The Laborers in the Vineyard: Putting Humor to Work

Donald Capps

Published online: 14 January 2012# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract This article focuses on Jesus’ parable popularly known as “The Laborers in theVineyard” (Matt. 20:1–16). I propose that a psychoanalytic reading of the parable offersinsights that are missing or overlooked in more traditional readings. In support of thisproposal, I discuss the interpretation of the parable by Richard Q. Ford (1997) and hisemphasis on the critical role of the listener in effecting the reconciliation of disputing parties;and then turn to Freud’s analysis of beggar jokes (Freud 1905/1960) to explore thegenerosity vs. envy issue to which the landowner alludes in his response to the complainingworkers. I also employ Freud’s view that humor (Freud 1927/1963) reflects the superego’scomforting side to suggest that humor may assist in the effort to get the disputing parties tolisten to one another and even perhaps to resolve their differences.

Keywords Jesus . Parable of laborers in the vineyard . Richard Q. Ford . Justice . Honor .

Humiliation . Underemployment . Listening . Sigmund Freud . Envy . Generosity . Humor .

Beggar jokes . Superego . Imagination

Introduction

The parable popularly known as “The Laborers in the Vineyard” is in the Gospel of Matthewand no other gospel, including the Gospel of Thomas:

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hirelaborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, hesent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw othersstanding idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard,and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again aboutnoon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out andfound others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all

Pastoral Psychol (2012) 61:555–571DOI 10.1007/s11089-011-0422-z

D. Capps (*)Princeton Theological Seminary, PO Box 821, Princeton, NJ 08542-0803, USAe-mail: cappsdonald@aol.com

day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also gointo the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to hismanager, “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and thengoing to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them receivedthe usual daily wage. Now, when the first came, they thought they would receivemore; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it,they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, andyou have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and thescorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; didyou not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take whatever belongs to you and go;I chose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what Ichoose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt.20:1–16 NRSV)

When I was a professor at The Graduate Seminary at Phillips University in Enid,Oklahoma, I usually taught an elective course in the summer. The classes were small andrather informal, with quite a lot of discussion and friendly banter among the students whogenerally knew one another quite well. One summer I gave all of the students a B+ as theirfinal grade. No one, in my judgment, had done stellar work but all had done good work. Afew days after they received their grades, Stephanie phoned and asked to talk with me. Whenwe met she said she had a complaint about the grades. I asked, “Was your grade too low?”She replied, “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that you gave Cynthia and me the samegrade and I worked a lot harder.” She added that they are close friends so she knew thatCynthia didn’t work as hard.

I said that I thought I knew how she felt and suggested that we do this: “You go home andread the parable in the twentieth chapter of the gospel of Matthew about the laborers in thevineyard, and then if you still feel this way, let me know and we’ll talk again.” She laughedand said, “I get the point.” We talked a bit longer about her plans for the rest of the summer,and she left.

Stephanie said she “got the point,” but this very response raises some interesting ques-tions as we consider the parable itself. In effect, she saw the connection between thelandowner who had chosen to act generously toward the workers who had come later andmy decision to give all the students in the class the same grade. She had also providedcompelling evidence—that she worked harder than Cynthia—that I had done what thelandowner had done, exercising my right to give some of the students a better grade thanthey had actually earned or deserved.1

As this episode occurred a decade or so before the New Revised Standard Version(NRSV) of the Bible was first published (in 1989), I would have assumed that the land-owner’s question to the early worker was “Do you begrudge my generosity?” (RSV) and Iwould have been implying that Stephanie was not merely complaining that Cynthia got agrade equal to her own grade—even though Cynthia did not work as hard—but that she wasalso begrudging my generosity toward Cynthia and any other student who might not havedeserved a grade as high as a B+. On the other hand, on being informed that I considered this

1 If the Dean of the Seminary had been aware of my having done so, he may have challenged this “right” onthe grounds that grades do not ultimately belong to the professor but to the institution. He would also havesuggested that I was contributing to the problem of “grade inflation,” a term that also has economicassociations. There was, in fact, a demonstrable connection between its emergence as a perceived “educationalproblem” in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the fact that the costs of a higher education had increaseddramatically during this same time period.

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an instance of generosity she could well have felt that, in that case, she should have receivedan A- or even an A. As the parable indicates, the first group of workers felt that, in theinterests of fairness, the landowner should at least have given them a bonus.2

But although I invoked the landowner’s own point, this does not necessarily mean thatthis is the point of the parable itself. Jesus, who told the parable, may have been making avery different point. Or perhaps he was not making a point but simply encouraging listenersto reflect on the various issues the parable raises and draw their own conclusions. At thisjuncture, I will not try to settle this question. Instead, I want to look more closely at what isgoing on in the parable, and to initiate this exploration, I will consider the insights of RichardQ. Ford.

Recovering the art of listening

At the time he wrote The Parables of Jesus: Recovering the Art of Listening (Ford 1997)Richard Q. Ford was a clinical psychologist in private practice in Williamstown, Massachu-setts. His psychoanalytic orientation is reflected in the fact that he coauthored a book titledTherapeutic Change: An Object Relations Perspective (Blatt and Ford 1994).

In the introduction Ford states that the book “is written by a clinical psychologist longinterested in responding to these brief, enigmatic stories with the particular ways of listeningpracticed by psychotherapists” (p. 1). He discusses the parable which he names “Laborersand a Landowner” in a chapter in which he also discusses the interchange between the fatherand elder brother in the parable of “The Prodigal Son,” which he renames “Two Sons and aFather.” His discussion of the two parables begins with the following observationconcerning the contemporary listener to the parable: “Listeners familiar with these stories’Gospel contexts may have difficulty trusting the full range of their feelings. Because theyhave learned to assume that the beneficiaries of the superiors’ generosity—the late-comingworkers and the returning younger son—represent late-coming Christians, such listenersmay not readily allow into awareness their sympathies for the hard-working early laborersand the hard-working elder son” (p. 109).

