This morning everything is a challenge. I am having to use the cellphone because the router is broken: something has happened overnight. In addition (now that I am online, the PCUSA lectionary site has gone.

I have found an alternative site, which uses the ESV (a very good translation) and a less censored version of the lectionary. So the link for today is different.

Laborers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius1 a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And gabout the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’8 And hwhen evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his iforeman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and jthe scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, k‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take lwhat belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 mAm I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or ndo you begrudge my generosity?’2 16 So othe last will be first, and the first last.”

Vineyards are something that I know little about.  They exist in NZ (we make very good wine) and there are times when the local labourers are needed and it is all hands to the vines. At harvest time. The rest of the year you water (you need irrigation where we grow most of our vines because it does not rain much in Central Otago. It just snows instead). You prune. You shelter the vines from the birds (lest they take all the grapes) and you montror.

The thought I had around this yesterday was that when Christ used this as an analogy for the church — I am the Vine — he reminded us that if you are cut from the roots you do not grow. If the PCUSA lectionary site remains down that is illuminating. Because their liberal faith has denied scripture and the Spirit of God, and as a result, they, like the Uniting churches in Canada and Australia (did not happen here because of stubborn Presbyterians and Anglicans) they will fossilize and become irrelevant.

For without the Spirit of God we can do nothing.