Blaming the victims of oppression

I have written extensively about Jesus from Nazareth as an untrained, but wise, social observer and critic of the systems that denied the peasants of northern Palestine economic and social dignity. For the next few weeks, I am choosing to write about the stories (parables) that Jesus told. In this column I have chosen the story of Laborers in the Field that is found in chapter 20 of Matthew’s gospel.

The version of the story that is found in the Matthew gospel was written at least 40 to 45 years after the story was told by Jesus to peasants, who were poor, powerless and illiterate. The peasants were regularly economically abused by wealthy landowners who had acquired the land around the villages of Galilee. The story was originally told by Jesus in the Aramaic language but was written down decades later in Greek by an unknown author in the Jerusalem area far away from its original setting.

To understand the parable, the reader must ask “what was the original form of the story?”, “what did the first hearers of the story hear?”, and “why did Jesus tell the story?”

Present scholars are asserting that Jesus told the story to start a discussion within the peasant population. This teaching method was not unusual in Jesus’ day. Vigorous discussion was a common educational tool.

In this particular story, the peasants heard about themselves as day laborers being abused by wealthy absentee owners. The story was undoubtedly first told without the adornment of an introduction or a conclusion. Matthew is best seen as an unwitting betrayer of the message of the parable, not a faithful reporter.

Radical reworking of the parable as written by Matthew is demanded. Matthew added the introduction “the kingdom of heaven is like….” With this introduction, the reader is forced to conclude that the owner was an abusive and arrogant God who bears no resemblance to the loving heavenly Father to whom Jesus made regular reference. A more reasonable version of the parable drops the Matthew introduction.

Equally egregious is the Matthew conclusion in verses 14, 15 and 16. In the Matthew conclusion, the abused workers are defamed and made out to be ungrateful wretches.

In the parable, the daily wage for a field worker is reported to be a denarius per day. Some modern translations substitute “the usual daily wage” for “a denarius.”

We now know that a denarius was indeed the usual daily wage, but it was not close to a living wage. The owner in the parable was, in fact, a cruel and heartless employer. Stripped of Matthew’s unfortunate introduction and conclusion, the parable is a brilliant codification of what was happening to poor people in the rural economy of Jesus’ day.

Historians now commonly call the context of Jesus’ teaching “an advanced agrarian society.” Incredibly wealthy owners controlled the land; owners hired retainers to keep profits high; as much as 85 percent of the population were poor peasants; and as many as 10 percent of the population were expendables who died early deaths without shelter, food or caring.

The bare parable exposes a cruel reality. Poor people, who are regularly abused by the wealthy, do not unite in protest against their wealthy oppressors. They are more likely to turn on one another, as do the workers in the parable that is told by Jesus.

With this understanding of the parable of the workers in the field, Jesus, as the storyteller, becomes a rabble-rouser and a trouble-maker who is fostering rebellion of workers against employers. In the world in which Jesus lived, his death at an early age was assured.

Do we hear this message of Jesus’ economic involvement from Christian pulpits? The answer is probably “never” – or at least “seldom.”

In our own day, people working for less than a livable wage is an enormous problem. Our country has a commendable record of providing housing and assistance of various kinds for people with special needs. However, we collectively have done very poorly in erasing the phenomenon of paying workers less than a living wage.

The fallout is crippling to our society. When people work full time but cannot earn enough to live in dignity, they inevitably resort to whatever they must do to get by.

Many lie, cheat and steal as survival tactics. We judge them and put them in prison. All too many fall into the category of expendables. Early death is mercy. The true immorality is found with the employer, who pays less than a living wage and sanctimoniously claims that they cannot pay more.

However, even more troublesome are our ministers and churches that refuse to instigate the discussions that Jesus fostered. The wealthy are tolerated, even courted. The introductions and conclusions of ministers and churches are every bit as bad as Matthew’s, and their God is unknown by Jesus, the teacher from Nazareth.