2 If Stephanie had said that she felt she deserved a higher grade I would have given it to her. In fact, I was onthe verge of asking her if she would feel better if I simply raised her grade to an A- or an Awhen it occurred tome that we were, in a sense, reenacting the parable of the vineyard workers, and I took this approach instead.Interestingly enough, my intention to give her whatever she asked for brings up another parable of Jesus, thatof “The Widow and the Unjust Judge” (Luke 18:1–8). In my article “Pastoral Images: The Good Samaritanand the Unjust Judge” (Capps 2009) I suggested that the parable of the widow and the unjust judge “has thevirtue of presenting a character whom we would not consider an exemplary model of moral behavior, andtherefore it has the potential for engaging us at a deeper metaphorical level.” This is because it cannot be readas a simple moral tale: The judge, after all, “does not claim to be acting out of compassion, or a sense ofaltruism, or any other exemplary motive. On the contrary, he acted out of a rather selfish need to protecthimself from being bothered and a fear that the widow could wear him out.” But this, I suggested, “is whatmakes the unjust judge so perversely appealing as a pastoral image.” I added that “there’s little chance thatthose who adopt the unjust judge as an image of the pastor will ever confuse themselves with God, unless, ofcourse, they believe that there is a bit of the unjust judge in God as well” (p. 11). If I had thought of it, I mightalso have noted that although the judge did not act out of any discernible exemplary motive, he did exhibit acertain capacity for self-care. My decision to write about this parable was prompted by another grading case inwhich a student came to complain about his grade and proceeded to give me reasons (which he had writtendown on a sheet of paper) for why he should get at “A.” I interrupted him and told him I’d tell the Registrar tochange the grade to an “A” but instead of expressing his satisfaction he proceeded to give me more reasons forwhy he should get an “A.” A bit irritated at this point, I stood up as if to suggest that our conversation wasover. This was my first and only experience of a student leaving my office angry because I had given him an“A.”

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He notes that the elder son’s anger and the early laborers’ resentment “are founded on awidely accepted premise,” namely, that “because I have worked harder and more faithfully, Ishould be given more” (p. 109). The element of comparison here is central. One reasons, “IfI work at the same task longer or more effectively than others, I deserve ‘more’ (and ‘more’is always relative),” but the father and the landowner do not buy this argument, for “eachinsists that the complainers have already received all that is coming to them” (p. 110). Inother words, there are no grounds for providing them a “bonus.”

Ford believes that some listeners will find “that their uncomfortable feelings persist,” foris it not possible that the elder brother and the early workers have reason to be upset? Then,however, these listeners may mistrust this nagging doubt because the elder brother and theearly workers complaint “seems to challenge the generosity” of the father and the landown-er: “How can one question generosity, particularly when its providers have been faithful totheir promises?” (p. 110).

At this point, Ford begins to focus on each of the two parables individually. I will notdiscuss what he says about the parable of “The Father and Two Sons” but will instead focuson his interpretation of the parable of “The Laborers and the Landowner.” He begins with theobservation that the parable may well be exploring a pervasive conflict present in first-century Roman-occupied Jewish Palestine, namely, that this small, crossroads country hadfor centuries been mediating between two contending cultural perspectives: the Greco-Roman norm of civilized custom and the Hebraic norm of divine justice. Whereas theformer likely had the allegiance of the landed aristocracy, who had been steadily expropri-ating peasant land and forcing land-owning peasants into the marginal under-class of daylaborers, the latter, especially because it incorporated the concept that the land belonged toGod, probably remained far more attractive to the vulnerable peasants.

While noting that this conflict is not made explicit in the parable itself, Ford nonethelesspoints out that the landowner focuses on “rights” rather than an appeal to “justice,” i.e., hetells the early workers that he will pay them “whatever is right” and says to the worker whohas complained that “I am doing you no wrong,” that he has paid them what they had“agreed” to. Ford notes, however, that the parable itself moves between these two verydifferent understandings of “what is right” (the Hellenistic norm) and “what is just” (theHebraic norm), and does so largely because the landowner himself is conflicted. His earlymorning agreement with the laborers seems to reflect this very ambiguity, as his use of theword “right” may be construed either as “what is right according to custom” or “what is justin the eyes of God.” However, by evening he “claims to be limiting himself merely to what islawful” and “is no longer appealing, albeit ambiguously, to what might be understood asGod’s ways; he has now limited himself to customary legal obligations” (p. 116).

On the other hand, he “cannot seem to free himself from his ambivalent desire to fit intothe Hebraic norm,” for his assertion that he is doing the early laborer “no wrong” couldmeanthat he is doing him “no injustice,” so we may have here at least “the echo of his earlierseeming promise to be just” (p. 116). But is it anything more than a mere echo? For, after all,his earlier assurance that he will pay the early laborers “what is just” seems to be contra-dicted by his late evening query, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs tome?” Ford suggests that what seems to be central here is “the conflicted effort of thelandowner, possessed both with unchecked power and with the desire to appear just, topursue self-interest under the guise of apparent rectitude” (p. 117).

Moreover, only his own definition of what constitutes the customary wage—without anyinput from the laborers—becomes the basis for any later decision about what might beperceived as generosity. His assertion that the laborer collaborated in setting the day’s wages(“Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?”) “represents either self-deception or

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else a deliberate insult.” He knows full well that in light of the obvious unemployment of daylaborers—as reflected in the fact that with each return to the marketplace throughout the dayhe found workers standing around idly—“none of these laborers can bargain with him.”Although he can appeal to the fact that there is a “customary daily wage,” it is “insulatedfrom any criteria of divine justice” and “open to no outside challenge.” Yet “he chooses todescribe himself as someone entering into agreement with persons capable of independentbargaining, not as someone able to dominate a class of laborers wholly vulnerable to his self-interest” (p. 117). And yet:

In a world of unequally distributed resources and subsistence daily wages, thelandowner in fact cannot realize his ambition to “pay what is just” out of what“belongs” to him until much more of what belongs to his landowning class belongsto the day-laborer class. If one believes that in his desire to be good the landowner isaspiring to justice, then at issue that evening may not be a decision about the worth oftwelve hours of labor but rather a judgment about hundreds of years of land-grabbing.Because the underlying inequalities on which he depends would not permit it, thelandowner’s generosity cannot produce substantive change. To maintain his position, thisaristocrat must continue to pay his laborers less than subsistence wages. (pp. 117–118)

Ford concludes his interpretation of the parable by drawing a contrast between thevoicelessness of the early laborers and the too-insistent voice of the landowner. Althoughthe early workers sense that something is wrong they are unable to articulate the problem.They “have awareness sufficient only to accept the superior’s definition of what is ‘lawful’or ‘customary’” for, because they have never experienced “a framework of justice, they lackthe resources to imagine its contours” (p. 118). Such work, Ford suggests, “falls to the listener,”and in that regard, contemporary listeners “may have a hard time estimating the sufficiency ofthe customary wage of a denarius a day but they should have no difficulty judging which partyin this landowner-laborer twosome actually determined how much that customary wagewould be—and how that party might rationalize a less-than-equitable amount” (p. 118).

