The Prodigal Vine Workers

Some days ago I was driving by one of those home centers when I saw a crowd of day workers anxiously waiting for someone to give them work for the day.  While I had seen such groups many times in the past, in this instance the sight triggered an entire visual in my mind.

Each of the people at the home center undoubtedly had unique skills, dreams, aspirations, and concerns about their immediate and distant future. They were simply waiting for their daily wage opportunity, not knowing when or if that opportunity would come.  They could end up at any job site, totally beyond their control.  And they would have no say regarding which site that may turn out to be.

The situation itself called for humility, contentment, and conformity with what might come their way.  This was certainly no place for arrogance, demands, or presumption. On the contrary, the only reasonable room in this experience was firmly reserved for gratitude and appreciation of whatever may indeed come their way.

Clearly, if you or I saw such a worker reject a work opportunity because it involved a noisy, dusty, or crowded work site, we might think the worker was ungrateful, delusional, demanding, or even insane.  “Beggars cannot be choosers” as they say, and this situation would firmly qualify.

All of this reminds me of one of my favorite parables, The Parable of The Vine Workers (Mt 20: 1-16).  In this parable workers are hired at different times during the day.  However they are all paid equally, much to their dismay.  This parable is rich with layers and levels of meaning.

Skills, Tools, and Responsibilities

Like those daily vine workers, we have each been given unique skills and tools by God Almighty.  We are called to discern, develop, and apply those skills and tools for the glory and service of God and the service of others.  We may use these gifts for ourselves to some degree but, most and first of all, we are called to use them for God and others.

Also like the vineyard works, we cannot be oblivious to our particular abilities.  We also cannot be oblivious to how we may develop and apply these for others.  That is all part of our mission of discernment and application.

Unused and misused talents are wasted talents.  Misused talents are those used soley for ourselves or to create or spread evil, rather than for good and love.  Misused gifts also occur when we try to use gifts we do not have, as anyone who has heard me try to sing will point out.   Ultimately, we will be judged by how sincerely we dedicated ourselves to discerning, developing, and using those talents actually given to us by God for God and others.

Pretending

However, therein lays the impact of the humility which we must have.

We often pretend that our skills are our own. This leads to the fiction that we are free to do and apply these gifts as we wish.  But this pretense is misguided on two levels.

First, our skills do not belong to us.  They are, in fact, leased to us by God.  In turn, God, like the Master in The Parable of The Talents (Mt 25:14-30), expects a return of love and service to Him and to others.

Second, even if those gifts did belong to us, which they really do not, we would still be expected to use what is ours for that love and service anyway.  All of this is to say that we cannot say that we love and obey God while ignoring the gifts He has given us.  We cannot pretend that we do not have a responsibility to use our gifts for God and others.

Choices and Fields

A popular term these days is choice, which is often used as an anthem for individuality, freedom, and basic human rights.  It has been a popular move since Eden to strike out against God by pushing our own agenda.  We feel we should be free to our own interpretation of truth, and we label that as free choice.  The irony, of course, is that any choice against God is a choice for sin which is anything but freedom.  It does not take a serpent to convince us to drink the cheap wine of self-autonomy, human style.

Our Blessed Mother, the Queen of Humility, Obedience, and Gratitude to God, is the prime example that our mission is to sign a blank check and let God fill in the rest.  That blank check is for the nature of our mission. It includes the tools God has given each of us to fulfill that mission, and the field where we will work.

To illustrate this last point about the field of our efforts I will share a personal experience.  For many years I dreamed of becoming a deacon for my diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island.  I sincerely felt that my talents and aspirations fit this calling like a glove.

After going through the one year application process, however, I was not recommended by the Selection Committee.  The reasons for this are between those members and God. But I was devastated, bitter, and disoriented.

At first I did not know what to call what I was experiencing.  I now know that it was classic desolation.  Many wondered if I would leave the Church, do something drastic, or simply crawl into the fetal position and hide.  The devil was surely hoping that I would so all three of those things.

Finding Meaning

Scrambling for meaning and an outlet for my hungry heart and soul and waiting God-given talents, I came upon The Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation.  I soon began taking their online theology courses.  Since then I have earned their Certificate in Spiritual Formation and a Graduate Certificate in Spiritual Theology.  I have also been accepted to programs in Spiritual Direction.

I am still somewhat confused and puzzled as to why God Almighty did not lead me to the working field of becoming a deacon. But my love and trust in God has helped me to leave everything to Him.

I had discerned my God-given talents and been using some of them for many years in various capacities.  I saw what I believed was the field of my purpose in serving God.  And I put my heart and soul into that application only to be turned away.

I have slowly learned that I do know what tools I possess.  But I must wait patiently for God to lead me to the field in which He wants me to work.  There are a number of possibilities, but I will leave the choice of that field or fields to the God that I love and trust, however imperfectly.

The Prodigal

We all know the famous parable of The Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32) as a lesson in forgiveness, humble contrition, and gratitude.  The dictionary defines  prodigal as lavishly extravagant and wasteful. In order to exhibit these traits, one has to be lavishly oblivious, arrogant, and selfish. In fact, one has to only be concerned with one’s preferences and desires, to the exclusion of God or others.

Is that not what each of us, from time to time, exhibit?  Do we not pretend that our talents belong to us?   And do we not pretend that we may use them as we wish and usually merely for ourselves?  Do we not pretend that we deserve to call the shots on how we use our talents?  And do we also not sometimes pretend that we choose our talents, like some brimming buffet, according to our preferences and whims regardless and in spite of what God has truly given us and wants us to do?

Lastly, do we not likewise pretend that we choose the field where we will work, more often than not merely for ourselves rather than for God and others?   Even where we have been given the grace to see our talents as tools to be used for God and others, do we not then foul everything up by pretending that we get to choose the field where we will use those tools?

I thought that I had everything all planned out, but God merely smiled.  He did not open the door to the field in which I was sure He wanted me to work.  I had to be reminded, as we all do from time to time, that the best decision we can make is to let God decide everything.

Conclusion

Workers, tools, and fields are a common site in our daily lives.  I suggest we see these things as symbolic of our purpose and mission in this world as Children of God.

We are each called to share eternity with God Almighty (2 Pet 1:4).  And God, ever loving and wise, has given each of us the tools to work our way to that end.  It is up to us to discern, develop, and use those tools to do our share in this mission.

Not my tools, but Your tools be used.  Not my field, but Your field be worked.  And not my will, but Yours be done.