Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. [2 Corinthians 9:24]
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
The parable that is today’s Gospel reading tells us that in God’s vineyard, the size of one’s wage has nothing to do with how long he has been working. What makes the difference is not that we come to the work late or come to it early, but that we come to it when called. Period.
There are some details in this parable that are important to for us to note: First, the master of the vineyard makes a definite contract only with the first group of workers, who are hired early in the morning. They agree with him that they will be paid a denarius, which is the usual and customary wage for a day’s work. Everyone agrees that this is just. To the other laborers, who are hired at various times later in the day, all the way up until the last hour before sunset, the master says only, “Whatever is right I will give you.” There is no agreement on specific monetary compensation. The members of the later groups accept, and are willing to accept, the master’s definition of “whatever is right.”
When the time for the paying of wages comes, the owner of the vineyard pays the same amount to everyone who has worked that day, regardless of how long he has worked. “Whatever is right” turns out to be exactly the same as the negotiated contract price for the whole day. Those who trusted simply that what they would receive would be just get the same reward as those who knew exactly what their wage would be.
Human nature being what it isn’t, those who were hired first think this is grossly unfair. They think that, since they have worked longer than the latecomers, they are entitled to a bonus, something over and above what they agreed to in the beginning. Certainly, we can understand that; probably most of us would think the same thing in similar circumstances.
However, the original group of workers – and we, perhaps – are missing a critically important point. The master of the vineyard brings them back to reality by reminding them whose the money is in the first place: He says, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? I am doing you no wrong, for you are receiving what we both agreed was just. Is your nose out of joint because I am being generous?”
The master is acting both with justice and generosity. In fact, his justice and his generosity are one and the same thing. That is the main point of the story. The parable is not so much intended as a report of some actual event, or as a model of how to deal with one’s employees, as it is to tell us something about how God deals in both justice and in generosity with each of us, whether we come to him early or late. The reward he gives in the end is the same for the new Christian and for the one who has been many years in his service.
It is also true that, if you quit before the end of the day, you don’t get paid at all, no matter when you started. If you repent of your quitting, however, you are still eligible for “whatever is right.”
There is no injustice in any of this, for the gift is his to give when and to whom he will. Besides that, how can anyone be given more than everything? Everything – all that is needed to make each and all of us real people – is the “day’s wage” he offers us. It is not time on the payroll that counts with him, but service faithfully rendered over whatever length of time he gives us. Not even that can earn us the reward, for it is always and can only be a gift. Our ability to endure in faithful service is a much a gift as the fullness of eternal life; in fact, it is a part of that gift.
We are the recipients – indeed, we are the products – of God’s generosity. Everything that we are and everything that we have is given to us. Hence, we own and can own nothing at all in an absolute sense. Who we are and what we have is given to us in trust as a portion of God’s own infinite wealth, to be administered to his glory, to our good, and to that of our neighbor. We are and can only be stewards of who we are and what we have, and in order for us to be faithful stewards, we must receive from God the grace he offers so that we may do the work to which he calls us. Then we actually can be generous as he is generous, and can recognize that while we can do him no favors, we can be mediators of his favor to the world around us. But that cannot be done unless we are doing the work, and the work day is not over until, to use Cardinal Newman’s words, “the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over.”
In today’s Epistle,
Now this applies as well to team as to individual sports. When someone joins a sports team, he undertakes to make the team’s purpose – winning games – his own primary purpose. In pursuance of that goal, the player further undertakes to enter into and to stay with the team’s training program as long as he is a member of the team. If he does this, he will be an asset to the team and a vital participant in its achievement of its purpose and will develop within himself a strong character that in a unique way reflects the character of the whole team and that also can be applied to the other tasks he will face in his life. If he doesn’t stick with the training program, he is likely not to be allowed to play, both because he is a liability to the team and because he is more likely to hurt others and himself if he does take the field.
The team member cannot pick and choose the parts of the training program he will follow. He cannot expect to excuse himself from obligations that he freely assumed by pleading that he doesn’t care for the band or the cheer squad or the stadium or because he doesn’t like the way the current coaching staff does things differently than they were done in the halcyon days of good old Coach Legend (who in most cases was not so fondly regarded in his own time as he is in the mists of memory). All a player who takes this attitude proves is that winning games with and for the team is not his primary goal – that what is really important to him is his own status as a member of the team – that in effect, the team exists to give him glory and honor and not the other way around – all of which means that in fact that he is an empty uniform, a team member in name only.
God’s Church, at every level, is a team with a single, though three-fold purpose, which is (1) to give glory and worship to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, (2) to be the place where the Holy Ghost brings its members to the likeness of the Son of God (the captain of the team), and (3) to bring those who are not on the team into it so that they, too, may fulfill the purpose for which God made them in the only way he has given for that to happen. In the pursuance of this goal, the Church has a training program. Its elements are as follows:
v Attendance at worship on every Sunday and Major Holy Day and, if qualified, the reception of it at least three times a year, and at all times after due preparation, including when necessary sacramental Confession
v The pursuit of spiritual growth through daily prayer, study of God’s Word in Holy Scripture, and service to others as to the Lord.
v The observance of the days of fasting and abstinence prescribed in the Prayer Book in ways suited to one’s state in life.
v The observance of God’s law of chastity in conformity with one’s state in life, meaning fidelity in marriage and continence outside of it.
v Giving to the support of the work of God, especially in his local Parish, in token that all one has is given to him in trust by the Lord. The minimum biblical standard is the tithe (10%).
Now, because this is an audience which besides being made up of intelligent people who by their presence demonstrate that they probably have got the point already, and because our time and patience is limited today, I will only say that it is difficult to understand why it is not considered unduly burdensome for a high school or college sports team to have “two-a-days” for months in order to win corruptible crowns, yet it does seem unduly burdensome to point out that the Church of God expects its members to accept “one-a-weeks” as a part of the training program for the attainment of incorruptible crowns. The most the one team can expect are silver trophies, fistfuls of sports scholarships, and lots of time on MTV or ESPN. What is on offer to the other team – the one to which both we and our absent brethren belong – is something far more precious and enduring.
This Sunday – Septuagesima – is the first flicker of the house lights warning us that the curtain is about to go up on the Lenten season. Let us together resolve that by God’s grace this will be for all of us – those absent and those present – including this one here in the pulpit – in body and in spirit – a time of recovering our sense of God’s purpose and call to each of us personally and to all of us together. Let the prayer of each of us be, “Lord, renew thy Church, beginning with me,” and let us continue to pray, as we already have prayed today, that by his goodness he will mercifully deliver us from all things that obstruct the fulfillment of his work in us and among us and through us.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
8 February 2009