The contemporary listener may also suspect that the early workers’ contention that if thelate arrivals received a denarius for one hour’s work then surely twelve hours work should beworth more than a denarius functions “as a large distraction.” Why? Because what may be“both central and hidden is how the landowner (all the time making less than subsistencewages his benchmark) chooses to call upon both laborers and listeners alike to recognize himas someone who is generous and even someone who is just.” To be sure, if one fails to notice“his prior position of total control over the essential definitions, the landowner indeedappears to be generous,” and yet, “oppressed peoples the world over are endlessly familiarwith the difference between what is held out to them as lawful and what they themselvesperceive to be just” (p. 118).3

Thus, in Ford’s view, “the anger of the early laborers may be located not only in theirresponse to perceived inequity but also in their inarticulate reaction to the landowner’sunacknowledged arrogance” (p. 118). While they may not be able to articulate what’s wrong,they “are acutely sensitive to the way in which this aristocrat unilaterally defines whodeserves what—and especially to how he dares, relying on such prejudiced definitions, todeclare himself ‘good’” (pp. 118–119).

3 Ford’s distinction here between what is held out to a person as lawful and what one perceives to be just isillustrated by a joke I heard when I was a young boy: Awealthy man disembarked from a taxi and handed thedriver the exact fare. The driver expecting a tip, frowned as he examined the money. Noticing his frown, thewealthy man said, “It’s correct, isn’t it?” to which the driver replied, “Yes sir, it’s correct, but it ain’t right.”

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As for the “too-insistent voice” of the landowner, Ford notes that the landowner seems tohave “a need to portray himself as good” and wonders why he is “not content merely toexploit?”Why, for example, does he spend so much energy going not once but several timesto the marketplace? Why doesn’t he send his manager? And why is he so interested indefending his actions to his day laborers? Why not let his manager deal with them? Fordwonders if his careful calculation of his generosity is a sign of his self-doubt and notes thathe goes “a long way out of his way—too far, in my judgment—in order to make his case”(p. 119).

So what is going on here? Ford writes: “I believe the landowner fails to estimate his laborneeds efficiently because he has another goal in mind. At the start of the day he knows fullwell what he hopes to accomplish at its end: he intends to demonstrate his goodness. Thiswealthy man goes himself four times to the marketplace not only in search of labor but alsoin search of honor.”4 Ford suggests that the longing for honor may account for the land-owner’s reversal of the customary order in which laborers are paid. Agreeing with WilliamHerzog’s (1994) view that the owner’s intent with this reversal is “to humiliate the earlyworkers,” Ford adds that that this “need to shame others (he could have given everyone aproportionate bonus) is evidence of anxiety about shamefulness in himself” (p. 119). To besure, he does not openly declare his desire for honor. Rather,

He crafts a drama designed to put blame on his victims and in the process elevatehimself. By demeaning the worth of their only possession, their labor, he deliberatelyhumiliates the early workers. He then counters their predictably angry response with aprepared appeal to his generosity . . . . The owner, by a careful engineering of hissubordinate’s response, enables himself to exit from this drama reassured of his ownrectitude. He leaves, moreover, convinced that any anger in his laborers representsmerely their envy of his sudden generosity—and could not possibly be the result of hischronic stinginess. (pp. 120–121)

Ford, however, believes that “the landowner, by the evidence of his insistent efforts, willremain uncertain of his honor,” and that his very immersion in a religious culture tradition-ally focused on justice places him in a dilemma, for “how can he participate in exploitingothers and still go about believing himself to be an honorable man?” (p. 120).5

Ford concludes this chapter with a suggestion that has direct bearing on our earlierquestion concerning the “point” of the parable. He writes: “These parables may be proposingthat the kingdom of God, or the reign of God, or the intent of God, or the longing of God(however one terms this core element of Jesus’ teaching), may be found in that opening up ofspace between the misunderstandings of two persons—or of two social classes, or of twonations—where some possibility of creative reconciliation might be grasped.” If so, “The

4 In point of fact, he went out to the marketplace five times—early morning, nine o’clock, noon, three o’clockand five o’clock. This, of course, does not negatively affect Ford’s argument.5 John D. Crossan discusses the honor-and-shame ideology in Mediterranean societies in The Historical Jesus(Crossan 1991, pp. 9–15). He quotes John G. Peristiany (1965), who emphasizes that “honor-and-shame arethe constant preoccupation of individuals in small scale, exclusive societies where face to face personal, asopposed to anonymous relations are of paramount importance and where the social personality of the actor isas significant as his office” (quoted on p. 10). Thus, within the exclusive group, honor-and-shame relation-ships are well-defined, non-overlapping, and non-competitive. Outside the group, however, honor-shamerankings are insecure and unstable for “where nothing is accepted on credit, the individual is constantly forcedto prove and assert himself,” and “he is constantly ‘on show’” and “forever courting the public opinion of his‘equals’ so that they may pronounce him worthy” (quoted on p. 10). This security within the family andinsecurity outside the family is true for all levels of society. A member of the lower classes is not, for example,exempt from this requirement to prove himself worthy (see also Capps 2010, pp. 98–103).

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work of the listener may be to imagine how, in spite of these polarizing and infuriatingimpasses, each based on the seemingly beneficent use of wealth, both parties might findways to speak more honestly to the other” (p. 121). In the concluding chapter of the book, hesuggests that the purpose of Jesus’ parables was “to evoke in the hearer both how things areand how God yearns for them to be.” In other words,

God entrusts to the listener the way things are and waits, with hope, for the listener todiscern how they are meant to be . . . . God relies on the hearer both to discover what iswrong and to reach for its corrective . . . . Thus, these parables entrust their outcomesto those outside their boundaries; the listener alone is empowered to determine notonly what has happened but what will happen. (p. 122)

In this view, it makes little sense to say that a character in the story—the father in the“Two Sons and a Father” parable or the landowner in the “Laborers and a Landowner”—is“a figure for God” (p. 118). Nor would it be accurate to say that what happens in the story isan illustration of how it is in the kingdom of God. Rather, the parable depicts a humansituation and asks the listener to identify what is wrong with this picture. But it does not tellthe listener what would make it right.

