Is your eye evil because I am good?

The gospel appointed for today in the Daily Office Lectionary is one of my favorite parables (Matthew 20:1-16) - which is not for one minute to suggest that I have yet begun to understand it. I love teaching it to undergraduates who are always predictable in their initial responses: "it's not fair!"

The parable is usually referred to as "the laborers in the vineyard," but like so many parables that may be a misnomer. I think it would more accurately be called the parable of the generous employer. The employer goes out and hires some people to work in his field and they settle on the usual daily wage. When he goes out again (repeatedly throughout the day) he hires more laborers and agrees with the latecomers to "pay them what is right."

Most of us assume that what is right -what is "fair" as my undergrads would say - would be to pay the latecomers some fraction of what those working longest are being paid. If the "usual daily wage" is $20, then those working half a day deserve $10, right?

The laborers are paid in reverse order. So when the early birds see the latecomers being paid the wage they agreed to, they naturally assume that they will get more; it only seems "fair." In fact, however, everyone who works gets the same daily wage. That is when the hardest workers lodge their complaint and that is when the generous employer makes his defense. Most of the translations say something like this: "Are you envious because I am generous?" But the literal Greek reads like this: "is your eye evil because I am good?"

What on earth does that mean? And what does it have to do with the Kingdom of God?

I wonder first of all if a "daily wage" isn't something like "daily bread?" That is, one of the lasting lessons of the Exodus was to try to discern the difference between "want" and "need." Pharaoh's economy was built on want, which always leads to an economy of "haves" and "have nots" - of slave and free, of rich and poor. But in the wilderness for forty years, God's people are given enough manna for each day (twice as much on the Sabbath.) The "daily bread" cannot be hoarded or saved - there is enough for everyone, but it is, after all manna (lit: whatchamacallit) and not fresh baguettes for the wealthy and crumbs under the table for the poor. It seems to me that at least one aspect of the miracle of the manna is to learn to be satisfied by our needs being met, and learning to manage our wants. This of course is done with moderate success and the Bible is brutally honest about that. ("Oh, remember the cucumbers back in Egypt...")

What if part of the point of the story is that everyone deserves a daily wage, a minimum standard of living, whether or not the economy is at "full employment?" What if it is a crime against humanity and God for the CEOs to be receiving bonuses when the janitor can't afford to take his kid in to see a doctor?

What if grace isn't a commodity that can be divided up and parceled out in the first place? We get enough grace; we get enough love from a generous God. Why on earth would we begrudge someone else of that generous gift? Why would we see evil where there is only good?