I work at an adult education program in DC, providing career services to young adults at a time when the job market in the DC metro area is weak in general and particularly bad for entry-level workers. Many are struggling to find even minimum wage jobs. So when I read the parable of the workers in the vineyard, I immediately see those “others” – the ones standing in the marketplace all day, hoping for a chance their labor would be needed.*
He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
You almost get the sense that the vineyard owner doesn’t need the help so much as he wants to provide opportunity. This has me wondering: in an economy where so many are struggling to make ends meet, what is the role of the church? Can churches become an engine for job opportunities? Should they?
I don’t have clear answers to this. I am a member of a community that has always been a “do-it-yourself church” – we pride ourselves on being run not with professional clergy, but by spirit-filled volunteers who take on everything from preaching sermons to changing the lightbulbs. We pay for just a handful of services, preferring to use our church funds to give generously to organizations in our community and around the world that are doing the good work of peace and justice. But I find myself wondering if there’s an opportunity we are missing.
This parable gives us a vision of the world where even the last ones are given the opportunity to do the work, and to be paid fairly and generously. It’s a world I’d be happy to live in.
--Erica Lloyd, Seekers Church
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I learned of Wendell Berry’s passing the day I sat down to write this reflection, and I knew he must have had something to interesting to say about work. I wasn’t disappointed. Wendell Berry on Work provides good food for thought.
