Religion
Fair pay
Martin Sullivan
Christ was not a legislator. We look in vain to Him for political blue prints, but He was a shrewd observer of human affairs and when He spoke about conduct He was rooting it in this world and not transferring it to some place above the bright blue sky. His meaning was often hidden and He left it to His hearers to discover it. His teaching had the element of a clever joke about it. You either saw it or you did not and you were at liberty to go on exploring. This is why He employed the parable as a regular medium. The meaning of the word is a clue in itself: "the laying of one thing alongside another". He would tell a short story, often bristling with paradoxes or with unconventional attitudes and reactions and leave it at that. He was clever enough (if this does not sound patronising) to leave several options open, and this because He offered freedom on occasions . became the object of underserved calumny. Those who did not like or could not take what He said were not slow to throw mud at Him. He took it all cheerfully.
A good illustration of what I have in mind is the famous Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. Employed, as He told us, in stages from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. through a day which ended at 6 p.m., those who worked twelve hours received the same wages as those who worked for one. And He said, rather blandly, if you want to know what the Kingdom of God is like it is rather like that. Of course attempts were made to interpret this bizarre tale. The first to go on record was the editor who incorporated his conclusion in the official records of the church, the New Testament. He added a footnote so that everyone who read the story from that stage would get the point of it: "so the last shall be first and the first last". The commentator was hopelessly wrong because whatever the parable said, it was not that. First and last simply do not come into it, as even a cursory glance will show. The men were recruited at 6 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 Noon, 3 p.m., from the employment exchange on a clear contractual basis. The first group were offered a penny a day and accepted it; the second agreed to the employer's suggestion, "Whatsoever is right, I will give you". No sum was fixed but the reward was left to the employer's discretion. The men employed at the later hours as the labour force was increased were content to leave their pay to the boss. The day ended and the wages were handed out. The story paints a neat little picture of a line-up of the employers, all looking at those who came at 5 p.m. and were being paid first. Into their hands went a penny. This could not have disturbed all those who took on the job at a rate to be determined by the employer. When they received the same wage they said nothing. It was the people who had slogged hard all day who objected. When they saw the wage they had agreed to accept being paid even to those who had been in the fields for only an hour, their hopes rose. Obviously by all the canons of justice and fair play they were due for a bonus and when they did not get it they pushed past the paymaster and demanded to see the boss. He came out to face this charge of unequal pay. The reply as drafted in the same terms as the complaint: "You have no quarrel with me. We signed on the dotted line together and I have honoured my promise. You have been given not only a fair wage but also one you were willing to accept. What angers you is not your reward, but what you see other people receiving. Is thine eye evil because I am good? Do you need to be greedy and jealous and churlish because I am generous?"
Take the points as you will. Christ is telling us about God's society and that is why He prefaces the parable with the familiar words: "The Kingdom of God is like . . ." We have all had a foretaste of it in the human family. Who would think of penalising the youngest in the home because he came last? And if want a just society we ought to base it on the one we inhabit within our own four walls day by day, where all are of equal value and love is not apportioned by merit. That is how God works, Christ said. We could profitably pick up some of these threads.
Martin Sullivan is Dean of St Paul's
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