For many be called, but few chosen. Mt.20:16 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his
vineyard. Mt. 20:1
This lengthy parable demands of us
careful thought and lengthy consideration.
It is very easy to jump to conclusions about it and in so doing to miss
some very important points. Let me begin
by putting the parable into context.
A short time before, Jesus had been
approached by a rich young man asking, What
shall I do that I may have eternal life?
Jesus first tells him to keep the commandments, which the young man says
he has kept since my youth up: what lack
I yet?
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come
and follow me. But when the young man
heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
Jesus then, of course, makes His
famous statement that It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
This causes great consternation
among the disciples, who ask, Who then
can be saved?
Our Lord’s parable is then spoken in
response to a question from Peter, who says, Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee; what shall we have
therefore?
Jesus does not rebuke Peter, as He
might have done, pointing out that we cannot and should not try to calculate
what we have earned from God. Our reward
is of Grace. Nor does Jesus ignore the
question, but answers it first with the promise that the Apostles shall sit on
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, adding something which
points clearly to the nature of the commitment required in following Jesus. Everyone
that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or
wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold,
and shall inherit everlasting life. Mt.19:29.
This rather sets the tone for the
last statement of this particular discourse, For many be called, but few chosen. Mt.20:16. This is an extraordinarily important
sentence.
When I was young, my family moved
around a lot with the result that I attended a great number of schools,
thirteen of them by the time I was eleven.
In every one of them, as far as I can remember, the day began with what
might be called devotions. There was,
again probably in all of them, a general assembly at which one or more hymns
were sung, prayers were said and one or more passages of the Bible were read. What a blessing this was. Many seeds were planted in those assemblies,
though I have no way of knowing how many, or how many grew to bear fruit.
The point is, it is primarily
through exposure to the Gospel that we are called by God. We cannot wish to be saved if we do not first
become aware that salvation is possible, through Jesus Christ, and it is the
Gospels which teach us that. If we drive
around this city and any other part of
Yet outside those same churches we
can also see many, many people who walk by without giving so much as a second
thought to what they might find inside.
Indeed, right here in our own church we find very few people who live
within walking distance of the building.
Yet Sunday after Sunday everyone in the neighbourhood must be aware of
the cars parked outside and the congregation coming and going.
The church in itself is not the
call, it is rather the invitation to come and hear the call. In fact, in this age of modern
communications, many may hear the call without first entering a church. They can hear the word on radio programmes,
or watch any of a number of televangelists.
The call is out there, the call is
available, and we can be sure that at some point in the majority of lives, God
provides the opportunity for the call to be heard. Yet few are chosen. What are we to make of that?
Very simply, we must now acknowledge
that a second, deeper call has to take place, a special call which none but the
Holy Spirit can make. Jesus says, Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit he cannot enter into the
The Holy Spirit then, is placed in
us and we surely must believe that at some point in our lives we will by the
same Spirit, be called to God’s service.
This is implicit in our Lord’s parable.
Not one of the workers who enters into the vineyard does so of his own
volition, but because he is first called by the owner. There is not a sheep in the flock of Christ
that was not first found and brought into the safety of the sheepfold by the
action of the shepherd. We can reject
the call through the exercise of our free will, but we cannot through that same
free will do the opposite. We are
incapable of finding the sheepfold without God leading us to it.
We should also note that it is
entirely up to God when the call will
come to us. It is of the nature of Grace
that God will exercise mete it out as and when He sees fit. So we have no control over when we may be
called into the vineyard, but what we do know is that when we are called, our
commitment is to be total. Jesus very
carefully uses the word, “hire” in this respect, because when we enter into
someone’s pay, we cannot also be drawing wages from another master.
We cannot leave the world of sin and
serve God, while making excursions back into what we left behind. The yoke of sin is heavy and Jesus wants us
to leave it behind entirely when we are called into His service. Come
unto me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I
am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. Mt.11:28-30.
So some are called early in life, early in the morning as Jesus says in
the parable. There are those who believe
this refers to those children who, sanctified by the Holy Spirit in Baptism,
are taken home to Jesus while still very young.
Certainly such infants may be included, but the category goes beyond
them to mean those young people who are clearly devoted to Jesus in their
teens. When Penn Clark visited us last
year he brought with him such young people.
What a joy it was to encounter their unquestioning, sincerely happy walk
with Jesus, to experience the humility which allows them to trust every waking
minute to their Lord.
The parable continues, pointing to
calls at different times of the human lifespan.
The third hour of the day, representing that period just beyond the
teens, the sixth hour and the ninth hour, calling people to his service, no
matter what baggage they may be carrying, telling even those called so late, whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
Somewhere in there, around the high
noon of my life, if you like, I received my call. It was quite easy at first, Come back to church – you need to go to
church. So I did, but I had been
wallowing in a life of sin, which kept coming back to me. In fact, that is a problem with a late call –
so much of the world is ingrained and it is so very tempting to go back and
enjoy it all over again, even if only vicariously. Satan is nothing if not persistent, and what
he loses he wants back. So he attacks,
sometimes at the most unexpected moments.
I kneel to pray and something from
long ago, something I deeply regret and want to forget completely, flashes into
my mind. It is horrible and
discouraging.
But Jesus Christ is even more
persistent than His enemy and far more powerful, and I know that my help lies
in Him and in Him alone. So I think of
the great mercy which God has shown me in calling me to His service at the high
noon of my life, and I give Him thanks.
I think of the journeys on which He takes me, into the
Anyone called by God and chosen, as
Jesus points to in the parable, is a miracle of Grace, no matter at what time
of the day that call comes. Look at
What we must do is recognise such an
outpouring of God’s Love upon us for what it is, and give back to Him all we
can give – ourselves, our souls and bodies, every minute of every day. Jesus deserves more from us than we can ever
give, but we cannot let that stop us from giving all that we can give. We may be martyred for Christ, and should
certainly be prepared to die that way, but we can never kill ourselves by
working too hard for Him, even though the
harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few. The Good Shepherd will protect us from such a
suicide, but He will love us for trying.
Peter Jardine+
Septuagesima, 2010