Continuing with the parable of Jesus in Matthew 20:1-16, we’ve seen the employer’s preferential treatment of the late workers, who came last, worked the least, but were the first to be paid, and ostensibly unfairly, in the eyes of the workers who had come first, worked the most, yet were not acknowledged and compensated proportionately for that effort. The parable has an odd ending, which does not seem to follow from the tale as such. “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” Chosen for what?! After all, at the end of day all of those called received monetarily the same pay, and although indeed the last were paid first and the first were paid last, all of them were still paid equally and around the same time: after work in the evening, so how much did that matter?
Now, if we look closely at the labor bargaining in this story, it appears that the first who had been hired had negotiated their contract with the employer, as the latter “had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day,” that is, for a specific price for their labor. On the other hand, none of the later comers had “agreed” to work for a fixed price, as the employer only promised them “and whatsoever is right I will give you,” and none of them seemed to mind the ambiguity of the arrangement. Incidentally, we have no indication here that those who came after the first but before the last were also paid a penny for their respective efforts, thus, technically, we cannot say that the employer’s notion of what was right to pay for an hour, as opposed to several hours, was somehow to be questioned and discussed in the same breath as we are discussing the disparity between the very first and the very last. I will go even further, to say that the involvement of the intermediate groups of workers in the parable ( rather than their being omitted altogether) serves as an intellectual tease of sorts, complicating the parable, but stimulating our thinking with its hidden challenge of some considerable magnitude.
It is in the light of this challenge that I am comfortable however to acknowledge that all of them received a penny each, the first, the last, and also the intermediate, and that the employer, indeed, saw it right to compensate equally those who worked for one hour and those who worked for more. Here we come across the familiar Communistic principle: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. The latecomers were not responsible for working shorter hours, and they must have worked according to their ability for all that time which they were required to work by their taskmaster. At the end of the day they did receive the compensation not according to the value of their labor, but according to their needs! Hence the unapologetically Communistic interpretation of the Jesus parable, and I am convinced that it holds water.
But let us consider some other things, which will provide us with a more transparent connection to the closing part of the parable: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen,” which clashes somewhat with the Communistic interpretation, but by no means negates it.
Now, had we read this story in some union manual on labor negotiations, here is an example of how not to negotiate with your employer, and it concerns all workers involved. Those who agreed to work for what was “right” were obviously too trusting, thus surrendering to the mercy of the master. Those who did negotiate their contract, however, the first ones, most probably undersold their labor, as it seems reasonable to suggest that they could have negotiated a better price for a full day’s work.
…But the Bible is obviously not a labor union manual, and the parable ought not to be judged in such practical secular terms, but theologically and metaphorically. The trusting workers who did not agree on a price, but were willing to work at the owner’s discretion, expecting to be treated fairly, were taking the risks involved in trust, and at the end turned out better off, although not spectacularly better off, than the bargainers, who got only what they had bargained for, no more, no less.
This still does not explain who exactly are the first, the last, and the chosen in this story, and the metaphor must be stretched somewhat to suggest that those good workers who bargain with God over their own good deeds, will be favored less (although recompensed still!) than those who do their good deeds without asking for anything specific in return. It does not follow from this parable, though, that those who are not among the good workers may expect anything from God just because they “trust” His final judgment to be treated well for doing nothing.
In other words, ‘the chosen’ are those who do good out of the goodness of their humanity, rather than those who also do good, but with an expectation of a reward, although both will receive adequate compensation for their good efforts. After all, even “the last” in the blessed Kingdom of Heaven had to earn their place in it!
…Such is a possible interpretation of the Jesus parable in Matthew 20:1-16. Several other interpretations are of course also possible. Common sense favors a freedom of interpretations, as long as they keep making sense.
In conclusion of this long entry, here is a special treat from Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo: Why I am so Clever, Section 10. It offers us Nietzsche’s variation on the first and last theme, which is too irresistible to omit.---
“All the problems of politics, social organization, and of education have been falsified through and through because one mistook the most harmful men for great men; because one learned to despise the little things, which means the basic concerns of life itself. When I now compare myself with the men who have so far been honored as the first, the difference is palpable. I do not even count these so called “first” men among men in general: for me they are the refuse of humanity, monsters of sickness and vengeful instincts; they are inhuman, disastrous, at bottom incurable, and revenge themselves on life.”
“I want to be their opposite (that is, the opposite of “the first”): it is my privilege to have the subtlest sensitivity for all signs of healthy instincts. There is not a moment in my life to convict me of a presumptuous and pathetic posture. The pathos of poses does not belong to greatness, whoever needs poses at all is false. Beware of all picturesque men!”In other words, the pretentiousness of poses is a manifestation of the nature of hypocrisy. It is the littleness of the first and the greatness of the last that allows their positions to be reversed in the better world, which provides its dwellers with no masks to hide behind.
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