And neither does Ford. His analysis of “The Laborers and a Landowner,” for example, islargely diagnostic. It makes a convincing case for the inarticulateness of the laborers and thetoo insistent voice of the landowner, but it does not address the issue of how “both partiesmight find ways to speak more honestly to the other” (p. 121). He leaves this task to thelistener and more specifically to the listener’s imagination.

In the concluding chapter, however, he says a bit more about how this might occur:Supposing that in your previous hearings of the story, you found yourself taking sides. Forexample, in the case of the landowner and early laborers, you sided with the landowner oryou sided with the laborer whom the landowner chooses to address, calling him “Friend.”What if, instead, you assumed “a new position of listening that leads to greater complexity.”You would perceive the dynamics that Ford has brought out in his analysis of the parable andimagine “a gradually developing give and take between the parable participants” (p. 131).You would ask, “What changes would enable these two persons to hear each other differ-ently?” This very question may not only enable you to imagine how they might listen to oneanother but also invite a similar imaginative reflection on how you might change in order tobecome a better listener (p. 132).

Toward a new position of listening

Although Ford has psychoanalytic leanings, his interpretation of the parable of “TheLaborers and a Landowner” is not overtly psychoanalytic. Although he cites psychoanalystsPeter Blos (1985), Ronald Fairbairn (1952), James Grotstein (1985), Melanie Klein (1975),Adam Phillips (1988), and D. W. Winnicott (1965) in the book itself, there are no referencesto psychoanalytic authors in his discussion of this parable. This, of course, does not meanthat his interpretation of the parable is not psychoanalytically informed, for as the foregoingdiscussion indicates, he draws on various psychoanalytic concepts, especially in his analysisof the landowner’s behavior. I believe, however, that Freud’s writings on humor (Freud1905/1960, 1927/1963) provide insights into how the disputing parties may begin to listen toone another and even, perhaps, resolve their differences.

To set the stage for this discussion of humor, I want to return to the illustration involvingthe grades I gave to the students in my summer elective course and consider my evocation of

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the landowner’s question, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matt. 20:15b RSV). Tobegrudge means (1) to feel ill-will or resentment at the possession or employment of(something) by another (to begrudge another’s fortune); (2) to give with ill will or reluctance(he begrudges them every cent); and (3) to regard with displeasure or disapproval (Agnes2001, p. 131). Since Stephanie and I were discussing the grades I had given the students, thesecond definition is irrelevant for there was no ill-will or reluctance in my giving them thegrades that I did. The third definition is quite clearly relevant because Stephanie wasdispleased with and disapproved of the grade I gave to her friend Cynthia. Whether shewas displeased with and/or disapproved of my having given all of the students the samegrade after learning that I had done so is less clear as we simply did not discuss it. I believe,however, that from her perspective, this was a questionable procedure, and, quite likely,unfair and unjust, especially to students who “worked harder” than others did.

The first definition did not even occur to me until I read the NRSV translation of thelandowner’s question: “Are you envious because I am generous?” It would probably havebeen accurate to say that Stephanie was envious of Cynthia because she got the same gradebut didn’t have to work as hard for it, but could she have been envious of my freedom orlicense to be generous toward those students who did not work as hard yet received the samegrade?6

Much as I have tried to imagine this possibility, it doesn’t seem very likely. But, if so, thismay be because neither of us would view this particular form of freedom or license to be anespecially enviable one, not to mention the fact that some would question whether I had thisparticular freedom at all (see footnote 1). This may well be the point, therefore, where theanalogy between this episode and the one recounted in the parable breaks down, for in asocial context in which some persons are wealthy and getting wealthier and other persons areat best living at a subsistence level, the freedom to act generously toward others is likely tobe an enviable position to be in, not only because it means that one possesses financialresources that exceed one’s own needs and desires, but also because acting generously islikely to contribute to the esteem with which one is held by others and to enhance one’s ownsense of self-esteem. The person who lives on subsistence wages will never experience thegood feelings that often accompany expressions of generosity.7

There is no reason to question Ford’s (1997) view that the laborers were essentiallyvoiceless and that the landowner had total control over how a day’s wages would be defined

6 In Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues (Capps 2000) I suggest that the deadly sin of envy comes into its own inthe “school-age” stage of the life cycle (roughly 5–12 years of age) because this is the stage when childrenbecome aware of the advantages (cognitive, physical, material, etc.) that some children have over otherchildren (pp. 39–44). I note that envy is not always a bad thing, that there are times when it has positive effects,for example, it may be “a resource for protesting the injustices of life” and it may also arouse “the desire toacquire goods and qualities by meritorious effort” (p. 41). On the other hand, it may provoke the desire for orovert actions of revenge and it may also immobilize or render one impotent. I suggest that emulation is a betterway of dealing with envy than revenge, though I also acknowledge that emulation does not eliminate naturalinjustices.7 In the King James Version, the landowner asks the worker he identifies as “Friend”: “Is thine eye evil,because I am good?” Belief in the evil eye was widespread in the Mediterranean region in Jesus’ day Crossan(1991) cites David Gilmore’s (1982) statement that it is “one of the oldest continuous religious constructs inthe Mediterranean area” p. 7). Freud sheds light on the landowner’s question in “The ‘Uncanny’” (Freud 1919/2003) in his identification of the dread of the evil eye as attributed envy: “Anyone who possess somethingprecious, but fragile, is afraid of the envy of others, to the extent that he projects on to them the envy he wouldhave felt in their place.” He adds that one is likely to believe that the envy will reach a particular intensity andthat this intensity will be converted into effective action, so that “What is feared is thus a covert intention toharm, and on the strength of certain indications it is assumed that this intention can command the necessaryforce” (pp. 146–147).

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(p. 118). Nor is there any reason to doubt that the landowner was engaging in a calculatedcrafting of a drama “designed to put blame on his victims and in the process elevate himself”(pp. 119–120) or that “by a careful engineering of his subordinate’s response” he was able“to exit from the drama reassured of his own rectitude” (p. 120).

On the other hand, he may well have been aware of his own vulnerability due to what hebelieved to be the envious feelings of the laborers toward him. Members of the lower socialclasses could—and did—destroy the sources of the wealth of members of the higher socialclasses. The chance to work in his vineyard might be the laborers’ only means of supportingthemselves (albeit at a barely subsistence level, if that), but frustration with their lives andseeing no hope for a better future, they might decide to enter the vineyard some nightand steal the fruit or even set fire to the vines. If they did, would he have the powerto stop them?

