experience that every man’s hand is against them. They wish now that something had been said about wages before they got into the rancher’s truck a couple of hours earlier. 

          The first man in line receives his pay envelope. He rips it open — and can’t believe his eyes. It contains a whole day’s pay! He stands there dazed, tears of joy welling up in his eyes. He expected to be swindled. Instead, he has been treated generously — far more generously, he knows, than he deserves.

          Meanwhile, news of what the first men in line are receiving is being passed back to those in the rear. These are the men who have worked hard all day. They calculate how much they will receive at the same hourly rate. Imagine their indignation when they receive exactly what they had bargained for in the early morning. They protest angrily to the rancher.

          “It’s my money, isn’t it?” he answers them. “If I want to be generous to someone else, what’s that to you?”

          We are left with the injustice. The story begins to make sense only when we ask: who was happy? who was disappointed? and why? Those who were happy were the men hired last and paid first. They had not bargained. They had nothing to bargain with. They were little better than beggars. It was these beggars, however, who went away happy, while the bargainers were unhappy.

          Why? Not because they had struck a bad bargain. No, at the beginning of the day they knew it was a good bargain. Nor were they unhappy because the bargain was not kept. On the contrary, it was kept to the letter. At the end of the day, however, they thought of something that had never occurred to them when they were hired. They thought they deserved more.

          The men who went away happy did not appeal to what they deserved. They knew they deserved very little.  he only thing they could appeal to was the rancher’s generosity. That is the key to a right relationship with God, Jesus says.  Appeal to God’s generosity and you will be flooded with joy. Appeal to what you deserve, and God will give it to you. God is always just. He never short-changes us. When we discover, however, how little we actually deserve, we’ll probably be disappointed. 

          We know the story as the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. A better title would be the parable of the Bargainers and the Beggars. The story is important for us. It flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught. Society says we should not be beggars. We should work for what we get, not depend on handouts. In everyday life that is fine. With God, however, different standards apply. He loves to give handouts! To receive them, however, we need to stand before him empty-handed, appealing (if we must appeal at all) not to God’s justice but to his mercy. More, we must forget about keeping track of what we think we “deserve” and stop worrying that others whom we consider “less deserving” (or not deserving at all!) share the Lord’s overflowing bounty with us. 

          The full-time workers in this story resemble the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son, angry at the undeserved welcome extended to his shiftless younger brother. Like those who had worked all day in the vineyard, the elder brother thought he had been short-changed. He was mistaken. “Everything I have is yours,” his father told him (Luke 15:31). What more could he have received than that? The elder brother in that story needed to stop keeping score and join in welcoming the family member who, despite his folly and sin, was still his brother.

          Are you a score-keeper, always reckoning what’s coming to you? Are you, with God, a bargainer — or are you a beggar? If you want to experience God’s justice, be a bargainer. He is a God of justice. He’ll never short-change you. When you discover, however, how little you deserve on any strict accounting, you’ll probably be disappointed, perhaps even shocked.

          So perhaps you’d rather experience God’s generosity. If so, then you must learn to be, before God, a beggar. Then you will be bowled over with the Lord’s generosity. You will know Mary’s joy at the news that she was to be the mother of God’s Son: “The hungry he has given every good thing, while the rich he has sent empty away” (Luke 1:53).

          Ask the Lord who bestows his gifts not according to our deserving but according to his boundless generosity to give you that hunger which longs to be fed; that emptiness which yearns to be filled. Stand beneath his cross and say, in the words of the old evangelical hymn:

          Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling.