As every successful wine maker knows, wine making is an art which requires precise timing. In biblical times, long before Louis Pasteur discovered fermentation, nobody knew how or why grape juice became wine, or what made one wine thin or sweet and another powerful or bitter. Lifetime fortunes could be made by a single harvest, or lost by harvesting the grapes on the wrong day. Only after the wine had been aged could one know whether he had selected the proper time, but over thousands of years, successful wine makers learned rules of thumb which worked better as they were refined. They passed them down to their apprentices until the rules of wine making became essentially rules of magic; tactics that produced good wines although no one knew why. And because no one knew just why these rules worked, it was folly of the worst sort to ignore them.

Such is the situation of the landowner in the story. From the context, is likely that this story is fiction. But it was a familiar story, one that was played out again and again in life in ancient Palestine as well as elsewhere in the ancient world. Recent archeological evidence suggests that Jesus himself grew up near the unusual vinyard with a tower described in Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33. In any case, wine making was big business and successful wine makers became wealthy men! Somehow, possibly by consulting sheep entrails or some other magical practice, the land owner decided that the grapes should be picked on this very day, and thus he set out as early as possible to find people to pick them.

He goes out as soon as the sun is up to find them. No successful wine maker could afford to keep a cadre of grape pickers on hand all the time, so these were temporary workers, menial laborers hired at a low daily wage to perform the unskilled task of breaking or cutting off the grape clusters and carrying them in baskets to the presses. This was hot, dirty, backbreaking work, and the landowner was wise to send the first workers he hired to the farthest reaches of his vineyard, where the distance they had to carry the heavy baskets of grapes would become shorter as the day progressed.

These were desperate people indeed! Remember, they were already up and reporting for any available work before sunrise. They had probably not yet eaten, possibly for several days. They were willing to take any job, no matter how difficult, just to get enough to buy a few meals. The story gives precise meaning to the phrase "will work for food." It suggests that they did not quibble about the pay. They were willing to accept just about anything just to have a job.

About three hours later, the landowner goes out again. Time was passing, and the people he had already hired could only pick so many grapes in a day. We get the impression of the owner becoming anxious with the progress so far. He had to have more workers, and fast! This time, he doesn't even take time to negotiate the pay. The word is out that he is hiring, and everyone knows what he's paying. Perhaps the latecomers aren't hungry, but they are looking for jobs, and this one is at least good for a day.

Around noon, the owner is starting to panic. He doesn't have nearly enough grape pickers, and the day is already half over. So he goes out at noon and at three o'clock, and even at five, long after the real workers have been hired. He snaps crossly at the idlers, drifters, playboys, delinquents, streetwalkers, gangsters, gypsies, tramps, thieves, and anyone else who might help to get the grapes in on time. He doesn't even discuss pay at all, just "go into my vineyard!" These people were either disabled, lazy, incompetent, unsuitable, unreliable or perhaps all five. For whatever reason, they hadn't been hired that day, or perhaps had been fired earlier. The landowner didn't care. He was desperate! He had to get those grapes picked that day!

Finally, at sundown, the last basket of grapes was stacked against the presses, and the landowner breathed a sigh of relief. His crop was in; the harvest was complete, all on the most auspicious day. Success! Of course, a lot of work remained, but this could be done by the professionals, his full time hired hands. The donkey work was over. Now all that remained was to pay off the day laborers and enjoy a well-deserved dinner.

Starting with the last and ending with the first was just common sense. The first workers had gone to the boundary of the vineyards, and had been working their way back from the edges all day. The latecomers started near the presses, where they would be done after only an hour or so of work. They were already there while the earlier workers were still coming in. The landowner naturally wanted to pay everyone off as they brought in their last basket and send them on their way.

He was thus presented with a difficult problem. The first people to be paid had been hired hastily, without agreeing on their wage. The only people who had agreed on their pay were the last ones to arrive, that is, the first ones hired. The landowner solved the problem of what to pay the workers in a most equitable manner. He paid everyone the same. Perhaps he regretted not negotiating with the later workers; after all, a daily rate had already been established for the first ones, and the landowner may have thought that he had unwittingly implied an agreement that didn't actually exist. Yet he was feeling mellow with his success, and may have thought that he had just made a fortune and could afford to be generous. He may have believed that nobody could complain about being paid more than he expected.

The early birds, of course, felt otherwise, human nature being what it is. They were not being treated unfairly, as the landowner was careful to point out. They had specifically agreed to work all day for the wage they had received. Indeed, they were the only ones who had done so. Perhaps they had forgotten how desperate they had been just that morning; they had just seen the others walk away with much more than they had expected and felt that they, too, would receive more than what was fair. But a deal is a deal, and they were, in fact, lucky to get work at all that day, so they had no real reason to complain.

There is another point here which would have been obvious to Jesus' listeners, but perhaps not to us. The early risers were almost certainly common laborers, husbands and fathers, traditional breadwinners who, unfortunately, hadn't lately been winning much bread. They were the first, and perhaps most eager, to arrive at the place where they could expect to find work. They knew what a day's work was worth, and had no reason whatever to expect more, in spite of their envious nature. Not so with the later workers. Although in our culture we would assume they were men (and I have heard many preachers refer to them as men), there is nothing in the story to suggest that they were only (or even mostly) men. There is, in fact, cultural evidence to suggest otherwise. Jesus refers to them simply as "laborers." ("Operarios" in the Latin Vulgate is a masculine noun meaning "people who work," but can refer to either men or women workers.)

Consider: the ordinarily available laborers had already been hired that morning, either by the landowner or somebody else. The workers who arrived later had some reason not to compete, or be able to do so, with the energetic early risers. They may well have been old, sick or crippled men, hungry women, and a large proportion of children, many of them possibly starving little girls. Not exactly what the landowner was looking for, but at that point he didn't care. They had no reason to expect the pay they got, and were probably delighted.

The moral of the story is plain. It is the idea expressed in the narrative immediately preceding this parable, where Jesus is saddened by the rich man who is unable to divest himself of his wealth, and talks about camels passing through needle eyes. "Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last." These parables tell us that all who respond to the call of Jesus, at whatever time (first or last), will be the same in respect to inheriting the benefits of the kingdom, which is the gift of God.

But this parable tells us the reason why.

God needs us!

The whole history of salvation is of God's dependence on frail, fallible human beings to carry out His designs. Christians even believe that God Himself became a human being to speed the process along. He uses peasants and kings, elderly people and children, men and women, anyone who is available to work out his plan. God is the ultimate successful wine maker. The "good news" of the gospel is that salvation is NOW! It is like the grapes that have to be picked at exactly the right time; God, the ultimate successful wine maker, doesn't feel He can afford to dawdle!

Jesus himself was an activist. He went here and there, doing this and that, to make things happen, even at the risk of his reputation and, ultimately, his life! When asked by his disciples how to pray, (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) He didn't even suggest that we should ask somebody else to intercede for us. The Blessed Mother and the saints have done their jobs, and are now receiving their eternal reward for doing so. All of the actual evils of the world have been put there by fellow human beings, sinners just like us! For that evil to be undone and for the kingdom for which we pray to come about, we have to work even harder against evil, not allow it to succeed by beseeching others to do what we are doing only lip service to ourselves.

God could have chosen angels to manage our salvation, or done everything Himself, but, for reasons of His own, He relies utterly on us. The image here is of a desperate God, willing to reward anyone, literally anyone, even if they perform only token labor, if only they will help get His work done. The more workers there are, the faster the grapes will be picked, and, like the Kingdom of God, the resulting wine will be the best that can be...

As every successful wine maker knows!

John Lindorfer