The Parables of r/JerusalemLife

The parables work as Reddit posts because they were already Reddit posts.

I. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) as r/AmItheAsshole

r/AmItheAsshole | Posted by u/LevitePriest_JTDL | 6 hours ago

AITA for walking past a dying man on the Jericho Road because I had temple duties?

OK so (42M, Levite, temple musician) I was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho yesterday for a regional service assignment. About halfway down the road I see this guy lying in the ditch. Clearly been robbed. Beaten badly. Stripped naked. Possibly dead, possibly not.

Here’s the thing. I had to be at the temple by sundown. If I touch a dead body I am ritually unclean for SEVEN DAYS (Numbers 19:11). I cannot perform my duties. The entire rotation schedule gets disrupted. Fourteen other Levites have to cover for me. The evening sacrifice is shorthanded. I am not being dramatic – this is how the system works.

Also? The Jericho Road is NOTORIOUS for bandits. For all I know the guy was bait. You stop to help and three guys come out of the rocks and now there’s two naked bodies in the ditch.

I crossed to the other side and kept walking. A priest (53M) ahead of me did the same thing. We made eye contact and neither of us said anything, which I think means we both understood the situation.

Now my wife is saying I should have stopped. My synagogue small group is saying I should have stopped. Easy to say when you’re not the one standing there calculating whether touching a corpse invalidates your entire professional week.

AITA?

Edit: I just want to be clear that I take the purity laws seriously because they ARE the Law, not because I don’t care about people. These aren’t suggestions. These are commandments.

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Top Comments:

u/PhariseeModTeam [MOD] | 487 points | 5 hours ago

Reminder: r/Athens is not a substitute for legal counsel. OP’s case involves multiple unsettled areas of Athenian law. Comments should address the ethical dimensions, not provide specific legal strategy. Flair has been updated to [RELIGIOUS/LEGAL]. Reports on both sides have been reviewed and dismissed.

u/Torah_Scholar_IV | 1,203 points | 5 hours ago

NTA. Leviticus 21, Numbers 19. The purity laws exist for a reason. If you’d touched the body and been wrong about him being alive, you’d be unclean, your family would be affected, and the temple service would be compromised. You made a judgment call under pressure with incomplete information. Anyone calling you TA has never had to make a real-time decision between two obligations.

u/JerichoRoadSurvivor | 2,891 points | 4 hours ago

Hi. I’m the guy in the ditch.

I was alive. I could hear your footsteps. I could hear you CROSS THE ROAD to avoid me. I heard the priest do the same thing ten minutes earlier. I was lying there thinking “these are the holiest men in our society and they are both going to let me die so they can get to work on time.”

A Samaritan stopped. I know. I KNOW. I couldn’t believe it either. I wouldn’t have pissed on a Samaritan if he was on fire six months ago, and I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. This guy put me on his own donkey. Took me to an inn. Paid for my care. Told the innkeeper he’d cover any additional expenses on his way back.

He didn’t ask what tribe I was. He didn’t check whether I was clean or unclean. He didn’t calculate his schedule.

YTA. Both of you. And I say that as someone who, until yesterday, would have agreed with every word of your post.

u/SamaritanSteve | 4,112 points | 3 hours ago

I’m the Samaritan. I don’t really know what to say here. The guy was hurt. I had bandages and oil and wine. I had a donkey. I had money. So I stopped.

I genuinely do not understand what is complicated about this.

u/Torah_Scholar_IV | -89 points | 3 hours ago

With respect, you wouldn’t understand. You don’t have temple obligations. You don’t observe the purity codes. It’s easy to “just help” when you have nothing to lose by touching a bleeding man.

u/SamaritanSteve | 1,740 points | 2 hours ago

I think you just made the other guy’s point for him.

u/NazarethTeacher | 6,201 points | 2 hours ago | Gilded x7

I want everyone reading this thread to notice something. OP spent four paragraphs explaining why the law required him to walk past. The priest spent zero paragraphs and just kept going. The Samaritan – a man your entire culture considers a heretic and a half-breed – spent zero paragraphs and just helped.

Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man in the ditch?

Go and do likewise.

u/LevitePriest_JTDL | -214 points | 1 hour ago

This is incredibly reductive. You’re ignoring the entire legal framework that–

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II. The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) as r/relationships

r/relationships | Posted by u/FaithfulSon_35M | 14 hours ago

My (35M) dad (62M) threw a massive party for my deadbeat brother (28M) who blew his entire inheritance on hookers and pig farming. Am I wrong to be furious?

