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It has been a remarkably rich week. The first couple days were spent close to home in Atlanta with longtime sisters in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd movement who are offering their time and energy to mentor a new generation of formation leaders around the U.S. Then, the past last couple of days have been spent at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis where I met with some of our current CGS students and participated in an alumni reunion. These two communities—CGS and Aquinas Institute—have each been central to my life for thirty years now. They came into my life at the same time. And while I have been involved in plenty-o’-other-things in between 1996 and 2026, there is something special about beginning and ending ministerially in the same space. I think of that classic line from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding”:
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Coming into each of these spaces in the last week did not feel like I was entering unfamiliar terrain, but there was a “first time-ness” quality to the gatherings. What did I come to know by returning to where I began? I suppose the goodness of the people in both communities. I mean, I knew that, but there is always more to encounter, right? And then the goodness of the work that each community does. Perhaps especially what a gift it has been and continues to be to get to do that work.
There was a particular sweetness to be invited to preach on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) at the Aquinas alumni reunion during afternoon prayer. I’ve preached in that space so often over the years and I love the “Road to Damascus” light that hits the pulpit in a particular way from different angles throughout the day. I’m posting my text for this event below imagining that maybe the message will resonate with you as well. You don’t need to be an AI alum to know that sense of great fortune of being called to be part of a good work larger than oneself. To feel like you are but a pawn on a chessboard in a wild but intelligent game that you know you probably won’t see the end of from the board itself. Still it is a great game to be a part of.
Then again, maybe the study of theology or the pursuit of ministry is something you’ve thought about for a while, and it seems attractive from a distance but it’s nothing you’ve had the chance to get involved in before. In this case, maybe now is the time. I can witness that no one at either of these gatherings this past week had any regrets in terms of their choices! But below, you can find my own witness.
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I want to take off my Aquinas faculty hat for a moment and talk to you as a catechist of children. If you ever want to have some fun and get a group of children all riled up, read them the parable that we just read from Matthew 20.
It starts well with the owner of a vineyard going out at dawn to find laborers to harvest his grapes, which seem to have been unexpectedly abundant this year. He promises the daily wage—a denarii—nothing unfair about that. Does the same three hours later at 9 a.m.. Again at noon. Promises whatever would be fair. Again at 3 p.m.. Finally, one last time at 5 p.m. This vineyard’s harvest must have been gargantuan. But then the denarii come out as the sun sets.
When I’ve worked with children, I like to have each one represent a different set of workers. The ones who showed up at 5 p.m. get a denarii and are simply delighted with what their one hour of work has resulted in for them. The ones who came at 3 p.m. get their denarii and are okay with how this has turned out. Feels just enough to them. But then the ones at noon… and the ones at 9 a.m.—the temperature in the room starts to go up. And finally, the ones who began work at dawn receive their lone denarii and simply blow a gasket. They have worked sooo hard and sooo long. Why should they receive the same amount? This vineyard is sooo unfair.
And Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like this. Is Jesus telling us that God—who would seem to be the one represented here by the owner of the vineyard—is fundamentally unconcerned with treating his workers righteously?
It’s good to slow the children down a bit when the tempers start to flare and the dawn laborers begin to tackle the 5 p.m. hires.
“What do you think this ‘end of the day’ might represent?” I ask the children. And generally one of them will eventually talk about heaven (the final reckoning of one’s personal life) or the Parousia (that sense of our final communal reckoning… that end of time that all of history has been heading toward). Either way, it is eternal life we are talking about here. Abundant life. And how does God ever give part of that? Can you imagine God saying to anyone who has worked for him, “Well, you get all the joy that heaven has to offer and you get a teaspoon of heaven’s joy?” No, it is not the nature of heaven to be able to divy it up. Either you are with God, or you are not.
And children usually get this. They can see that kind of by definition; you can’t slice up eternity. You can’t slice up abundant love. If you did, it wouldn’t be abundant. It wouldn’t even be love. The reward of a life with God is something that comes whole.
But it raises a really interesting question to discuss with them then: “Do you think you’ve been called to work in God’s Kingdom / God’s Vineyard?”
