a lawless blog

25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

“And the Winner is...!”

September 18, 2011

Reading I: Isaiah 55:6-9
Responsorial Psalm: 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
Reading II: Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16a

This might be a good time to talk about parables and how they work. You can look up the background history of this ancient form of teaching. I will just try to give a few ideas to work with.

First, what is special about the 'parable'?

As uttering one thing and signifying something else, [a parable] is in the nature of a riddle..., and has therefore a light and a dark side; it is intended to stir curiosity and calls for intelligence in the listener, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" Mt 13:9. Its Greek designation (from paraballein to throw beside or against) indicates a deliberate "making up" of a story in which some lesson is at once given and concealed. [Barry, W.(1911). Parables, in The Catholic Encyclopedia.] www.newadvent.org/cathen/11460a.htm

Secondly, I would suggest just six 'rules' to keep in mind when cracking the puzzle:

1. A parable is meant both to illustrate and to hide some mystery, both at once, so that you have to think about it quite a lot to get the message it carries.

2. As a general rule there is only one message, one key, one point that you have to look for. So it is unnecessary and even misleading to see meaning in many different characters or items in the story.

3. Start from the context. If the parable is introduced by, for example, “The kingdom of heaven is like...”, then that first indicator has to be kept in mind.

4. The context of gospel parables is the teaching of Jesus about the way to go towards the fullness of life. It follows that each parable is an instruction about the good. Common sense would require that it be a positive teaching. Hence if an interpretation points to a way of acting unjustly, common sense would tell us we have not yet found the true meaning.

5. There may be two levels on which the “key” would apply: the one in the historical setting of the original telling of the story; the other in its later application (this may be in the early christian community in which the narrative was formed, or it may be the way we need to understand or apply the teaching in our own situation).
   

6. "The sign that we have interpreted the passage correctly is that we experience the inner freedom to move forward and be more creative in our God-given vocation."   Michel DeVerteuil   www.catholicireland.net/liturgysacraments/sunday-homily-resources-year-a
       
   

There are some things that Jesus is alleged to have said that I have never been able to accept as being ethically correct.

One of them is the parable of the workers in the field. You can justify the most appalling corporate behaviour on that. A faithful worker who has spent his whole life working on basic wages for a company then watches as an executive-come-lately arrives at the invitation of the board, wrecks the company and is then given huge bonuses.

Now just adapting Matthew 20, 1-16 you get the Chairman of the Board saying,

I suspect this interpretation would be in conflict with Rules 2, 3 and 4 above. This interpretation has not identified the key. Proof of this is that the same technique of adapting the parable to a situation of our choice can produce the opposite result. This story can be made to favour, even more cogently than radical capitalism, radical socialism: from each according to his abilities – to each according to his need. Those who were hired late in the day had as much need of a living wage as those who worked through the heat of the day. I suggest that if the story were open to opposite meanings it would be so ambiguous as to be no teaching at all. Hence I conclude that the key here is not to be found in the area of social justice in the workplace. The framework in which a parable is set may even be criminal activity. The framework is not the key; it may not be relevant at all.

For my part, as I have often said in this place, my intention is to write what I see in the gospel text, what makes sense to me this week. There are plenty of expert commentaries available to everyone. My conviction is that technical or scholarly analysis is not sufficient. Unless it gels in my mind today it is just an historical text which will have no power to change anything. The whole thrust of the gospel is towards metanoia: Change today – ongoing change that is working every day.

I find that this parable teaches something about the nature of the kingdom of heaven, “God's world”, that we might not suspect, that we might find surprising, and that we might even reject if the teaching were bluntly spelt out in philosophical language. So we are given a tough little puzzle and asked to work it out.

The key idea in the parable of the man who hires workers at different times of the day and pays them all the same wage – applied to God's world – says that comparisons are odious. There is no place in God's world for making comparisons. There are none who are “more deserving” and none “less worthy”. God pays a living wage to everyone, regardless.

Seems obvious? But how different this is to our way of thinking. It is so deeply embedded in our nature to see some people as superior and others inferior, that there is perhaps no society, no group, no family (and no 'church') that does not have an Order of Merit implicit in its structure. I will not waste time with examples. They are visible at every turn in our modern world where competition ranges from beauty pageants for toddlers to Academy Awards, Premiership Cups, Gold Medals, Archibald Prizes, Sainthood, and so on and on.

Competition is said to be the salvation of the economy - so we have competition between suppliers of electricity and water !!! If the water is not better, then they claim to offer a better supply, better billing system, or better discounts.

There is even a psychological need to know where we fit, individually, among our peers. Promotion depends on being a better contributor, a more valuable worker.

The parable says there is NOTHING like this in God's world.

It also says, I think, that mostly we will find this a bit hard to swallow. We are likely to be envious because God is generous beyond our expectations.So many religions claim to have superior authority to proclaim God's truth that it is truly embarrassing. 

This idea that there are no comparisons in God's world pulls the rug from under our feet. It removes ambition and the competitive urge from our equipment locker. No point in getting out of bed early to be first in line. It won't ensure you a better pay at the end of the day. If you are going to “give of your best” it will have to be for a less self-interested motive – like “love” perhaps.

It is fairly obvious that this lesson is not well learnt in the church.

P.S. Note, the gospel does not say that civil society should be like this. Competition is not bad. It's natural. But in the kingdom of heaven there is neither comparison nor competition.