Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2020-09-20-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – September 20, 2020
Welcome to the one hundred and thirtieth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
Making Sense of Fair Pay
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. (Cycle A) In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus told The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, and from a business perspective, it makes no sense. Our economic system is built around pay for performance and the exchange of an hour of work for a fair wage. We can argue what a fair wage might be, but in the case of the laborer who was hired first thing in the morning, there was agreement that he would be paid a just wage. So when Jesus tells us about a landowner who hired laborers for his vineyard and paid the same daily wage to those who had only worked for an hour as he did those who had worked all day, our sense of justice screams, “That’s not fair!” and our business sense screams “That’s insane!”
But it may not be as insane as current compensation programs. While they are designed to attract, retain, and motivate employees, many plans miss the mark. A Talent Management and Rewards Pulse Survey conducted by Willis Tower Watson revealed that only 20% of North American companies found their pay-for-performance compensation to be effective in driving higher levels of individual performance at their organization. Only 32% claimed that their performance-based pay program is effective in differentiating pay based on individual performance. And, over half (53%) believe that annual incentives are ineffective in differentiating pay based on how well employees perform.
But I don’t think that Jesus was proposing a new compensation plan when he told this parable. Scripture scholars will tell you that the purpose of a parable is to personally criticize the person to whom the parable is told, to raise that person’s consciousness to a new level of understanding, and to call that person to conversion and reform. So, if we are thinking that Jesus’ teaching is not fair or is insane, we are the audience he is speaking to, to raise our level of understanding and to call us to conversion and reform.
What new ways of thinking should we take from this week’s Gospel? I’d like to explore two.
Wired with a Sense of Fairness
In episode 53 of By Your Life, I wrote about a famous research study done with Capuchin monkeys called the “Fairness Study.” You can watch what the study revealed in an excerpt from Frans de Waal’s TED Talk. Essentially, the research consisted of taking two Capuchin monkeys who live together in a community and putting them in separate, but adjacent cages where they can see each other. The monkeys are taught a task, which is to take a rock and hand it to the scientist. When they successfully complete the task, they are given a piece of cucumber. Over and over, each of the monkeys will successfully complete the task and be totally satisfied with the cucumber reward.
In the Fairness Study, the first monkey hands the researcher the rock, and receives a piece of cucumber and is content with her reward. Then, with the first monkey watching, the second monkey completes the task, but instead of cucumber is given a grape, which she eats. The first monkey then completes the task and is once again given a piece of cucumber, which she immediately throws back at the researcher. The second monkey completes the task again and is given a grape. Then, the first monkey gives the researcher the rock and again is given a piece of cucumber, at which point she throws the cucumber back at the researcher and pitches a fit. It is absolutely hysterical. (Click here for a link.)
The point of the research is that if we evolved from primates, we are wired with a sense of fairness. It is ingrained in us. The point of the parable is that we need to beware when our sense of fairness is driven by envy. In the parable, the landowner said to the worker who was hired first, “My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?” (Mt 20:13) “Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt. 20:15) Envy is one of the seven deadly sins and Jesus is warning us not to allow envy of another person’s blessings to create a sense of dissatisfaction with our own.
Fairness or Envy?
And this is the first new way of thinking we should take away from this parable. We are not harmed by someone else’s good fortune. We are only harmed when we allow envy to control our outlook. In his video series Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues, Bishop Robert Barron says the way to combat envy is with appreciation—appreciation for how God has blessed you and appreciation of how God blesses others. When you find yourself feeling that cringe of envy, ask yourself, “How am I harmed by that person’s good fortune?” and “What blessings has God given only to me that am I grateful for?”
I’m sure that when the day began, those laborers who were hired first were grateful for the opportunity to work. On the other hand, those who were hired last must have felt desperate as the day went on and no one hired them. The Catechism says: “Unemployment almost always wounds its victim’s dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family.” (CCC 2436) So, those unemployed laborers were likely envious of the ones who worked in the vineyard all day. But they didn’t give up. They didn’t go home. They stayed there all day hoping they might be fortunate enough to be able to go into the vineyard too. Because he was able to, the landowner was moved by their perseverance and generously rewarded them for their determination. New way of thinking #1: God’s measureless generosity is not a reason for envy, but for praise.
God’s measureless generosity is not a reason for envy, but for praise.The Value of Purpose
The second new way of thinking and the real power in the parable is the value of working for a purpose that cannot be found in a daily wage. Human labor has an inherent dignity because it allows us to share in the ongoing work of creation while providing the resources we need to build and sustain families.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth both with and for one another. Hence, work is a duty: ‘If anyone will not work, let him not eat.’ (2 Thes 3:10) … Work can be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus,… man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. …Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.” (CCC 2427) “In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. Work is for man, not man for work.” (CCC 2428)
Bricklayer vs Cathedral Builder
There is a story—a kind of parable—that has circulated for years. It is the story of three bricklayers, and it goes something like this:
There was a man who happened upon three bricklayers and observed them as they worked. He asked the first, “What are you doing?” and the man replied, “I am a bricklayer and I am laying bricks.” When he asked the second man “What are you doing?”, the man replied, “I am a builder. I am building a wall.” The man asked the third bricklayer the same question, “What are you doing?” and the third man replied, “I am a cathedral builder. I am building a great cathedral to the Almighty God.”
There is nothing wrong with laying bricks, but there is nothing more rewarding than finding purpose in your work. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “If a man is ‘called’ to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Fulfilling your potential by sharing in the ongoing work of creation is what gives our work meaning.
Fruitful Work
In our second reading, St. Paul reminds us of this truth. While he longed for death to be with Christ, (Phil 1:23), he said, “If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better. Yet that I remain [in] the flesh is more necessary for your benefit.” (Phil 1:22-24) Fruitful labor is fulfilling our purpose. It is a great honor and privilege to work in his vineyard all day long.
Bob Goff, New York Times best-selling author of Love Does and Everybody, Always, said, “I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.” New way of thinking #2: Mission trumps money in God’s economy.
I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter. ~ Bob Goff @bobgoffThe interesting thing is that new way of thinking #2 helps us fight the sin of envy, because as Bob Goff also said, “We won’t be distracted by comparison if we are captivated with purpose.”
We won’t be distracted by comparison if we are captivated with purpose. ~ Bob Goff @bobgoffGod’s Ways, Not our Ways
One final thought, if the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is still puzzling and annoying because it does go against your sense of what is right and just, listen to our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah. He wrote, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9) Perhaps our sense of what is “right and just” is wrong. Perhaps like the child who doesn’t understand his parent’s discipline because he lacks the wisdom of the parent’s perspective, we are defining “right and just” as a child and we need to grow up and let go of our limited way of thinking. Let’s ask our Father to help us.
Lord God, Master of the Vineyard, how wonderful that you have invited us
who labor to be workers in the vineyard and assist your work to shape the world around us. As we seek to respond to this call, fill us with your Holy Spirit that you might work through us to let your justice reign. Amen.
May God bless you abundantly this week as you share in the ongoing work of creation and may you glorify the Lord by your life.
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