Last time we meditate on this gospel passage we concluded that the owner of the vineyard was fair to all the laborers he had hired when he paid those who worked only one hour exactly the same amount he gave to the laborers who worked the whole day.
Today I would like to talk about unemployment from a Christian perspective. The first thing that I would like to point out is the lack of sensitivity in our society. We tend to become indifferent to certain things when we don’t have to deal with them. Having a monthly income out of employment, or investments, or rental property, or retirement gives us comfort and assurance and quite often that hinders our ability to understand the drama of those who do not have a job. We can see that lack of empathy among the workers of the vineyard themselves: the ones who were hired earlier didn’t understand the drama of those who spent most of the day looking for a job; the ones who worked the whole day were not aware of their blessings; their lack of empathy made them grumble against their employer and made them see their fellow workers as rivals. How we see others has a huge impact on our own lives.
The ones who, according to the parable, worked the whole day were not very sympathetic toward the ones who labored for one hour only. The former drew conclusions without putting themselves in the latter’s shoes. That happens too often in our society. There is this tendency nowadays to blame the poor, the homeless and the unemployed for their situation. The idea that the poor are poor because they are lazy or stupid is quite widespread.
There are many negative stereotypes about the unemployed, the poor and the homeless and mass media is helping to pass on those misconceptions. Mass media is not any more a source of information; networks and agencies owned by politicians and oligarchs manipulate the information before it is presented to the public. Mass media, as a whole, is not a public service anymore since it doesn’t serve the public at all; most of it serves the elite and helps them achieve their goals by manipulating the information presented to the public.
News shows don’t just tell us what happened, they tell us how we should see what they talk about, how we should feel about it and how we should react to it. A widespread assumption is that the unemployed are lazy, that they just want to enjoy a carefree lifestyle by living on welfare. In reality, most of the unemployed do want to work and earn their way through life; they want meaningful jobs and are willing work hard and earn a living. My heart goes out to the unemployed: they not only have to deal with uncertainty and the lack of financial resources to pay their bills but also with the scorn from society.
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the unemployed. We need to be more empathic; everybody is having a hard time right now but all those without a job or a source of income are having a much more difficult time. As we give thanks to God for our jobs or our sources of income let us also pray for all those who are looking for a job that God may open doors for them to new opportunities and equip them with the skills, knowledge, and wisdom they need to be productive and successful workers.