It certainly seemed
like the workers who spent the entire day in the vineyard had a point. It
didn’t seem just for them to receive the same pay as those who worked a few
hours. After all, they were out in the sun all day, while those other guys only
worked in the late afternoon. But the owner of the vineyard also had a point.
He had made an agreement with each group as he called them to work in his
vineyard. He did not violate his
agreement with the first group by being so generous to the last group[1].
Nor was the Lord being unfair to
his closest followers when He said to the man dying on the cross next to Him (the
one we call Dismis) This day you shall be
with me in paradise. Dismis didn’t follow the Lord throughout Galilee and
Judea. He didn’t leave his family and friends. He didn’t sleep outside when
lodging couldn’t be found. Instead, Dismis was busy stealing from people. While
Jesus’ first followers were striving to be good people, Dismis was refining his
skills as a thief. Was it fair that He
should be rewarded with heaven when all he did was make a profession of faith
moments before his death? Yes, it was
fair. God’s gracious gift to Dismis did
not replace the gifts he offered those who followed Him from the beginning of
His ministry. He might have been just minutes away from his death, but it was
not too late for Dismis. It is never too
late with the Lord.
This Gospel reading really applies to each of
us in two different ways. First of all,
it tells us to respect the initial call the Lord gives us. Some of us receive the first call to follow
the Lord at our birth. That is the great
gift of parents who are determined that their infants and children share in the
Life of Christ that is the heart of their family. Some are first called to the
Lord at other times in their lives. That
call could be due to anything from a crisis situation where people realize they
need God, to a simple inner longing for a happiness that the world cannot
give. The call itself is Grace. The Lord
gives it to various people, in many ways at many times in their lives.
We are often
shocked to learn that others who have behaved one way have now turned to the
Lord. We might know of someone who had been antagonistic and sarcastic to all
who went to Church. And now, there is that person in the pew in front of you,
praying fervently, looking to be active in the Church he had mocked. We might
see someone whom we know has been involved in some very shady dealings. Maybe it is a person who has destroyed his or
her family through infidelity. Maybe it is a person who flaunted morality,
saying that using drugs was normal, or that getting drunk was expected, or that
stealing was part of life, or that destroying the reputation of others was the
way to advance in work, in school, etc. And now there is that person in Church.
More than that, there is that person taking an active role in ministry, even leading
a ministry. So we ask, “How can that person all of a sudden become so
spiritual?” Well, the answer to that question is grace. At the same time that person will be the first one to decry
his or her former lifestyle. He knows
what they had done was wrong, and he is the first to say that his former
lifestyle was not acceptable. He also
thanks God that it was not too late for him to go into the fields and work for
the Lord. We sing about this all the time.
We sing, “Amazing Grace,” don’t we?
St. Augustine is usually pointed towards as
the horrible sinner who turned to the Lord. He was immoral to the extreme, even
getting a girl pregnant and dumping her. But he did respond to grace. It was
not too late for him to work for the Lord. It is also important that we also
remember that St. Augustine and others who answer the call of the Lord were and
are ashamed of their past and wish they had not wasted so much of their lives.
«Late, have I loved thee, O Beauty, ever Ancient, ever New. Late, have I loved
thee» Augustine wrote[2]. I
really don’t think that he just wrote this. I believe that he sobbed this. He
knew how much time of his life he had wasted. He knew how many people he had
hurt. He knew how bad he had been. He
knew how much good could he have accomplished, if only he had responded to
God’s grace earlier. The grace was there for him, but he ignored it. Still, he did eventually turn to God, and he
did become one of the greatest leaders in the Church.
Now, what if the
people of Augustine’s time decided that he had nothing to offer the Church,
that he was a known sinner and should not be taken seriously? What if they had decided that it was too late
to take Augustine seriously? They would have missed profiting from his gifts. What if we were to do the same thing? What if
we were to exclude someone from the warmth of our community because of that
person’s past? If we were to do that, we would miss that person’s gifts to our
community, to our Church. And there is the second
way the gospel parable applies to us.
Christ continually calls us to himself.
Salvation is a process, not a onetime event. All of us have had times in
our lives that we have not been as committed to God as we should have been. Worse,
there have been times in our lives that we have rejected Him. There have been
times of sin. But the Lord has not
rejected us. It is never too late for
the Lord. He continually goes into the
marketplaces of our lives and calls us to come and work in His vineyard.
It is never too
late to do the Lord’s work, never too late for those joining the faith, never
too late for those returning to the faith, and never too late for you and me to
strengthen our witness to Christ. So, is God unjust for rewarding those who
have worked only a short time in the field? No. Is He unjust when He calls us
to turn from sin, return to Him and get back to His work? No again. It is never
too late for us. And thank God for that. So together let us give thanks to the Lord
for his mercy and compassion, for the love that you continually he extends to
each one of us ■
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