I wonder if a case could also be made for simple cost of living. The vineyard owner, if he was a compassionate man, might he have realized that all of his hired help, no matter how many hours they worked still needed a certain amount of money to feed their hungry families?
Getting paid on scale for merely an hour's work would hardly put food on the table for an entire family. Could the underlying reason for the vineyard owner's generosity have been compassion for his hungry neighbors?
Thank you MA. That answers the elephant in the room question which has always plagued this story...Why would the vineyard owner do this? It's like a bug in your soup. Not easy to ignore. But your explanation defuses that distraction beautifully. Thanks again. I'll remember and use it.
MA11, My thought would be, " of course" since they waited all day, willing to work but not chosen was no fault of theirs. He recognized this and out of kindness paid them. Those that labored all day had no "skin in the game" so to speak. So...feel good about what you do and don't judge others. You'll be a happier person.
The strongest, best suited get hired first. Progressively as the day go on, the older and weaker are left.
If they didn't see each other's pay, no one would be offended.
The eagerness, joy, and gratefulness of the last workers must be even greater than the firsts while expecting less.
Eko asked an interesting line, "Does [the owner's] generosity turn yours to poison?” The first workers can also be generous, to the owner and to the latecomers. It's like sharing your wage with an unlucky friend that had no work that day. But they didn't have to, since the owners payed everyone the same. The latecomers will most likely share their wages to others like them, starving not-chosen. Here you really see the multiplicative effect of abundance, if everyone participated.
And the age old genius, legally: No matter how you look at it, you cannot find fault in the payment of the owner. Yet everyone see the problem.
I wonder if a case could also be made for simple cost of living. The vineyard owner, if he was a compassionate man, might he have realized that all of his hired help, no matter how many hours they worked still needed a certain amount of money to feed their hungry families?
Getting paid on scale for merely an hour's work would hardly put food on the table for an entire family. Could the underlying reason for the vineyard owner's generosity have been compassion for his hungry neighbors?
Thank you MA. That answers the elephant in the room question which has always plagued this story...Why would the vineyard owner do this? It's like a bug in your soup. Not easy to ignore. But your explanation defuses that distraction beautifully. Thanks again. I'll remember and use it.
MA11, My thought would be, " of course" since they waited all day, willing to work but not chosen was no fault of theirs. He recognized this and out of kindness paid them. Those that labored all day had no "skin in the game" so to speak. So...feel good about what you do and don't judge others. You'll be a happier person.
So many layers going on at once:
The strongest, best suited get hired first. Progressively as the day go on, the older and weaker are left.
If they didn't see each other's pay, no one would be offended.
The eagerness, joy, and gratefulness of the last workers must be even greater than the firsts while expecting less.
Eko asked an interesting line, "Does [the owner's] generosity turn yours to poison?” The first workers can also be generous, to the owner and to the latecomers. It's like sharing your wage with an unlucky friend that had no work that day. But they didn't have to, since the owners payed everyone the same. The latecomers will most likely share their wages to others like them, starving not-chosen. Here you really see the multiplicative effect of abundance, if everyone participated.
And the age old genius, legally: No matter how you look at it, you cannot find fault in the payment of the owner. Yet everyone see the problem.
<3
Great rendition of this beautiful parable!
This is so true. The comparison with what some have and what others don't have is all around us. "Look at your own hands." You are a genius.