Let me tell you this morning's parable with a slightly different twist.
Vic the owner of the vineyard has done this little ritual of employing people each day to go to his vineyard for 32 years now. The ones that are up and about and eagerly looking for work at 7:30am he cheerfully employs and they have never let him down. But not everyone is quite like that . The next wave when he goes out looking for employees will do the work, but they stop and yak half way down the row of vines, he knows that they eat some of the grapes and flirt with each other.
But the ones that are there at 10:00am are quite rightly those that no one wants to employ. When Vic asks Sheree “Why are you standing idle and not doing work?” He knows full well what the answer will be.
“Because no one has given us any work”. And… thinks Vic quietly to himself.. there is a good reason for that.
You see Sheree and Vic have a bit of a history. Vic knows what Sheree is going to do with her denarius even before they have formally signed the contract.. He knows that she has a nasty little addiction to the juice of the grapes that she is about to go and harvest. He knows that she was there late yesterday morning at the marketplace, hungover and looking for work. He knows that she enjoys a very single way of life. And he knows that she was there at 10am at the marketplace the day before and the day before that.
But today he has a point to make and his point is not directed to Sheree or her down and out mates. It’s directed to some of those who were in the first group of people he employed at the crack of the dawn. It’s towards Jungle John who is a self righteous git.
Notice in the parable that Vic always knows what he is going to do at the end of the day. He directs the Pete paymaster to pay the Sheree and her mates first in front of the diligent and the shiny, in front of Jungle John.. and he directs Pete to give them a denarius. A full days pay.
Why? Because Vic knows that Jungle John will sneer at Sheree and give her a hard time. So Vic the vigneron skilfully sets up the scenario where Jungle John sees that Sheree gets a full days pay and Jungle John wrongfully assumes that he is going to extra. Not so. Jungle John gets what is in his contract and he is pretty jolly cranky about it.
And it is Jungle John who says.
“How come Vic? We have worked hard all day and get a denarius and Sheree who is a gadabout and a soak gets the same pay as us. What gives Vic?" and at that point Vic gently points jungle John to the wording of his contract and gives him a passive aggressive flea in his ear.
I rather like Vic. For lots of reasons. The way he levels the playing field for one thing. The way that he gets Jungle John to have a good long hard look at himself. But perhaps most of all, the way that he is prepared to take yet another chance on Sheree. Just for that one single day Vic is prepared to give her an opportunity and just for that one single day she has some comfort, some reassurance that tonight she will not go hungry. Just for a few hours she has security.
It’s always fun to try and think of what happened after the parable.
‘What if’ as I am fond of saying. What if….
The next morning when Vic has to go to the market place again and hire some workers, because the fruit really does need to come off the vine and quickly. The cause is urgent and will not wait.
You would like to think that Sheree would be there early and mended her ways and got her stuff together. You would like to think that Vic’s patient generosity has worked its magic. But no, sadly the Sheree rocks up late… again, hungover, looking disheveled and desperate… again.
My friends, the good news is Vic shows us how God loves us. Even though we can develop disappointing habits, even though we are flawed and fractured, even though we are recalcitrant.. it is to these little ones, the scoundrels, the tax collectors, the wine bibbers, the prostitutes and the ones who are slack and stuck in their ways. It is to these late in the morning folk, people like us, people who really don’t deserve yet another chance. It is precisely to people like this that The Master of the vineyard still comes to us, looks straight through and knows us better than we know ourselves. And He still says to us “Come on. I want you to work in my vineyard. And your reward will be as promised. Nothing more nothing less. Come on there is work to do. The harvest is urgent and it is you I want.” Even so we come.