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The
Laborers in the Vineyard
Please
listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very
moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In light of the calls and releases the First Presidency has just
announced, may I speak for all of us in saying we will remember and love always
those who have served so faithfully, just as we immediately love and welcome
those who now come into office. Our heartfelt thanks to every one of you.
I wish to speak of the Savior’s parable in which a householder
“went out early in the morning to hire labourers.” After employing the first
group at 6:00 in the morning, he returned at 9:00 a.m., at 12:00 noon, and at
3:00 in the afternoon, hiring more workers as the urgency of the harvest
increased. The scripture says he came back a final time, “about the eleventh
hour” (approximately 5:00 p.m.), and hired a concluding number. Then just an
hour later, all the workers gathered to receive their day’s wage. Surprisingly,
all received the same wage in spite of the
different hours of labor. Immediately, those hired first were angry, saying, “These
last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which
have borne the burden and heat of the day.”1 When reading this parable, perhaps
you, as well as those workers, have felt there was an injustice being done
here. Let me speak briefly to that concern.
First of all it is important to note that no
one has been treated unfairly here. The first workers agreed to the full
wage of the day, and they received it. Furthermore, they were, I can only
imagine, very grateful to get the work. In the time of the Savior, an average
man and his family
could not do much more than live on what they made that day. If you didn’t work
or farm or fish or sell, you likely didn’t eat. With more prospective workers
than jobs, these first men chosen were the most fortunate in the entire labor
pool that morning.
Indeed, if there is any sympathy to be generated, it should at
least initially be for the men not chosen who also
had mouths to feed and backs to clothe. Luck never seemed to be with some of
them. With each visit of the steward throughout the day, they always saw
someone else chosen.
But just at day’s close, the householder returns a surprising
fifth time with a remarkable eleventh-hour offer! These last and most
discouraged of laborers, hearing only that they will be treated fairly, accept
work without even knowing the wage, knowing that anything
will be better than nothing, which is what they have had so far. Then as they
gather for their payment, they are stunned to receive the same as all the
others! How awestruck they must have been and how very, very grateful! Surely
never had such compassion been seen in all their working days.
It is with that reading of the story that I feel the grumbling
of the first laborers must be seen. As the householder in the parable tells
them (and I paraphrase only slightly): “My friends, I am not being unfair to
you. You agreed on the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to
get the work, and I am very happy with the way you served. You are paid in
full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.”
Then this piercing question to anyone then or now who needs to hear it: “Why should you be jealous because
I choose to be kind?”
Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives
when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special
recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel
envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when
someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who
is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most
blessed. The race we are really in is the race
against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.
Furthermore, envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving.
Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune
befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone
we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice
every time anyone around you has a happy moment! To say nothing of the chagrin
in the end, when we find that God really is both just and merciful, giving to
all who stand with Him “all that he hath,”2 as the scripture says. So lesson
number one from the Lord’s vineyard: coveting, pouting, or tearing others down
does not elevate your
standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind,
and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live.
A second point I wish to take from this parable is the sorrowful
mistake some could make if they were to forgo the receipt of their wages at the
end of the day because they were preoccupied with
perceived problems earlier in the day. It doesn’t
say here that anyone threw his coin in the householder’s face and stormed off
penniless, but I suppose one might have.
My beloved brothers and sisters, what happened in this story at
9:00 or noon or 3:00 is swept up in the grandeur of the universally generous
payment at the end of the day. The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see
it through, and let the distress of earlier hours—real or imagined—fall away in
the abundance of the final reward. Don’t dwell on old issues or grievances—not
toward yourself nor your neighbor nor even, I might add, toward this true and
living Church. The majesty of your life, of your neighbor’s life, and of the
gospel of Jesus Christ will be
made manifest at the last day, even if such majesty is not always recognized by
everyone in the early going. So don’t hyperventilate about something that
happened at 9:00 in the morning when the grace of God is trying to reward you
at 6:00 in the evening—whatever your labor arrangements have been through the
day.
We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital
clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a
childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we
are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in
Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always
struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them. Even if one of
those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you. And what a
reward there will be for that contribution when the Lord of the vineyard looks
you in the eye and accounts are settled at the end of our earthly day.
Which leads me to my third and last point. This parable—like all
parables—is not really about laborers or wages any more than the others are
about sheep and goats. This is a story about God’s goodness, His patience and forgiveness,
and the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a story about generosity and compassion. It is a story about grace. It
underscores the thought I heard many years ago that surely the thing God enjoys
most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who
don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.
I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear
the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable, but however late you think
you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes
you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from
home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not
possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement
shines.
Whether you are not yet of our faith or were with us once and
have not remained, there is nothing in either case that you have done that
cannot be undone. There is no problem which you cannot overcome. There is no
dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized. Even
if you feel you are the lost and last laborer of the eleventh hour, the Lord of
the vineyard still stands beckoning. “Come boldly [to] the throne of grace,”3 and fall at the feet of the Holy One of
Israel. Come and feast “without money and without price”4 at the table of the Lord.
I especially make an appeal for husbands and fathers, priesthood
bearers or prospective priesthood bearers, to, as Lehi said, “Awake! and arise
from the dust … and be men.”5 Not always but often it is the men who
choose not to answer the call to “come join the ranks.”6 Women and children frequently seem
more willing. Brethren, step up. Do it for your sake. Do it for the sake of
those who love you and are praying that you will respond. Do it for the sake of
the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid an unfathomable price for the future He wants
you to have.
My beloved brothers and sisters, to those of you who have been
blessed by the gospel for many years because you were fortunate enough to find
it early, to those of you who have come to the gospel by stages and phases
later, and to those of you—members and not yet members—who may still be hanging
back, to each of you, one and all, I testify of the renewing power of God’s
love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the
faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got
there.
So if you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made
them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them.
It is never too late so long as the Master of the
vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit
telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning
gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t
delay. It’s getting late. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
“Step Into the
Vineyard”
cji
7/24/12
Calling, calling is the
Lord
come step into the
vineyard
some early and some
late
the wages are fair to
each
let understanding so
reach
end all this worldly
debate
come step into the
vineyard
inviting each is the
Lord!
Copyright © 2012 – cji
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