It is noteworthy, however, that the dispute that Jesus as story-teller imagines is between menwho view themselves as men of honor. After all, the early laborers appeal to the fact that theyworked all day, through the scorching heat of themidday, and their complaint is not in reference toall of the other laborers, but those who worked “only an hour” (v. 12). Similarly, the landownerappeals to the fact that he did not, after all, cheat any of the workers or give any of them less thanwas their due. So perhaps the fundamental problem here is that they truly want to bemen of honorbut feel that the social world into which they have been thrust is conspiring against them.

Ford emphasizes the landowner’s total control over the laborers (and thus refers to thelaborers as “victims”), but there is also a sense in which the landowner has relatively littlepersonal control in a society in which there is rampant unemployment and a social class structurethat is riddledwith inequities.While wewould not expect the laborers to have any sympathies forhim, perhaps we—the listeners—can hear his own plea for understanding in the very awkward-ness of his projection onto the laborers of the envy he would have felt in their place. His apparentneed to demean them in order to maintain his own sense of honor may be a function of this veryprojection. But, in any case, Ford’s contention that these men need to get beyond their currentimpasse is absolutely crucial. The question is how this might happen. I believe that Freud’sdiscussion of beggar jokes in his book on jokes (Freud 1905/1960) points the way.

Beggar jokes

The beggar jokes are in the chapter on the purposes of jokes. Freud begins this chapter with acomment on an analogy that he had mentioned at the end of the preceding chapter made bythe German poet and essayist Heinrich Heine between the church and commercial enter-prises. Heine had suggested that the Catholic priest is like an employee in a wholesalebusiness and a protestant minister is like a retail merchant.8 Freud confesses:

I was aware of an inhibition which was trying to induce me not to make use of theanalogy. I told myself that among my readers there would probably be a few who felt

8 In his chapter on the motives of jokes Freud (1905/1960) notes that Heine was Jewish but converted toChristianity at the age of twenty-seven. He changed his first name from Harry to Heinrich when he wasbaptized (p. 173). Freud suggests that there is bit of self-parody in Heine’s creation of a comic character namedHirsch, a Hamburg lottery-agent, extractor of corns, professional appraiser, and valet of Baron CristoforoGumpelino who changed his name to Hyacinth. Heine explains that there was an advantage to changing itfrom Hirsch to Hyacinth for because he already had an “H” on his signet ring he did not have to have a newone cut (p. 172). It is also worth noting that Heine’s witticism about a Catholic priest and a protestant ministeris virtually begging for a third—a Jewish rabbi—to transform it into a full-fledged joke (see Tapper and Press2000).

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respect not only for religion but for its governors and assistants. Such readers wouldmerely be indignant about the analogy and would get into an emotional state whichwould deprive them of all interest in deciding whether the analogy had the appearanceof being a joke on its own account or as a result of something extra added to it. (p. 106)

In other words, these readers would focus on the analogy’s content and not on the problemwith which Freud was concerned in his analysis of how jokes work.

I mention Freud’s awareness of this inhibition relating to Catholic and Protestant clericsbecause I suspect that he experienced a similar inhibition regarding the jokes that concern ushere, as these jokes are clearly Jewish jokes, and he would have been aware that some of hisJewish readers would object to his use of Jewish jokes that may cast Jews in a rather badlight, especially at a time when Germany and Austria were experiencing a revival of anti-Semitism (see Gilman 1993a, b). He notes that the jokes that he relates in this chapter “havegrown up on the soil of Jewish popular life” and “are stories created by Jews and directedagainst Jewish characteristics” (p. 133). They include jokes about marriage-brokers (Schad-chens) and beggars (Schnorrers).9 I will discuss the beggar jokes as they are relevant to theeconomic issues raised by the parable of the “Laborers and the Landowner.”

Earlier, Freud suggested that there are two types of jokes—innocent and tendentious—adistinction based on whether or not a joke has “an aim in itself.” Innocent jokes do not havean aim. Tendentious jokes do, and they are of two types: obscene (serving the purpose ofexposure) and hostile (serving the purpose of aggressiveness, satire, or defense) (pp. 114–115). The beggar jokes are presented in the section of the chapter that examines jokes whichserve a hostile purpose.

He begins this section with the observation that from the beginning of human existence“hostile impulses against our fellow men have been subject to the same restrictions, the sameprogressive repression, as our sexual urges” (p. 121). We have not gotten to the point in ourevolution where we are able “to love our enemies or to offer our left cheek after being struckon the right” and furthermore, “all moral rules for the restriction of active hatred give theclearest evidence to this day that they were originally framed for a small society of fellowclansmen” (p. 122). Thus, to the extent that we are able to feel that we are members of onepeople “we allow ourselves to disregard most of these restrictions in relation to a foreignpeople” (p. 122).

On the other hand, “within our own circle we have made some advances in the control ofhostile impulses.” For example: “Brutal hostility, forbidden by law, has been replaced byverbal invective, and a better knowledge of the interlinking of human impulses is more andmore robbing us of the capacity for feeling angry with a fellow man who gets in our way.”Thus, even though “as children we are still endowed with a powerful inherited disposition tohostility, we are later taught by a higher personal civilization that it is an unworthy thing touse abusive language, and even where fighting has in itself remained permissible, thenumber of things which may not be employed as methods of fighting has extraordinarilyincreased” (p. 122). Having been taught to renounce the expression of hostility by deeds—often, a third person whose interest is in preserving personal security restrains the twopotential combatants—we have developed a new form of invective whose aim is to enlistthis third person against our enemy.

9 In The Jokes of Sigmund Freud Elliott Oring (1984) discusses the relevance of Schadchen jokes to Freud’spersonal conflicts relating to his prolonged engagement (four years) and marriage to Martha Bernays and ofSchnorrer jokes to his personal conflicts relating to his reliance on wealthy benefactors during the years thathe was a medical student.

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And this is where jokes come in: “By making our enemy small, inferior, despicable orcomic, we achieve in a roundabout way the enjoyment of overcoming him—to which thethird person, who has made no efforts, bears witness by his laughter” (p. 122). Thus, the jokeallows us “to exploit something ridiculous in our enemy which we could not, on accountof obstacles in the way, bring forward openly or consciously” (pp. 122–123). It “evadesrestrictions and opens sources of pleasure that have become inaccessible” (p. 123).Furthermore, by offering pleasure it bribes the hearer “into taking sides with us withoutany very close investigation” into the fact that it is doing so. This brings us to the jokesabout beggars.

