Ok, we’re going to jump right into interpreting a passage from scripture. From the Christian New Testament: Matthew 20: 1-16, The Laborers in the Vineyard. [My reconstruction from the Peshitta Aramaic interlinear (Younan).]
Verse 1: The kingdom of heaven is like a man — the lord of a house — who went out in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
This is a parable told by Jesus. As scripture it is a primary source from a master. A master has direct knowledge of universal truth. Other scripture, such as the letters of Paul, are secondary source, indirect knowledge.
Immediately we see the device this teacher uses: analogy. This is clearly present in the term “is like.” The reader, or listener, is asked to do something that takes a bit of rational juggling. We must weigh the comparison of the two things: the lord of a house and the kingdom of heaven — one we know intimately, the other we cannot know at all. But the teacher does not directly explain his own understanding of the concept in question. Instead, he uses analogy to allow the audience to participate in comprehending the underlying meaning of the parable.
Verses 2-7: He bargained with the laborers for a denarius per day and he sent them to his vineyard. He went out in the third hour and saw others who were standing in the marketplace and were idle. He said to them, “Also go you to the vineyard and what is right I will give to you.” They departed and he went out again in the sixth and in the ninth hour and did the same. Towards the eleventh hour he went out and found others who were standing and were idle and said to them, “Why are you standing idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no man has hired us.” He said to them, “Go you also to the vineyard and what is right you will receive.”
Verses 8-13: When it became evening, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the laborers and give them their wage and begin from the last and proceed to the first.” Those of the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. When the first came they hoped that they would receive more, but they also received a denarius each. When they received it they murmured against the lord of the house. They said, “These last ones worked one hour and yet you made them equal with us who bore the burden of the day and its heat.” He then answered and said to one of them, “My friend, I did not wrong you; was it not for a denarius you bargained with me?”
The commentary on this passage by Boring and Craddock suggests that the original parable ends with verse 13 and 14-16 were Matthew’s additions to add his own interpretive twist to the story. The Jesus Seminar found only verse 16 to be questionable.
Verse 14: “Take yours and go. But I desire that to this last one I give as to you.”
Verse 15: “Or is it not lawful for me (to do) that which I desire to do with my own? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” [Alternately: “…Or are you envious because I am a good?]
Verse 16: Thus will the last be first and the first last. For many are those that are called and few that are chosen.
Examples of religious interpretation are:
1.) The Boring and Craddock commentary warns the reader not to interpret the passage allegorically, which is to say symbolically. Instead it insists that Matthew is interpreting the parable allegorically for the reader. This puts the authority for interpretation on Matthew and by extension the church. Here, the landowner functions as the eschatalogical judge and payment for labor symbolizes the last judgment. The suggestion is that “[…] the parable, while affirming the sovereign grace of God rejects presuming on grace….” (Boring 80).
2.) Wesley’s Explanatory Notes offers:
“That many of the Jews would be rejected, and many of the Gentiles accepted; the secondary, That of the Gentiles, many who were first converted would be last and lowest in the kingdom of glory; and many of those who were last converted would be first, and highest therein.”
Here in-group and out-group separation is made and there is the idea of vertical grades of worthiness in the kingdom of heaven.
But for seekers, there is no judgment, nor is there exclusion of groups, nor lesser or greater degrees of individual worth. The seeker would read this parable as allegory; symbolic of the reconciliation of mankind with the mind of God. Remember that the ethic of the seeker is acceptance, tolerance and inclusion.
It is God, as the landowner, who seeks men. It is God, laboring to bring individuals into the vineyard, into the kingdom of heaven, calling them into communion with Itself. Some have come through legal contract. Some have come on guarantee of “what is right”, in trust. The landowner/God continues to call, even for ones who have been idle, until the last possible hour, when it would seem that their contribution to the harvest is minimal. Even those that no other man will hire are worthy of work in the landlord’s vineyard — all are included. The steward (Christ as Logos working in the world) is then called to pay these workers; and the payment is the same to all, whether by contract or trust, whether the work was long and hard, or short and easy. Because all are of equal and infinite value and their pay reflects this. In verse 14, the key to unlocking the parable is understanding that it is God’s desire to unite with all; from the first through the last.