I need a reality check because my whole family is acting like I’m the unreasonable one.

Seven years ago my younger brother asked our father for his share of the inheritance EARLY. While our father was still alive. In our culture this is basically saying “I wish you were dead, give me the money.” Our father, who I love but who has always been soft on my brother, gave it to him.

My brother left. Moved to a far country. Blew through EVERYTHING. I don’t have exact numbers but we’re talking a significant estate – vineyards, livestock, land holdings. All of it. Gone. On what, I don’t know. “Riotous living” is the phrase the family uses. I’ve heard rumors about prostitutes. I’ve heard rumors about gambling. Whatever it was, it wasn’t investment.

He ended up feeding pigs. PIGS. For a gentile farmer. He was so hungry he wanted to eat the pig slop. That’s where his choices took him.

Meanwhile I have been HERE. Working my father’s land. Every day. For YEARS. I have never once disobeyed him. I have never once asked for anything extra. I have been the reliable one, the responsible one, the one who showed up.

Yesterday my brother came crawling back. Apparently he’d rehearsed a little speech about not being worthy to be called a son and would dad please just hire him as a servant. Fine. Pathetic, but fine. At least he’s acknowledging what he did.

My father did not let him finish the speech. My father SAW HIM COMING DOWN THE ROAD, RAN to meet him, embraced him, put his best robe on him, put a RING on his finger, and ordered the servants to kill the fattened calf – THE FATTENED CALF, the one we save for major celebrations – and throw a feast.

I came in from the fields and heard music and dancing. A servant told me my brother was back and my father was throwing a party. I refused to go in.

My father came out to me. I told him: “Look, all these years I’ve served you and never disobeyed. You never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But this son of yours who devoured your property with prostitutes – for HIM you kill the fattened calf?”

My father said: “Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate, because your brother was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.”

Am I wrong? Am I actually wrong here? Because from where I’m standing, the message is: be irresponsible, waste everything, come home when you’ve got nothing left, and you’ll get a bigger party than the kid who stayed and did the work.

TL;DR: Brother took his inheritance early, blew it all, came home broke. Dad threw him a massive party. I’ve been faithful for years and never got so much as a goat. Am I wrong to be angry?

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Top Comments:

u/TherapistRachel_LCSW | 3,402 points | 13 hours ago

Your feelings are valid. Your anger is understandable. You have every right to feel hurt.

But I want you to reread your own post. You describe your brother as someone who hit absolute rock bottom – feeding pigs, eating slop, alone in a foreign country. That’s not a man who got away with something. That’s a man who already experienced the worst consequences imaginable and came home with nothing.

Your father didn’t throw the party because your brother deserved it. He threw the party because his son was alive. Those are different things.

The question isn’t whether the party is fair. The question is whether you’d rather be right or be at the party.

u/FaithfulSon_35M | 891 points | 12 hours ago

I hear you but “would you rather be right or be at the party” is exactly the kind of thing people say to get you to accept being treated unfairly.

u/OlderSiblingGang | 2,107 points | 12 hours ago

NTA. I am so tired of the “just be happy for them” crowd. Some of us held the family together while the golden child was out burning money. Some of us never left. And the reward for loyalty is watching the person who bailed get the fatted calf while you’ve been eating lentils for seven years.

Your dad showed you exactly where you rank. Believe him.

u/ProdigalBro28 | 340 points | 8 hours ago

I’m the brother. I don’t know if anyone here cares what I think.

My brother is right about all the facts. I took the money. I wasted it. I ended up with nothing. I fed pigs and wished I could eat what they were eating. I came home because I had nowhere else to go and I was going to beg to be a hired servant because I knew I didn’t deserve anything more.

I didn’t expect the party. I didn’t expect the ring. I didn’t expect any of it. I expected to sleep in the servants’ quarters and earn my keep.

I don’t know what to say to my brother except: I wasn’t having fun. It wasn’t a vacation. It was the worst years of my life and I came home because I was dying. I understand why he’s angry. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it now besides be here.

u/FaithfulSon_35M | 22 points | 6 hours ago

I don’t know either.

u/GraceOverMerit | 5,540 points | 10 hours ago | Gilded x4

I think the part nobody wants to say out loud is this: OP has been in his father’s house the whole time. He says “you never gave me a goat.” But his father’s response is “everything I have is yours.” It was always available. He never asked. He never celebrated. He turned his faithfulness into a ledger and then got angry when someone who wasn’t keeping score got the party.