Freud prefaces his discussion of these jokes with the observation that “jokes made aboutJews by foreigners are for the most part brutal comic stories in which a joke is madeunnecessary by the fact that Jews are regarded by foreigners as comic figures” (p. 133).Jewish jokes which originate among Jews admit this comic aspect, but in addition, Jews“know their real faults as well as the connection between them and their good qualities, andthe share which the subject has in the person found fault with creates the subjectivedeterminant (usually so hard to arrive at) of the joke-work” (p. 133). (By ‘subjectivedeterminant’ Freud means that which is in the mind of the person who makes the joke.)He adds that he does not know whether “there are many other instances of a people makingfun to such a degree of its own character” (p. 133).

What is especially noteworthy here is that Jewish jokes not only focus on the awarenessthat Jews have real faults but that there is a connection between these faults and their goodqualities. This connection—and their awareness of it—is directly relevant to the parablebecause both parties to the dispute—the landowner and the early workers—impress thelistener as having “good qualities” (the former for their work ethic, the latter for his desire tobe generous toward the unemployed). The problem is that “real faults” accompany these“good qualities.” And this is what the beggar jokes are designed to reveal but also to makelight of.

Freud introduces these jokes—there are four of them—as an “interesting group of jokes”which portrays “the relation of poor and rich Jews to one another”, adding “Their heroes arethe ‘Schnorrer [beggar]’ and the charitable householder or the Baron” (p. 134; interestinglyenough, the landowner is called “a householder” in the KJV translation of the parable.)Here’s the first one:

A Schnorrer, who was allowed as a guest into the same house every Sunday, appearedone day in the company of an unknown young man who gave signs of being about tosit down to table. “Who is this?” asked the householder. “He’s been my son-in-law,”was the reply, “since last week. I’ve promised him his board for the first year.” (p. 134)

Noting that the purpose of these stories is always the same, Freud suggests that thispurpose emerges most clearly in the next one:

The Schnorrer begged the Baron for some money for a journey to Ostend; his doctorhad recommended sea-bathing for his troubles. The Baron thought Ostend was aparticularly expensive resort; a cheaper one would do equally well. The Schnorrer,however, rejected the proposal with the words: “Herr Baron, I consider nothing tooexpensive for my health.” (p. 134)

Freud explains what is going on in this joke:

The Baron evidently wants to save his money, but the Schnorrer answers as though theBaron’s money was his own, which he may then quite well value less than his health.

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Here we are expected to laugh at the impertinence of the demand; but it is rarely thatthese jokes are not equipped with a façade to mislead the understanding. The truth thatlies behind is that the Schnorrer, who in his thoughts treats the rich man’s money as hisown, has actually, according to the sacred ordinances of the Jews, almost a right tomake this confusion. The indignation raised by this joke is of course directed against aLaw which is highly oppressive even to pious people. (p. 135)

Freud’s reference to the “sacred ordinances” is probably an allusion to the teachings ofRabbi Moses ben Maimonides. As Julie Salamon (2003) observes in her popular treatmentof his views, Maimonides, in his treatise Gifts to the Poor in Book 7 of The Code ofMaimonides (1979), was very explicit about what wealthy persons were expected to do forthe poor: “You are commanded to clothe the poor man and buy him furniture. If he isn’tmarried, you are supposed to help him find a wife,” and “If the poor person is a woman, youare supposed to marry her off” (pp. 40–41). Salamon notes that Maimonides’ “ever-expanding template for order bespeaks an overwhelming desire for fairness and good will,”and that although he understood “that quantifying morality might be impossible,” this“didn’t stop him from trying,” so that by the time he “is finished offering instructions onhow the poor should be treated, charity has gone well beyond the tithe to become an intrinsicpart of life” (pp. 41–42).

Given these sacred ordinances—which are unique to the Jewish people—it isunderstandable that the Schnorrer acts as though the Baron’s money is virtually hisown, but no less understandable that even “pious people” would at least secretly findthese ordinances infuriating, especially in a social environment where the traditionaltwo-class system in which the rich and poor were clearly differentiated was beingreplaced with a three-class system in which the distinction between the rich and thepoor was much less apparent. These jokes were especially popular among middle-classJews who resented the obligation to be generous toward persons whom they consideredonly a little worse off than themselves.

The third joke reflects the same theme—the Schnorrer acting as though the rich man’smoney virtually belongs to him anyway—but it adds a new wrinkle, namely, that the beggaris doing the rich man a favor by accepting his charity:

A Schnorrer on his way up a rich man’s staircase met a fellow-member of hisprofession, who advised him to go no further. “Don’t go up today,” he said, “theBaron is in a bad mood today; he’s giving nobody more than one florin.” “I’ll go up allthe same,” said the first Schnorrer. “Why should I give him a florin? Does he give meanything?” (p. 135)

Freud notes that this joke employs the technique of absurdity “since it makes the Schnorrerassert that the Baron gives him nothing at the very moment at which he is preparing to beghim for a gift.” The absurdity, however, “is only apparent” for it “is almost true that the richman gives him nothing, since he is obliged by the Law to give him alms and should, strictlyspeaking, be grateful to him for giving him an opportunity for beneficence.” Freud suggeststhat in this joke the “ordinary, middle-class view of charity is in conflict here with thereligious one” (p. 135).

If this joke reflects a subjective state that is “in conflict” with the religious view ofcharity (the view based on “the sacred ordinances”), the fourth and final joke that Freudpresents is in “open rebellion” against this view. It is the story of the Baron who,deeply moved by a Schnorrer’s tale of woe rang for his servants: ‘Throw him out! He’s

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breaking my heart!’” (p. 135).10 Freud suggests that this joke (and the one preceding it)makes an “open revelation of its purpose” and it is only the fact that it focuses on an“individual case” that it differs from a complaint which is no longer a joke, namely,that there is no real advantage in being a rich man if one is a Jew because “otherpeople’s misery makes it impossible to enjoy one’s own happiness” (p. 135).11

The comforting side of the superego

Freud’s structural division of the mind into the three components of id, ego, and superegowas presented in its mature form in The Ego and the Id (Freud 1921/1962), although manyof its essential elements are prefigured in earlier writings. His discussion of beggar jokes inJokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (Freud 1905/1960) may be viewed as examplesof how the ego finds ways to circumvent the restrictions that are imposed by the superego.

