Written on SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

For the September 21, 2008 lectionary: Matthew 20:1-16

OINK by Larry Patten

What’s your favorite Bible passage?

My childhood response was Proverbs 14:34. Look it up, if you want. I’d found it on the front cover of a Bible at my grandparents’ house and memorized the words. Whenever I quoted that verse as “my favorite” in Sunday school classes, teachers looked befuddled. Why hadn’t I chosen the well-known John 3:16 (like other kids did) instead of an obscure Old Testament verse? Frankly, I didn’t know what the Proverbs passage meant, but I enjoyed the teachers’ odd reactions.

What “favorites” do you have?

I’d bet few claim Matthew 20:16’s story about a landowner hiring workers as a “favorite.” In the parable, a landowner was desperate to harvest his Zinfandel grapes and kept driving his Ford F-150 to the nearby town. He needed workers. Lots of workers. Card-carrying union workers. Bring ‘em. Undocumented workers. Bring ‘em. Slow, fast, inexperienced, or veteran vine dressers, bring ‘em. Hither and yon on the dusty roads, with newly hired hands crowding the truck’s bed, the landowner fuels his needs.

You know the drill. The workers were hired early and often. Zinfandel waits for no one. They were promised payment. For some, “the usual daily wage.” For others, “whatever is right.” For a few, there were no promises other than work.

The day ends.

Every damn worker is paid the same.

No, correction, every blessed worker is paid the same.

No—in the most painful correction for me as a preacher, teacher, or human being—simply every worker is paid the same. The workers are not damned or blessed. It also didn’t matter, apparently, if they were skilled or unskilled. Worst of all, it didn’t matter when the workers started working. The woman with five mouths to feed that labored until her fingers went numb was paid exactly the same as the whiney teenager who stumbled onto the field at 5:12pm . . . and took two bathroom breaks within the next half-hour.

I exaggerate.

Jesus, of course, didn’t describe these workers (or other persons in other parables). We have no idea what they are really like. Me, I love adjectives. Whiney teenagers! Undocumented workers. Damned workers or blessed workers.

As a preacher, teacher, and human being, I want to categorize ‘em. Good. Bad. Happy. Sad. Content. Desperate. Selfless. Selfish. But there was no basis for comparison based on their personalities or backgrounds.

I don’t think I’ve every preached or taught this parable and NOT had someone (and sometimes enough someones to cram the back of an F-150) complain to me . . . “I don’t get it!”

Because, even if we drop away the descriptions—and admit that it doesn’t matter if it’s a hard-working single mom or a drunken bum working the system to get a denarius for a six pack—paying someone the same for one hour or ten hours is unfair.

Yup, this is no one’s favorite parable.

Fortunately for you, I’m here to reveal the secret of what Jesus really meant by telling this tale.

First, I really don’t know.

Second, it’s only a story. It’s probably easier to preach on this week’s Exodus account anyway. Give yourself a break.

In the NRSV, Matthew 20:15 reads: “are you envious because I am generous?” James Breech, in his excellent The Silence of Jesus, translates the verse this way: “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

And so third . . . for me it’s that evil eye.

Don’t we institutionalize that way of looking? Recently, in the “race for president,” angry words were exchanged. Barack Obama, attacking John McCain’s views, said you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Oink! The McCain camp blasted back, saying Obama’s words were sexist and an insult to Sarah Palin (she being the hockey mom with Revlon red lips). Insult. Injury. Jealousy. Hostility. Attack. Counter attack. And I guarantee ya . . . by the time you read this, the hogs will be history but other farm animals or intelligent conversations will have been sacrificed at the altar of human stupidity.

And yet, here’s the secret that’s not so secret that I struggle to remember. My eye is evil. Yours too.

When I was a kid I memorized a Bible passage I didn’t understand. I just liked how the adults reacted, how they looked at me.

But I understand just enough of this parable. Truthfully, it will never be my favorite. And it’s far easier to fret over why someone working a full day gets as much as someone working an hour . . . but I better keep reading. This parable is eye-to-eye with me. Oink!

It’s not how others look at us. It’s how we look at them.

in Peace,

Larry