The Gospel reading today is a single parable of 15 verses long plus one verse for conclusion. Unlike many other shorter parables of a few verses in length, this parable is a sophisticated one. There are many things we can learn in this story. I am sure some of us will look at it from the perspective of management and find it difficult to accept Jesus' logic which is fine for salvation but not for social justice.
Today, Fr. Joseph Yim, who taught us homilectics, came to our parish in the capacity of the Chief Executive of Caritas to promote the upcoming Caritas annual fund raising campaign. It is a wonderful opportunity to watch him deliver his homily. His delivery was attention arresting. The congregation responded to every move he made. The contents were incisive.
First of all, Fr. Yim pointed out that the master of the vineyard would have avoided the resentment from the labourers who came first if he had given them the agreed wage first. Instead, he chose to give the last labourers their wages first, thus creating an expectation on the part of the first labourers. It was not a smart decision as a manager. He was creating troubles for himself. I would defend that even if he gave the first labourers their wages first, sooner or later, they would find out the fact that he gave all labourers the same wage. Therefore, the complaint would still arise. The complaint will be inevitable when a manager is perceived to be unfair. Then what is the reason behind this perception of injustice?
For the sake of discussion, let us assume that a price tag / a value can be assigned to the labour/service offered. In a workplace, justice means equal work, equal pay. This is intuitively enough. As a corollary, different work should be paid differently. A doctor receiving a higher wage than a hospital janitor is fair because the system puts more value on the work of a doctor than that of a janitor. Fair enough. Now, the labourers in the parable were doing the same job. Therefore, it is fair to pay them equally if they work equally. Now that the first labourers had worked for 12 hours whereas the last batch of labourers had worked for only 1 hour, their work had been unequal. Unequal work should be paid unequally. In a cliché popularized by a stomachache pill, more work more pay. Therefore, the master of the vineyard was being unfair to the first batch of labourers by paying all the same wage though it had been agreed beforehand.
Fr. Yim disagreed. Indeed, he challenged the corollary of more work more pay. He did not query the validity of the logic. Of course, the logic is flawed. If equal work implies equal pay, we can only conclude that unequal pay implies unequal work. Take another approach. Assuming that justice really means equal work, equal pay in a workplace, this principle has a limited scope of application. Those who invoke this principle may not intend to apply it to the society at large. It remains to be proved that we can apply this principle in the context of the whole society. If we apply it to the whole society without the necessary proof, we commit the fallacy of composition. What works in a workplace may not work in the larger society.
Back to Fr. Yim. He argued instead from another perspective. He said that if we applied this corollary, a third of the congregation would receive nothing because they, senior citizens and minors did not work, not to mention the patients in the hospitals. Those who hold the more-work-more-pay corollary would argue that the seniors had already received their pay in the past and the minors will receive their pay in the future. It is not fair to subsidize them now. Yet, they receive huge allowances from the government which might fight back arguing that denying the minors the necessary welfare, they would not be able to develop their potentials and receive their pay in the future, while denying the seniors a decent dignified retirement life would be inhumane. Besides justice, we should also consider beneficence. Therefore, people who apply the "more work more pay" corollary are wrong. Of course Fr. Yim did not mention the fallacy of composition and he could very easily relate the themes of the three readings. His homily is exemplary.
In Justice --- what's the right thing to do?, a bestseller written by Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor, the author introduces us to John Rawls' arguments against making moral desert the basis for distributive justice (pp 160-164). More-work-more-pay is an example of moral desert or meritocracy. People who work better and/or harder deserve to be rewarded more. According to Rawls, our inborn talents and/or our family background, i.e. our initial starting point in society are not our merits. We do not deserve such advantages or disadvantages. We are born into them, thrown into them by destiny. It is not our merits. Therefore, we do not deserve to claim whatever achievements we gain later as a consequence of these "lucks".
This logic throws a new light onto the understanding of the parable. The initial starting points of the labourers were not their merits. They were not better, more skilful workers. Even if they were born/trained better labourers, it was also not their merits. Perhaps they were even slower, lazier workers who took more time to finish the same job. Thus the master gave them a head start. I wonder if John Rawls is a Christian.
In the afternoon, I attended the annual workshop organized by the parish. The topic is "Looking at Sufferings from different perspectives". The parish invited Fr. William Yip, our philosophy department head in the seminary, Fr. John Baptist Kwan, our ex-parish priest and Dr. Vincent Tse, an oncology consultant and experienced speaker on the topic of hospice and death.
The Church was full-house. The three speakers did not disappoint us. But I want to mention Fr. Yip in particular because I went there just to listen to his philosophical approach to sufferings.
Fr. Yip did not speak too philosophically. He shared his painful experience of the death of his father. Four years ago, his father suffered a stroke and deteriorated to such an extent that at a later stage, he lost his memory. As a philosopher, he reflected.
Firstly, it took at least three hours to visit his father in the hospital from the seminary. He would have done many things with his tight schedule. Even if he went there, the health of his father would not improve. If he did not go, his father would not remember. So, what is the point visiting his father? This is a typical utilitarian reasoning which Fr. Yip would definitely reject. He followed the reasoning of duty ethics/virtue ethics. If he does not go, something would be missing in his life. He further explained how his mother passed away abruptly and peacefully without giving them any advanced warnings and troubles. In the funeral parlour after the vigil service, he wanted to stay behind longer to stay with the corpse of his mother. Now that his father was not yet dead, why shouldn't he take the opportunity to stay more with his father so that he would not regret in the future?
Secondly, he turned philosophical to explain the philosophy of the body. On the sensation level, all of us are alone. If you can feel all the sensations I feel, how do we tell the two different persons, you and me, apart. Therefore, we have to face the fact that in suffering pains, all of us are alone. Of course, on the psychological and social levels, we can still build up an empathy to feel partially the pains of others' pains. Luckily, we have the sacrament of Eucharist, the body of Christ. Jesus enters into our body and integrates bodily with us. In our blood stream flows the blood of Jesus and our cells are built up by the body of Jesus. We can be one with Jesus, bodily and spiritually. Our pains are his and his ours. It is transformative. It is very consoling and enlightening. Thank you, Fr. Yip.
Dear Lord, Your thoughts are higher than ours but You are willing to lift us up. Transform us so that we can love You and our neighbour more. Amen.
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