In 1907 one of the most important judgements in Australian history was handed down. It set the wage of an unskilled labourer at seven shillings per day. Mr Justice Higgins set that amount as necessary for ‘the normal needs of an average employee living in a civilised country … in conditions of frugal comfort … for a labourer’s home of about five persons.’
Much of that judgement echoes the very words used by Pope Leo XIII in May 1891 in the first social justice encyclical called Rerum Novarum. It dealt precisely with the rights of a ‘thrifty and upright worker’ to receive a just wage to avoid ‘starvation or pauperism’.
Both the encyclical and the judgement rejected the ideology of contract and the marketplace as sufficient to dictate the way in which society should be structured. Both the encyclical and the judgement are in harmony with the attitude of the landowner in today’s gospel.
A day labourer in Jesus’ time needed a day’s wages to save himself and his family from ‘starvation and pauperism’. If those recruited late in the day only received an hour’s pay, which might seem fair in contract or market terms, then his household would go hungry and be reduced to scrounging for the bare necessities of life. The landowner recognised the situation and ensured that the day labourers hired late in the day not only got the dignity of work but the wages necessary for the dignity of life.
For a century or so, the very structure of Australian society with its redistribution of wealth through award wages for employees was built on the Catholic social justice teaching of 1891 which, in turn, was based on the Gospel.
Today, the Catholic Church has lost the sort of influence on social policy which it had in the early years of Federation. But, the Gospel still reverberates in its call for an economic system which meets the needs of all people and is just and sustainable. In 2017 the Social Justice Statement was entitled, ‘Everyone’s Business: Developing an inclusive and sustainable economy’. It would not be appropriate in a homily to try to summarise its description of present day Australian society as a scene of growing inequity despite decades of dramatically increasing economic growth.
But it would be appropriate to quote Pope Francis, speaking from a global perspective and coming from a nation where the distribution of wealth is so much more inequitable than in Australia:
‘Before all else, I would restate my conviction that a world economic system that discards men, women and children because they are no longer considered useful or productive according to criteria drawn from the world of business or other organisations, is unacceptable, because it is inhumane. This lack of concern for persons is a sign of regression and dehumanisation in any political or economic system.’
The parables of Jesus are, amongst other things, designed to teach us how human beings should live together in a just and humane society. In today’s Gospel he paints part of the picture of the Kingdom of Heaven he is trying bring down to earth. Of course, as with the early workers in the vineyard, there will be those who grumble and worse. But we are obliged, as followers of Jesus, to make the landowner’s practice a reality in our own political and economic system. Otherwise, how can we pray with authenticity the Our Father? “Our Father … thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and then to express solidarity with the whole of humanity: “Give us this day our daily bread”?
© Rev Prof Michael Tate, https://www.liturgyhelp.com/calendar/date/2026Sep20/0/HomMiTa