However, in his essay “Humor” (Freud 1927/1963), Freud makes the rather surprisingsuggestion that humor operates under the aegis or sponsorship of the superego. In hisdiscussion of the characteristics of humor, he suggests that humor, like wit and the comic,“has in it a liberating element” (p. 265). But unlike these “other two ways of derivingpleasure from intellectual activity” is also has “something fine and elevating.” What is fineabout humor is “the triumph of narcissism, the ego’s victorious assertion of its owninvulnerability,” its refusal “to be hurt by the arrows of reality or to be compelled to suffer,”and its insistence “that it is impervious to wounds dealt by the outside world, in fact, thatthese are merely occasions for affording it pleasure.” In this sense, humor “is not resigned; itis rebellious.” But it is also elevating in that in its refusal to suffer it “possesses a dignitywhich is wholly lacking, for instance, in wit, for the aim of wit is either simply to affordgratification, or, in so doing, to provide an outlet for aggressive tendencies” (p. 265).Moreover, in its refusal to suffer and its strong assertion of “the invincibility of one’s egoagainst the real world” and victorious upholding of the pleasure principle, it does so “withoutquitting the ground of mental sanity, as happens when other means to the same end areadopted” (p. 266).

How is this possible? Freud suggests that we have the superego to thank for thisachievement. He explains it this way: In his book on jokes he suggested that when oneperson adopts a humorous attitude toward another, he or she is, in effect, “adopting towardsthe other an attitude of an adult towards a child, recognizing and smiling at the triviality of

10 In Jewish Wit the psychoanalyst Theodor Reik (1962), a member of Freud’s early circle, presents the thirdand fourth of these jokes in a section on “the sacred duty of charity.” Then, noting that “the cynical attitude inthese Jewish jokes is not always shown only by the beggar,” that this attitude “sometimes emerges surprisinglyin the person who is irritatingly importuned by the Schnorrer,” he relates the following joke: “One Schnorrercomplains to a rich man that he has not eaten for three days. The millionaire says: ‘Sometimes one has to forceoneself’” (p. 76).11 Freud focuses on beggar jokes that reflect conflicts within the Jewish community. The following beggarjoke has more to do with the fact that Jews are generally a minority group within a given society or culture:Two beggars are sitting on a park bench in Mexico City. One is holding a crucifix and the other a Star ofDavid. Both are holding hats to collect contributions. People walk by and lift their noses at the beggar with theStar of David, and then drop money in the hat held by the beggar with the crucifix. Soon the hat of the beggarwith the crucifix is filled, and the hat of the beggar with the Star of David is still empty. A priest watches andthen approaches the two beggars. He turns to the beggar with the Star of David and says, “Young man, don’tyou realize that this is a Catholic country? You’ll never get any contributions in this country holding a Star ofDavid.” The beggar with the Star of David turns to the beggar with the cross and says, “Moishe, can youimagine, this guy is trying to tell us how to run our business?”

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the interests and sufferings which seem to the child so big.” Thus, “the humorist acquires hissuperiority by assuming the role of the grown-up” while reducing “the other people to theposition of children” (p. 266). But there is another aspect of humor, one that is probably theoriginal and certainly the more important of the two. This is when a person “adopts ahumorous attitude towards himself in order to ward off possible suffering” (p. 267). In asense, he both treats himself like a child and at the same time plays the part of the superioradult in relation to this child.

This is where the superego comes in. Freud notes that the ego and the superego aresometimes impossible to differentiate from one another but in other situations they can besharply differentiated. Self-directed humor is an instance of the latter. By recognizing thatgenetically the superego “inherits the parental function,” often holding the ego in strictsubordination and treating it as the parents treated the child in his early years, we “obtain adynamic explanation of the humorous attitude” (p. 266). In effect, the humorous attitudeinvolves removing the accent from one’s own ego and transferring it to one’s superego. Tothe superego, thus inflated, “the ego can appear tiny and all its interests trivial, and with thisfresh distribution of energy it may be an easy matter for it to suppress the potential reactionsof the ego” (p. 267).

To be sure, the superego is ordinarily “a stern master” and it goes against its basic nature“that it should wink at affording the ego a little gratification” (p. 268). Nor does it normallysuspend reality and serve an illusion. Yet, this is precisely what it does in bringing about thehumorous attitude. By means of humor, it says to the ego, “Look here! This is all that thisseemingly dangerous world amounts to. Child’s play—the very thing to jest about!” Freudconcludes that in light of the fact that the superego “speaks such kindly words of comfort tothe intimidated ego,” we realize “that we have still very much to learn about the nature ofthat energy” (p. 268). But one thing is clear: If the superego “does try to comfort the ego byhumor and to protect it from suffering, this does not conflict with its derivation from theparental function” (p. 269). So although “it is not everyone who is capable of the humorousattitude” and “there are many people who have not even the capacity for deriving pleasurefrom humor when it is presented to them by others,” it is “a rare and precious gift” (pp. 268–269)—it reduces suffering and provides pleasure; and, not incidentally, it reveals a side ofthe superego that would otherwise be hidden from view.

Humor and the possibility of creative reconciliation

How might this exploration of Freud’s reflections on beggar jokes and on the dynamics ofhumor assist us as listeners to the parable of “Laborers and a Landowner,” especially in“imagining a different outcome” (Ford 1997, p. 122), one in which the landowner and theearly laborer whom he addresses as “Friend” find an amicable way to resolve their dispute.What may be especially helpful in this regard is Freud’s emphasis on what he refers to as “theoriginal and more important situation in humor, in which a man adopts a humorous attitudetowards himself in order to ward off possible suffering” and, we may add, afford himself somegenuine pleasure, pleasure which is not, in this case, achieved at another’s expense.

The beggar jokes seem especially useful in this regard as far as the landowner isconcerned. It is clear that for the landowner the “sacred ordinances”‐what Ford calls “theHebraic norm of divine justice” (p. 115) –have become oppressive burdens. His repeatedtrips to the marketplace, his carefully crafted drama designed to demean the early workersand elevate himself, his protestation that he has done the early workers no injustice—all ofthis (as Ford has shown) points to his ambivalences relating to these sacred ordinances.

