Imagine the Quaker
an erstwhile mirror site for weblog on newquaker.com
archives | newquaker.comFriday, September 19, 2003
Jesus intended his Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard to illustrate how it shall be in the kingdom of heaven that "the last will be first, and the first will be last" [Matt 20:16]. As a result, though, the kingdom of heaven seems to be a place of unfairness. What's up with that?
Here's the story again: A landowner makes arrangements in the morning with a group of men to work his vineyard for a denarius (a coin worth a day's wage). That's fine, but four later times in the day he finds other workers and tells them that he will pay them "whatever is right" for their labor in his vineyard. They all agree and all work in his vineyard—some longer than others, some less time than others. At the end of the day he pays ALL of them a denarius. The workers who had labored since morning balk at the wage, claiming unfairness. The landowner takes issue with the grumblers:"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'" [Matt 20:13-15]
Now this parable has bothered me, and I happened to think of it again while listening to NPR yesterday. It seems that Emory University research scientists have pretty well established that the brown capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) is, like us, a cooperative animal with an evident sense of fairness.
The scientists, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal, taught the monkeys to swap tokens for food, in this case a cucumber. When the monkeys all received the cucumber reward, participation remained high. When the monkeys saw their partners being given grapes (a more delicious reward) for the same amount of work, well over half of them refused to participate. Cooperation diminished even further if they saw another monkey receive a grape for doing nothing at all. Reports of their work appear this week in Nature and New Scientist Magazine. In their research abstract, Brosnan and de Waal thus conclude: "Monkeys refused to participate if they witnessed a conspecific obtain a more attractive reward for equal effort, an effect amplified if the partner received such a reward without any effort at all. These reactions support an early evolutionary origin of inequity aversion." [Nature 425, 297-299, 18 September 2003]
I am neither a Darwinist nor an evolutionist, so I see a different significance in their research results. It may very well be that the sense of fairness is an emotion that affects decision-making in humans and other primates. We see the same behavior in humans, and Jesus' parable seems to yield an exemplary instance of unfairness in the workplace. But his parable takes the issue of fairness from a mere recognition of inequity—some workers being paid a whole day's wage (or perhaps a prized grape) for much less labor—to what it's really wrong with their reaction: Envy.
Perhaps our conclusion should be that capuchin monkeys can, like us, be envious of their neighbors, that envy is an animal (or primate) trait which can and ought to be overcome through the clarity of reason, that our God is generous and never unfair.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for teaching us through Scripture the difference between that part of us which we share with animals, that which we share with mammals and primates, and that which is uniquely ours. Thank you, too, Father, for the relationship you have established with us. We pray in the Spirit that we never lose sight of that relationship we have through your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 11:45 PM
Monday, September 15, 2003
Thomas F. Heck proposes an entirely new region, a "Holy Land Protectorate," that would guarantee human rights to the Holy Land's residents without giving specific statehood to any one person or group. Specifically he proposes that peace in the Middle East can be achieved through UN intervention and by using the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 as a model for a nationality-free zone for the peoples of Israel/Palestine.
Heck is emeritus professor at Ohio State University and a noted scholar, musicologist, and academic librarian. His proposal hasn't caught on yet, but it could. You can learn more about it and interact with him at his website: The Holy Land Protectorate.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 11:17 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2003
While Yasser Arafat had been considered irrelevant to the peace process in Palestine, now he is so important that Israel wants to expel him—or kill him. This sounds like "regime change" language, doesn't it? But that isn't my point. Two of the world's leading religions are killing each other and the one nation so richly blessed with prosperous Christians is swaggering around the Middle East with the very same plan for peace.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 2:26 PM
Hee-Haw! According to the New York Times yesterday we have currently spent $166 billion for our excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a military spending spree of $4 billion per month to keep this going. In the Congressional Budget Office's best-case scenario of two weeks ago, what was once a predicted $5.6 trillion surplus for the next decade has fallen to a $2.3 trillion deficit. There is no doubt that our children will be paying for this. And not only will we be dipping into our retirement accounts to pay for this moral mistake, but we are now also taking away both our own children's inheritance and the ability of America to benefit the peoples of the world through the generosity of a prosperous nation.
What surprises and frustrates me most is that these decisions are being made, or at least lauded, by the very generation that saw the dismal failure of our government's decisions in Southeast Asia. We spoke out against it, we ridiculed the domino-theory of Communism's spread, we fought in the streets over this, we were gassed or beaten or killed in protests over this, we wasted a good part of life in strife over this ideology—and so now what? We walk around like angry conspirators, trumpeting the domino-theory of terrorism, hopping in the back of our president's pick-up truck, and locking-and-loading our guns for a shoot-out with them evil A-rabs. We are becoming the very people who wanted us to Jeez if you love honkus.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 12:25 PM
© Merle Harton, Jr. All rights reserved. Biblical references are NIV® unless otherwise noted.