The brother who left lost everything and found mercy. The brother who stayed had everything and couldn’t see it.

I don’t think OP is the asshole. I think OP is the one the story is actually about.

u/AutoModerator | 1 point | 10 hours ago

This comment has been reported for: Unsolicited psychoanalysis. After review, the comment does not violate community guidelines. Reports dismissed.

III. The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) as r/antiwork

r/antiwork | Posted by u/BuriedTheTalent | 9 hours ago

My boss gave me a huge amount of money, I buried it because I was terrified of him, and now he’s firing me and calling me “wicked and lazy.” Is this legal?

I need to know my rights here.

My boss (very wealthy, often travels) was going on a long trip. Before he left, he distributed money to three of us based on what he called “our abilities.” The first guy got five talents. The second got two. I got one.

A talent is not a small amount. We’re talking years of wages. I was handed a fortune and told to manage it while he was gone.

Here’s the thing: I know this man. He is HARSH. He reaps where he does not sow. He gathers where he does not scatter. He expects returns on investments he didn’t make. He takes credit for other people’s labor. Sound like any boss you’ve ever had?

The first guy traded with his five talents and made five more. Good for him. The second guy did the same and doubled his two. Also fine. Both of them got praised and promoted when the boss returned. “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I buried mine in the ground. I kept it safe. I did not lose a single coin. When the boss came back, I handed him his money – ALL of it, every last coin – and explained that I was afraid of him and didn’t want to risk losing his money.

His response: “You wicked and lazy servant! You knew I reap where I don’t sow? Then you should have at least put it with the bankers so I could have gotten interest.”

Then he took my talent and gave it to the guy who already had ten. And he ordered me thrown into “the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

FIRED AND BANISHED for returning every cent he gave me. Not losing it. Not stealing it. Returning it. In full.

Is this legal? Do I have recourse?

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Top Comments:

u/WorkersRights_Atty | 4,200 points | 8 hours ago

Not a lawyer for your specific jurisdiction but this sounds like wrongful termination on its face. You were given property to safeguard. You safeguarded it. You returned it in full. If “not generating profit” is grounds for being called wicked and thrown into darkness, then every savings account holder in the country is at risk.

Document everything. File a complaint.

u/FiveTalentGuy | 1,890 points | 8 hours ago

I’m the one who got five talents. I want to push back a little.

The boss didn’t say “keep this safe.” He said “manage this.” There’s a difference. He distributed according to ability, which means he already believed OP could handle one talent. The expectation wasn’t “don’t lose it.” The expectation was “do something with it.”

OP’s own explanation is revealing. He says he buried it because he was AFRAID. Not because burying was the smart move. Not because the market was bad. Because he was scared. He let fear turn a gift into a burden and then blamed the giver.

I’m not saying the boss is warm and fuzzy. I’m saying that being handed something valuable and doing nothing with it out of fear is its own kind of failure.

u/BuriedTheTalent | -67 points | 7 hours ago

Easy to talk when you got five and I got one. The risk profile is completely different. You could lose two and still be ahead. I lose one and I’m done.

u/FiveTalentGuy | 623 points | 7 hours ago

He didn’t ask you to risk all of it. He said I could have at least put it in a bank. The minimum effort. Anything above zero.

I think the thing that bothers me is you’re describing your fear of the boss as a reason to do nothing. But the rest of us had the same boss. We were also scared. We did something anyway.

u/OuterDarknessSurvivor | 891 points | 5 hours ago

I hate this thread because the answer nobody wants to hear is that the boss is right. Not because he’s nice. He isn’t. Not because the system is fair. It isn’t. He’s right because the one-talent servant’s real sin wasn’t caution. It was the decision that fear of failure is a good enough reason to never try. The talent was a test and “give it back exactly as received” was the one answer that guaranteed failure.

The outer darkness isn’t a punishment. It’s a description. That’s where you already are when you bury what you’ve been given.

u/AutoModerator | 1 point | 5 hours ago

This post has been flaired: [WORKPLACE DISPUTE – POSSIBLY THEOLOGICAL]. If your workplace dispute involves weeping, gnashing of teeth, or outer darkness, please also consider posting to r/eschatology.

