{"id":440,"date":"2014-06-08T01:05:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T01:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/?p=440"},"modified":"2014-06-08T01:05:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-08T01:05:37","slug":"laborers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/laborers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Workers in the Vineyard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/pdf\/laborers.pdf\">this play about a parable that might have been very bad news to Jesus&#8217; current disciples but which is good news for his present-day ones<\/a>, I decided to emphasize the unconventional nature of the ending by telling it first with a more conventional ending, and by using it to make what seems to be a reasonable and important point. Then, of course, the real parable comes in and demonstrates once again the radical nature of the kingdom.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This might be a useful exercise to go through with every parable. For example, how about a version of the Prodigal Son in which the prodigal is accepted back just like in the original, but with sternness and suspicion, and lives a life of reduced prestige and privilege under the watchful eye of his family from that point forward? Or a version of the Wheat and the Tares in which it&#8217;s not two kinds of seed from the start, but all wheat seeds, only different seeds receive differing levels of care so that some of them prosper while others wilt? Or a version of the master with the unforgiving servant in which the master doesn&#8217;t revoke his forgiveness of the servant because the servant turned around and refused to forgive his peers, but instead initiates a separate punitive action &#8211; or perhaps even forgives the servant for this additional transgression as well?<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this play about a parable that might have been very bad news to Jesus&#8217; current disciples but which is good news for his present-day&hellip;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/laborers\/\" title=\"The Workers in the Vineyard\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineskinproject.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}