There Is Still Time

Why Are You Still Standing Here?

He said to them, "Why are you standing here idle all day?"

— Matthew 20

There is something about today's Gospel that lands differently when read with twenty-first-century eyes.

Jesus tells of a landowner who goes out early in the morning and hires laborers for his vineyard. He returns several times during the day and hires more. Finally, near the end of the working day, he finds still others standing around and asks them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?”

Then payday comes.

The people who worked all day receive the wage they were promised. But the people who worked only the final hour receive exactly the same amount.

Well, now I'm mad.

Put it into contemporary terms. I work eight hours in the vineyard and receive $120. Some other guy wanders in late in the afternoon, works for an hour, and also gets $120. He makes eight times my hourly rate. And when I complain, the owner essentially tells me that he paid me exactly what we agreed upon and is entitled to be generous with his own money.

Suddenly “the last will be first, and the first will be last” doesn't sound quite as sweet.

We can romanticize that expression when we imagine the “last” as society's forgotten and downtrodden people finally getting their turn, while the wealthy, beautiful and successful discover that they're no better than everybody else. But even that can conceal something rather ugly in us. If I'm enjoying the thought of somebody else finally being sent to the back of the line, perhaps I haven't escaped the world's obsession with status at all. I've merely reversed the order.

Jesus' parable does something more unsettling.

At the end of the day, everybody has a denarius.

Nobody has to become poor so that somebody else can have enough. The early workers haven't been cheated. They received exactly what they were promised. What bothers them is that the landowner has been equally generous to somebody who, in their judgment, hasn't earned it.

We have seen that before this week. Jonah wasn't happy when Nineveh received mercy either.

But another part of this parable has been getting my attention this morning. Those late workers aren't necessarily lazy people who finally decided to get off their backsides. When the landowner asks why they have been standing there, they answer simply, “Because no one has hired us.”

Nobody gave them an opening.

Then somebody finally does.

“You also go into the vineyard.”

There are places in my own life where that sentence hits pretty close to home. I don't mean that I have spent my life doing nothing. I've taught. I've worked in music. I've served churches. I've invested heavily in family and community. There is plenty for which I am grateful.

But there have also been vineyards I didn't enter.

There were things I felt some persistent nudge toward doing that I managed to think about for years. I could find practical objections. I could worry about what somebody else would think. I could choose the simple, predictable path that kept me under the radar.

Lately, something has changed.

Sometimes the invitation isn't particularly dramatic. Try that thing over there. House-sitting? Okay. I'll try it. Contact a church that might need somebody to preach? Okay. I'll make the contact. Take one step into something without knowing exactly where it leads?

Okay.

I'll go.

And then something opens.

That's not a formula promising instant success. Sometimes obedience leads into a wilderness. Moses could certainly testify to that. Saying yes to God doesn't guarantee that the next morning will bring everything we wanted.

But today's parable offers another kind of promise.

Late does not mean too late.

The landowner doesn't berate the workers for failing to arrive at sunrise. He doesn't demand an explanation for all the hours that have disappeared. He doesn't tell them that the productive part of the day is over and there's no point starting now.

There is still a vineyard.

There is still work.

And there is still an invitation.

That brings us to the end of an interesting journey through this week's readings. Holy Cross Day left us thinking about walking toward the Light. Moses and Jonah made us consider how we discern where to go when crowds and leaders disagree. The Psalms told us to seek God's face continually and ponder what He has done. Paul told us not to become intimidated when opposition comes.

And now Jesus finds us standing there.

Maybe that's the point at which all the pondering eventually has to become movement.

We can spend a very long time discerning. We can seek. We can pray. We can study. We can wonder whether we're ready. We can calculate what might happen and imagine what everybody else will say.

Eventually the landowner comes by and says:

“Why are you standing here?”

There are things I wish I had begun earlier. Perhaps most of us have some. There are roads not taken, opportunities missed, fears indulged for too long and invitations we understood only in retrospect.

Jesus doesn't give us yesterday back.

He gives us the vineyard today.

Israel had to leave Egypt eventually. Seeking eventually has to become finding. Discernment eventually has to produce a direction. Standing firm eventually has to become taking a step.

And perhaps that's where this week's readings finally leave us.

Not with shame over how late we arrived.

Not with envy because somebody else started earlier.

Not even with certainty about everything that happens next.

Just an invitation from the One who apparently still has something for us to do.

“You also go into the vineyard.”

Okay.

I'll go.

Reflectionary is an ongoing conversation with Scripture. If these reflections are meaningful to you, please subscribe and come back often. And by all means, join the conversation—your questions, disagreements, insights and reflections are always welcome.