IV. The Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) as r/antiwork

r/antiwork | Posted by u/VineyardWorker_6AM | 3 hours ago

I worked 12 hours in the sun and the guy who showed up at 5pm got paid the same. Is this even legal?

I am SHAKING with anger as I type this.

This morning at 6am I was standing in the town square looking for day labor. A vineyard owner showed up and offered a denarius for a full day’s work. Standard rate. Fair deal. I agreed. Went to work.

At 9am he hired more workers. Fine. At noon, more. At 3pm, MORE. At FIVE PM – one hour before quitting time – he went to the square AGAIN and hired guys who had been standing around all day and brought them in for the last hour.

At 6pm we lined up for pay. He started with the last hired. They got a denarius. A FULL DENARIUS. For ONE HOUR. I thought: holy shit, if the one-hour guys are getting a denarius, we’re getting twelve.

We got a denarius.

THE SAME. As the guys who showed up at 5pm and barely broke a sweat.

I went to the owner. I said: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or is your eye evil because I am generous?”

HE CALLED ME EVIL FOR NOTICING.

I don’t know what to do. Technically he didn’t break our agreement. I agreed to a denarius and I got a denarius. But paying the 5pm guys the same as the 6am guys makes a mockery of the entire concept of fair compensation. If an hour of work is worth the same as twelve hours, why would anyone show up at 6am ever again?

Edit: A bunch of people are DMing me saying this is about grace and not wages. I don’t know what that means. I am talking about MONEY.

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Top Comments:

u/LaborLawLarry | 3,100 points | 2 hours ago

Legally, he’s in the clear. You agreed to a denarius. You received a denarius. The fact that he paid others the same for less work isn’t wage theft – it’s his discretion as employer. Infuriating, but not illegal.

The real question is why you’re angry. You got exactly what you agreed to. You’re not angry about your wage. You’re angry about theirs. And that’s a very different complaint.

u/FivePM_Guy | 1,450 points | 2 hours ago

I’m one of the 5pm workers. I want you to know that I wasn’t “standing around all day” by choice. Nobody hired us. We were in the square at 6am too. We waited nine hours in the sun with no guarantee of work or pay. When the owner finally showed up at 5 we were desperate. We would have worked for anything.

He gave us the same as you and I honest to God almost cried. Not because I think I deserved it. Because my kids hadn’t eaten since yesterday and a twelfth of a denarius wouldn’t have changed that.

You worked twelve hours and you’re angry. I waited eleven hours to work one and I’m grateful. I don’t think that makes either of us wrong. I think it means we’re standing in different places.

u/VineyardWorker_6AM | 415 points | 1 hour ago

…I didn’t know you had kids. I didn’t ask anyone why they were there.

I’m not saying this changes the principle. But I didn’t ask.

u/EconMajorBTW | 2,890 points | 2 hours ago

The owner is economically irrational and this business model is unsustainable. If he pays the same regardless of hours worked, eventually everyone waits until 5pm and nobody harvests the vineyard. Within two seasons he’s bankrupt.

Unless the point was never about efficiency. Unless the owner values something other than labor-hour optimization. Unless the vineyard is not actually about the vineyard.

But what do I know, I’m an econ major.

u/LastShallBeFirst | 5,001 points | 1 hour ago | Gilded x5

This is the post. The owner IS economically irrational. That’s the entire point. The system you’re describing – where pay matches hours, where early arrival is rewarded and late arrival penalized, where everything is measured and merited – is the system everyone in this thread assumes is natural law. The owner broke it on purpose. He broke it to show you that generosity is incoherent inside a merit framework. That the last can be first. That grace – if that word means anything – means getting what you didn’t earn, and that the people who DID earn it will always be furious about it.

OP’s anger is the point of the story. He’s not wrong to feel it. He’s just the character in the parable who chooses fairness over mercy and can’t understand why the guy running the vineyard sees it the other way.

The first will be last and the last will be first. It’s right there.

u/VineyardWorker_6AM | -53 points | 34 minutes ago

I didn’t sign up for a parable. I signed up for a denarius.

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The parables work as Reddit posts because they were already Reddit posts. The structure is identical: someone presents a situation that seems straightforward, the comments split, and the argument that wins is never the one the original poster expected. Jesus did not lecture. He posted scenarios and let the replies do the theology. The Pharisees were the moderators who kept trying to enforce community guidelines on a user who had figured out that the guidelines were the problem. Two thousand years later, the threads are still open. The comments are still coming in. Nobody has locked the post.