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In my view—admittedly, merely one among many listeners—he needs to give himself abreak, and this means, practically speaking, that he needs to discover the more indulgent‐andthus comforting—side of the superego as reflected in the joke that Freud tells about theBaron who rang for his servants and told them to throw the Schnorrer out because “he’sbreaking my heart!,” or the joke that Theodore Reik relates about the millionaire who tellsthe Schnorrer who says he hasn’t eaten for three days to “force yourself” (Reik 1962, p. 76).

Ford is certainly right in his observation: “If one believes that in his desire to be good thelandowner is aspiring to justice, then at issue that evening may not be a decision about theworth of twelve hours of labor but rather a judgment about hundreds of years of land-grabbing” (p. 117). But Freud is also right when he notes that the Jewish jokes he relates inhis chapter on the purposes of jokes reflect the Jews’ awareness of the connection betweentheir real faults and their good qualities (Freud 1905/1960, p. 133). Moreover, it would dothe landowner—and the workers whom he employs‐a world of good if he could express hisevident, if unacknowledged, complaint that there “is really no advantage in being a rich man ifone is a Jew” because the misery of others “makes it impossible to enjoy one’s own happiness”(p. 135) in one or another form of self-directed humor. If he truly wants to be a generousman, hemight consider that such humor is “a rare and precious gift”—to himself and to others.

Regarding the early workers, they, too, seem to this listener as no less burdened by asense of their own superiority—as workers-to the other laborers. They tell the landownerthat, unlike those who came to work late in the day, they had to bear “the burden of the dayand the scorching heat” (v. 12). I see no reason to minimize this burden. Twelve hours in thevineyard was certainly hard work. On the other hand, each time the landowner returned tothe marketplace, he found men who were “standing idle,” and we are told that the last oneshired had “stood idle all day” (vs. 3, 6). Theirs is hardly an enviable situation either for theyneeded work to maintain a subsistence level for themselves and those dependent upon them.

If the superegos of both the landowner and the laborer he addresses as “Friend” would cutthem both some slack, this may well be reflected in the way they talk to one another.Admittedly, this is a very big “if.” But Ford (1993) suggests that the parable invites thelistener to imagine the possible (p. 122). I can imagine that one of the early laborers who areintently listening to the conversation might say to the gathering when the landowner asks“Do you begrudge—or envy—my generosity?”: “Funny, that’s exactly what my wife saidthe other night when I caught her in bed with another guy!” This might prompt anotherlaborer in the group to say, “No foolin’?” and a third to say, “He’s telling the truth. I wasthere!” I would like to think that this bit of humor would make everyone laugh—includingthe landowner—and defuse the tension between the landowner and the early workers.

This imagined scenario might work among a bunch of guys. For a journal article like this oneit might be better for the laborer to say, “Funny, that’s exactly what I said to my wife when shecaught me in bed with another woman!” For a Sunday morning sermon, it might simply be bestto raise the idea of a possible reconciling intervention and leave it to the listeners to imaginewhat it might be. But one thing seems clear: for reconciliation to occur, a joke is better than awitty rejoinder that simply raises the ante, such as responding to the landowner’s “Do youbegrudge—or envy—my generosity?” with “No more than you would begrudge—or envy—my youth, my good looks, and the fact that I have fathered three of your children!”12

12 This consideration of possible scenarios raises the issue of the offensiveness of jokes. Readers may beinterested in the experiment I conducted in a class of seminary students reported in my book A Time to Laugh:The Religion of Humor (Capps 2005, pp. 72–76) in which I tested Ted Cohen’s view in his book Jokes:Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters (Cohen 1999, p. 82) that you can find a joke objectionable withouthaving to assert that the joke isn’t funny.

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One final observation from this listener to the parable: The fact that the superego’s role inmaking the humorous attitude possible “does not conflict with its derivation from theparental function” (Freud 1927/1963, p. 269) may also shed some light on what Ford calls“the kingdom of God, or the reign of God, or the intent of God, or the longing of God(however one terms this core element of Jesus’ teaching)” (p. 121). We know from othersayings of Jesus that a distinctive feature of his understanding of God is that God is afather.13 So perhaps—if we look hard enough—we can see that Jesus, his son, has a wink inhis eye as he tells this story, a wink that, as Freud puts it, affords “the ego a littlegratification” (p. 268). Some listeners would call this an act of grace.14

A personal note

When I was a doctoral student I was very much interested in “the theology of work.” I wrotemy oral defense paper on this topic. I noted Erik H. Erikson’s observation in Young ManLuther: “Probably the most neglected problem in psychoanalysis is the problem of work, intheory as well as in practice” (Erikson 1958, p. 17), and suggested that with a few notableexceptions (Chenu 1963) this is also true of theology. The theme of this year’s conference ofthe Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology on the parables and sayings of Jesusenabled me to focus on this early and longstanding interest of mine.

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13 Interestingly enough, Freud (1927/1963) says in his essay on humor that the person who “adopts ahumorous attitude towards others” acquires “his superiority by assuming the role of the grown-up, identifyinghimself to some extent with the father, while he reduces the other people to the position of children” (p. 206).14 If this is what it is—an act of grace-we may view the parable—or, more precisely, the listening developedin this article—as clearing the way for an exploration of the implications of the more liberated understandingof generositymade possible by the landowner’s discovery of the more comforting side of his superego. ArthurW. Frank’s (2004) The Renewal of Generositymay be a useful starting point. By focusing on stories of patientsand health care workers, Frank presents a vision of how “a renewal of generosity among the ill and those whocare for them [may] resonate through the human community” (p. 1). In the concluding chapter, he asks howeach of us may act to restore generosity, and although “responses to this question risk becoming lost inelaborations of institutional complications and menacing possibilities” (the latter of which are usuallyexpressed in financial terms), it is essential that the practice of generosity is “guided by the principle thatfew of us can be more generous to others than we are to ourselves. To be generous, first feel grateful” (p. 142,emphasis in original). In his chapter on theological guidelines for pastoral diagnosis in The Minister asDiagnostician Paul W. Pruyser (1976) proposes the variable of grace or gratefulness, and notes that all thecognates or derivatives of the Latin gratia—i.e., grace, graciousness, gratitude, gratefulness—“have some-thing to do with kindness, generousness, gifts, the beauty of giving and receiving” (p. 69; see also my chapteron “the graceful self” in Capps 2008, pp. 171–191).

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