It’s a question I know everyone in this room has pondered, and my guess would say “yes.” Which is also what the children say. Believe it or not, I’ve never had a child say “no.”
Now sometimes this gets funny because when I ask them, “What hour of the day do you think you were called?” they give all sorts of interesting responses. A lot of them seem to associate hours with years so I hear them say, “Oh, I was called in the sixth hour of the day” or even “the 9th hour of the day.” It cracks me up since they only turned ten years old yesterday and I wish them longer lives than that!
Sometimes I then ask them what hour they wished they would be called. And a fair number, especially the boys if you don’t mind me saying, report they’d like to be called in the last hour of the day to be able to do the least amount of work. Kind of like they are Constantine on his death bed.
But I want to tell you the story of one ten-year-old girl named Grace (or as we’ve taken to calling her in my home, the Aptly Named Grace), who when asked about the hour of her call exclaimed, “Oh! I am soooo grateful to have been called in the first hour of the day because I’ve been able to spend my whole life in the Vineyard of the Lord.”
It still makes me tear up every time I think of it because…
… because it was so her
… because it is so me, though I probably haven’t admitted it enough
… because it is so you. Or, if it is not you, it is what you would probably say that you wish had been the case—to have been able to spend your whole life at work in the Vineyard of the Lord, your whole life in ministry.
I remember one of our alum, Francie Casey who has since passed away, who began her graduate degree in theology at the age of 63 and who came into my office and shook me at the ripe age of 34: “Do you understand?” she said, “Do you understand how lucky you are? To have been called at such a young age to work in ministry? To have been able to do theology in your 20’s? If only,” she said, “ah, if only.”
At the time I didn’t feel young, and I didn’t necessarily feel lucky. I felt tired. Working / ministering in the Church can be tough. The days can be long, the loads heavy and, while often juicy, they are sticky. We’ve been promised a denarii at the end of the day, but what about the denarii we need to pay tuition and get groceries in the present?
But now I know. I know. Francie was right. I have been one of the luckiest people in the world to receive a theological education early in life and to have gotten to spend three decades since at play in that part of the Vineyard that is called Aquinas Institute of Theology.
I don’t think it is news to anyone here at this point to say that last fall I received a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. I am here as you can see. I am doing great and feeling great, but talk about getting hit upside the head out of nowhere (and the left side of my head, to be specific, where all the words leak out of.)
I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of good friends and family members in recent months about this diagnosis, and one of the things that has become crystal clear to me in those conversations is that even knowing all I now know, I would never chose a different life than the one I’ve been called to.
If someone said, “Hey, if you could have 30 more years of life here on earth and still have the same eternal reward at the end, but instead of going to work in the Vineyard of the Lord, you got to do something else also interesting yet less stressful... would you like that?;” I know I’d have to say, “No, thank you. I got called in the first hour of the day to work in the Vineyard of the Lord and that is its own reward. It was never about the denarii at the end.” There isn’t anything else out there as beautiful, as meaningful, as satisfying as working for the Kingdom of God.
My guess is that if you are sitting here right now, you’d agree. We listened to a wonderful keynote this morning talking about taking care of ourselves as we labor. Indeed, that is important. You can’t harvest like a maniac. There are times to sit in the shade for a bit. Enjoy some of those grapes. Put on some sun protection. But what will really keep us at our best in ministry is if we can come in contact again with that deep well of gratitude inside each of us for the vocations that we’ve been given to work—whatever hour of the day that each of us sense we were called—in the Vineyard of the Lord.
And so as we come to the close of our talks and workshops and panels this day, let’s take a moment to bow our heads in silence and just savor the knowledge that each of us is here because God came in search of us to labor on behalf of His Kingdom. And like the Aptly Named Grace, take a moment just to be wowed and grateful. How good. How good to continue to be called into the Vineyard of the Lord.
(PS. If you'd like to learn more about the wonderful keynoter for the reunion, you can see our alumna Hsin Hsin Huang's page with reference to her upcoming publication here.)