Australia takes from the Poor to give to the Rich Matthew 20:1-16
Intro
Isabel Allende is at the top of my list of favourite authors. In “Sum of our Days” she summarises her son’s threefold philosophy that he applies to all relationships:
· it isn’t personal,
· everyone is responsible for his or her own emotions and
· life isn’t fair so don’t expect it to be.
In contrast Isabel writes that the angst that ruins her poise is because
· she takes everything personally,
· feels responsible for the feelings of others, even complete strangers, and
· cannot and will not reconcile herself with the fact life isn’t fair.
It’s not fair. Is this your reaction to the parable? It’s not fair? The conventional interpretation of the parable is that of allegory, that God the vineyard owner is generous. This parable stresses the lavishness of God's grace and our inability to earn favour with God. We, like the workers, are reprimanded for grumbling “it’s not fair” and urged to imitate the generosity of God. I wholeheartedly disagree with this interpretation.
The text and the text’s context
Here are some observations about the text:
The immediate context for the parable is the rich young ruler asking what he needs to do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus says in Matthew 19:
If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you; it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you; it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The parable of the vineyard workers occurs after Jesus’ formal accusation on wealth. Wine is a luxury product. The owner is likely one of the rich elites, not a subsistence farmer. The idea that the owner represents God is hardly likely when Jesus chooses solidarity with the poor and warns of the dangers of wealth.
Usually the owner would send a supervisor to hire workers, yet here the owner hires workers himself; why, we are not told. It appears that he either doesn’t know what he is doing or is stingy, wanting to get away with the least number of workers, because he returns to town three times to hire workers for what appears to be a bumper crop.
I imagine that for an Australian reader of the parable, the scene is unfamiliar. In Australia it is not often that you can just employ someone off the street. Workers need the correct visas, insurance must be covered, registration with the ATO is necessary, super is compulsory etc. In contrast, “piece workers”, were something that Marius and I grew up with. Usually at traffic intersections, the unemployed would line the roads, vulnerable and desperate for work. It is this that colours my imagination as I hear the parable. When the owner approaches workers at the end of the day asking, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ my blood boils with anger and sympathy. With few exceptions, people want to work, the workers may have appreciated being hired earlier with the first mob. The workers explain, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ Here victims of social injustice are being blamed for the social injustice. The owner implies that they are lazy.
My reading of the parable is that Jesus evokes debate about justice and economics. This is not a moral story with a spiritual meaning about late believers going to heaven. Spiritualising the parables is a device that we the wealthy use to avoid the cost of discipleship, just like the rich young ruler asking about “buying” eternal life with legal obedience to laws. This is an earthly story with political and economic significance. The parable is conscience raising, inviting the audience to examine the many ways in which the systems at play oppress them. For us as wealthy readers, the parable scrutinises the ways in which we benefit from the exploitation of others. Jesus’ mandate is summarised in the Our Father: may it be on earth as it is in heaven. Heaven is God’s transformed future available now. In heaven, work is shared, and wealth is distributed so there is enough for all. Therefore, in the present God’s people challenge injustice and work towards restructuring economic policy.
If this parable is about raising our awareness of how labour and economic practices privilege some at the expense of others, it has much to say to our Australian context, especially in relation to tax, Medicare, and welfare.
The text and our context
Kasey Chambers (2018[i]) quotes Minister Michaelia Cash who expects “that those who can work should work and our welfare system should be there as a genuine safety net, not as something that people can choose to fund their lifestyle.”[1] This is typical of the coalition’s narrative. When asked if he could survive on the Newstart allowance; Matthias Cormann dodged the question with the comment “it’s a transitional payment[ii]”. These comments reveal the unstated prejudice on which the coalition operates: ”
· Those on Newstart are dole bludgers (a strange and uniquely Australian term)
· "The best welfare is a job”
· Those receiving welfare are a drain the rest of us.
It is simply wrong to assume that the pittance the unemployed and pensioned are expected to survive on is expensive for the budget. The days of Robin Hood are dead and gone. Nowhere in our economy do we take from the rich and give to the poor. Unconscionably, the opposite is true. We take from the poor to give to the rich.
The Cost of Privilege (2018) was researched and written by Emma Dawson and Warwick Smith employed by Per Capita. Commissioned by Kasey Chambers CEO of Anglicare, the report proved that the richest 20% of Australians cost taxpayers over AU $68 billion per annum. That is around $37 a week from every worker in the country. In contrast, assistance provided to people with disabilities cost $31.721 billion ($17 a week per worker). In 2018, Newstart (unemployment benefits) cost us $10.994 billion ($6 a week per worker).
Continuing the fantasy of a “trickle down” economy is like insisting that the tooth fairy is real. Yet in response to the recession our government has brought forward tax cuts. The Australia Institute states that early tax cuts would be a windfall to high-income earners but an 'ineffective stimulus' for our economy[iii]. The report from the Australia Institute provides modelling of how 91 per cent of the benefit from tax cuts would go to the richest 20 per cent of Australians, with the bottom 50 per cent of earners receiving just 3 per cent of the benefit. The government was urged to increase jobseeker.[iv]
Concluding comments
Today’s parable of the vineyard workers is the lens through which we ask ourselves the questions: how do we read Scripture? How does scripture read us? Nicholas, Allende’s son is right; life isn’t fair. We can allow the parable to lure us into a debate about justice, as opposed to fairness, and work as partners with God in mending a hurt and hurting world.
[i] Kasey Chambers “Australia takes from the poor to give to the Rich” in The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-takes-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich-20180404-p4z7sn.html. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
[ii] Finance Minister Mathias Cormann told the ABC’s Sabra Lane that the payment was “transitional” and was only for a “very short period”. From https://theconversation.com/are-most-people-on-the-newstart-unemployment-benefit-for-a-short-or-long-time-120826. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/07/early-tax-cuts-would-be-windfall-to-high-income-earners-but-ineffective-stimulus-report-says. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/07/early-tax-cuts-would-be-windfall-to-high-income-earners-but-ineffective-stimulus-report-says. Retrieved 19 September 2020
[v] https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blog/australias-income-and-wealth-distribution/
Season of Creation