Before my wife and I moved to Iowa, we lived in North Carolina for eight years. During that time I became very involved in birdwatching, or as serious birdwatchers call it, birding. North Carolina is a great state for that; it extends from the Atlantic Coast to the Appalachian Mountains, and attracts many species of birds, especially during migration. On a good day in May one can easily see a hundred or more different kinds of birds.

            The best place to look for birds is where two habitats adjoin – along the shore of a lake, for instance, or where a forest meets an open field. One of the favorite places that my birding buddies and I liked to go was along the edge of a local golf course. So it wasn’t unusual to find us walking along the edge of the fairway at 6:00 on a Saturday morning.

            We weren’t the only people on the golf course at 6 a.m. on a Saturday. There were golfers out there, too, the dedicated ones, hoping to get their 18 holes in before the course got crowded and the weather warmed up. Sooner or later we would pass one another, birders and golfers. I always looked at them strangely. Who in their right mind, I thought, would get up this early to chase a little white ball around with a stick? That made no sense. And when I saw them staring at us, I imagined them thinking, who is so foolish to look for something so small that they need binoculars? Besides, even when they do see them, all the birds look alike. How foolish can these people be? And so we went our separate ways, shaking our heads, wondering how the others could see life the way they did.

            A few minutes ago, in our gospel reading, we heard another story that starts early in the day. At first this story seems to be perfectly sensible. A man owns a vineyard, and he needs some work done in it. So first thing in the morning, around 6 a.m., he goes to the marketplace where workers gather, and finds some people who are eager to get their day’s wage. So he hires them and sends them into the vineyard.

            After a few hours he goes out to see how they’re doing. They’re working hard, but there’s still an awful lot of work to be done, so the owner returns to the marketplace several more times, hires more workers, and sends them out into the field. In fact, he goes out as late as 5 p.m., an hour before quitting time, and finds more people lounging around. “Why aren’t you working?” he asks. “Because nobody hired us,” they answer. Instead of asking them where they were earlier, or lecturing them on the evils of laziness (both of which I’d be tempted to do), he simply sends them into his vineyard.

            At the end of the day, the owner asks his manager to pay everyone. So the workers come filing in. The ones who have been working a twelve-hour shift trudge along, hot, sweaty, sunburned, worn out from a long day without much rest or any shade. Then those who were hired last prance in, still fresh, hardly breaking a sweat. The manager starts paying the last ones first, giving them the usual daily wage, enough to feed their family for a day. At this point I can imagine them getting excited. They only had to work for an hour, and they got a whole day’s wage! The twelve-hour shift people start brightening up, too. “If they worked one hour and got one day’s wage, and we worked twelve hours…” But when their turn comes, they, too, only get one day’s wage. Needless to say, they started to grumble. It was unfair and made no sense. Didn’t they have the sweat and thirst to prove that they had worked hard? Isn’t it “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work?”

            But that’s not how the owner saw it. For him, the most important thing was that they agreed to work in the vineyard. How long they worked was not the point. That they agreed to work at all was sufficient to give them a reward, and the reward would be the same for everyone, no matter when they came. This certainly isn’t the way of the world. It just doesn’t make any sense.

            Jesus gives us a clue as to what is going one here when he begins this parable with,  “the kingdom of God is like…” This isn’t the world’s way of doing things at all. This is God’s way, and God’s way will always be foolish in the eyes of the world. It doesn’t make any sense, because it isn’t based in getting what one is due. It is based on grace. It is the grace of the landowner that allows every worker to feed his family; it is grace that called them into the vineyard in the first place.

            I’ve experienced that grace of God, a grace that has caused me to do foolish things. I’m about to give up a perfectly good job to become an Episcopal priest. How foolish can that be? I know that all of you here at Christ Church have experienced that grace as well, because even in the short time I’ve been here I’ve seen your foolishness – like being here in church in the first place! Some people here are foolish enough to get up before dawn to gather for a prayer breakfast at the beginning of a workday. Just believing in the power of prayer is foolish enough! Some are so foolish as to think that prisoners have a spiritual life, and provide bible study and the Eucharist for them – and now, even an EFM group. You are foolish enough to use your resources to help fellow Christians half a world away in Swaziland. And then there’s the biggest foolishness of all, believing that God cares so much for you that he became incarnate in Jesus Christ, lived among us, died, and rose again for our sake. What kind of sense does all of that make? It only makes sense to those who have experienced the grace of God. It only makes sense where those who come first to faith are rewarded the same as those who come last. That we work in the vineyard at all is the most important part.

            When I first read the gospel in preparing for this sermon, I was thinking about the Rite 13 ceremony that will take place at the 10:30 service this morning. It’s a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of the teenage years. One of my favorite parts of that ceremony is when the young teens leave their parents and go to join the older high school group. That is just so cool on many levels. I really like the symbolism of leaving the parents. That’s what children need to do eventually, anyway, and what better place to celebrate that than within a community of faith?

As I was reading the gospel and thinking about Rite 13, it occurred to me that one could interpret the times at which the workers start as ages – those who start early as the elderly, and those who start at 5 p.m. as the young. I don’t want to press this interpretation too much, but it did provide a good insight: God’s grace is equally available to every age. It is given in equal measure to the young child who is receiving communion for the first time as much as to someone who has knelt at the chancel rail hundreds of times. I know that sometimes I forget that, and I shouldn’t. God’s grace is given to all.        

            Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve done any serious birding. And I’ve played enough golf to develop respect for anyone who can hit that little white ball in a straight line. I’ve learned that what doesn’t make sense to me right now might seem reasonable at some time in the future. But I continue to be amazed at the extent of the foolishness of God, of the things God calls people to do, and equips them to do through the outpouring of grace. I’ve seen that grace in action here at Christ Church, and I pray that it may continue to sustain you in all that you do.   Amen.