[Jesus said] “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his supervisor, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

—Matthew 20:1-16 (TNIV)

Here is a wonderful story about God’s gracious sovereignty. It is full of hope because it reminds us that right up to the point of our physical death, it is never too late to be part of God’s eternal kingdom. I am sure Jesus aimed this story, in part, at the self-righteous of his day (and to ours). It is God who gives life, not us, and he can give life to whomever he pleases. Moreover, he is abundantly generous in giving life to us. We have the very cross of Christ as proof of this.

If you are in despair that God can never love you because of who you are, take heart and hope. God’s generous and gracious love transcends our unworthiness. We simply have to assent to his gracious offer to have life and then work to get to know him better so that he can prove to us he is good to his word!

What will we do in heaven? I answer that our whole activity will consist in sing “amen” and “alleluia.” Refuse to be saddened by the thought that you if you remained standing and saying every day “amen” and “alleluia” you would collapse with weariness [boredom]. In heaven you will cry out “amen” and “alleluia” not simply with sounds from your throat but with the devotion of the heart. What then does amen mean? What does alleluia mean? Amen means “it is true!” Alleluia means “praise God!” Those things that Paul said we now see “through a mirror as a riddle” (1 Corinthians 13:12) we shall then see with an inexpressibly different feeling of love. We then will shout “Why, it’s true!” And because we shall see the truth with perpetual delight, we will be moved to praise God by shouting “alleluia!”

—Augustine, Sermon 362.1

If even the recognition of your former slavery [to sin] makes you ashamed, think how much more the reality of it would be so. You have gained in two ways—by being set free from your former shame and by having come to recognize your past life for what it was.

—John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 12

In other words, [our human] nature is no longer struggling on its own but has the Holy Spirit to help it.

—Theodoret of Cyr, Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans

It is assumed that if God is omnipotent he can do anything; but this is not strictly true. What God’s omnipotence does mean is that nothing can obstruct him, nothing can prevent his being fully and eternally himself. But this means that it is actually a part of his omnipotence that God does not contradict himself. He is free to determine the manner of his own working; and in fact, as we know from revelation, he has chosen to work in such a way that we can interfere, and interfere very drastically, with his creation. God knows we can never really be fully satisfied with any world of our own devising, so that it will always be vulnerable to his influence in one way or another; and God exploits this to the full. But he always respects the freedom and independence that he has given us.

—Simon Tugwell, Prayer

Our progress in holiness depends on God and ourselves—on God’s grace and on our will to be holy. We must have a real living determination to reach holiness.

—Mother Teresa, A Gift for God

I Need Thy Sense of Time
Always I have an underlying anxiety about things,
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends
And am completely without patience. It is hard for me to realize
That some growth is slow,
That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,
Because my sense of time is dulled.
I measure things in terms of happenings.
O to understand the meaning of perspective
That I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure
—of time.

I Need Thy Sense of Order
The confusion of the details of living
Is sometimes overwhelming. The little things
Keep getting in my way providing ready-made
Excuses for failure to do and be
What I know I ought to do and be.
Much time is spent on things that are not very important
While significant things are put into an insignificant place
In my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs
So that my life will become order. O God, I need thy sense of order.

I Need Thy Sense of the Future
Teach me to know that life is ever
On the side of the future.
Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge. Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or the present.
Grant me, O patient Father, thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die.

—Howard Thurman, Deep Is the Hunger