This interpretation reflects the seeker’s state of being. The seeker has broken from the view of the Church which holds mankind separate from the creator and insists that some are chosen over others. Now, the seeker will get a bit stuck on verse 15. Verses 1-14 flow beautifully under seeker ethics, but 15 seems to fall back to the law and moreover, to questioning God’s desire. The second line of 15 goes even further to suggest that man is envious of God’s goodness. This is problematic for even the religious interpreters. For the seeker, who is in the process of listening intuitively as part of the Divine, this verse just doesn’t sound right. And we come to a full stop. One option is that we can reject the verse as do bible scholars who see this verse, and the next, as later Matthean invention. But the seeker may also persist in following the text to its source.
On verse 15b (Or is your eye evil because I am good), the words for ‘eye evil’ are opthalmos poneros and for good is agathos. Thayer’s Lexicon suggests;
Poneros: 1. Full of labors, annoyances, hardships; 2. Of a bad nature or condition in a physical sense OR ethically: evil, wicked, bad “this use of the word is due to its association with the working (largely the servile) class; not that contempt for labor is thereby expressed, for such words as ergates, draster, and the like, do not take on this evil sense, which connected itself only with a word expressive of unintermitted toil and carrying no suggestion of results” [italics mine].
Also, the term is opthalmos poneros, and in Mt 6: 22 this is read as diseased, or disordered eye, and not evil eye. So we have a “disordered eye” connected to toil and a lack of results. I would say “misperceive” is a more appropriate translation.
Agathos, here is translated as “good”, but Thayer notes it also can be “the expression of the absolute idea of moral goodness.” And since agathos modifies “I” (allegorically read as “god”), the latter seems the better read.
The alternative reading then, with disordered eye as “not perceive”, and using “absolute idea of moral goodness” is:
“Are you unable to perceive the highest moral good?”
This then modifies the beginning of the verse and you get something more like “Does my contract with you limit how I treat my other workers? Are you unable to see the greater good is being served?”
With parables, Jesus was originally speaking to individuals either in the religious paradigm or emerging as seekers. Because of this, very often his parables dwell on the moral movement from law to love. We see this in the stories of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan. There is a very serious attempt to convert the idea of “law” as external authority to “love” which is an individually directed moral force. Remember, those that were “first” in the labor of the vineyard had a specific contract, a bargain, a legal agreement, to work there. Those called afterward worked in trust that a “right” payment would be made. So here in Matthew 20, we have a parallel to the story of the prodigal son wherein both the law abiding son and the wastrel son are equally loved and accepted. In the parable of the vineyard, both the first, bound by contract, and the rest, bound by trust, are equally valued. Moreover, the landowner pleads with the first workers to see the higher moral good in such equity.
Finally, verse 16. The seeker rejects this verse because it is exclusive: Thus will the last be first and the first last; for many are those that are called and few that are chosen. A seeker could accept something like “all are called but few choose to hear” but that is not what is given. This line feels more like a later interpolation by Matthew trying to distinguish his sect against others. In addition the first part of this verse, as the Jesus Seminar rightly points out, is a standard saying that is worked into several parables and highly unlikely to have been an original part of this particular story.
You can see in this parable exactly why the church, or the institution of authority, would not be happy with allegorical interpretation. Here, the divine is constantly seeking reconciliation with all individuals. As men and women hear the call, which arises from within the Self, they in turn begin to seek for the source of the call. Not exactly the church definition of grace or election. But the parables of Jesus are very problematic for the church because of their construction as analogy, or allegory. They are meant by definition to draw the individual into the conversation. They are constructed to confer authority for interpretation to that individual because in doing so the student must go inward for answers. And inward is the direction of reconciliation with the Ground of Being.
There is still a third possible level of interpretation of this text. This is the “unity” version:
The vineyard is the mind of God, it is fertile and creative, the ground in which all being is cultivated, tended and grown. The landowner is Christ, seeking to assist the process of reconciliation, whose task is to unceasingly gather all to God (as workers in the vineyard) . The steward is the holy-spirit/higher-self, who is the medium of exchange of divine communication, and finally, the day is the span of time from activation of the logos to the reunification of all being.
Keep in mind that the seeker and unity interpretations of this text are mine. You may well have a different take on the parable. And how we understand it today could be very different from how we hear it later on.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2012 by Kathryn Neall. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce this article in whole or part, in any form, without first obtaining written permission.
On The Path of the Adept 