Sermons to the People 87.1–88.2

From the holy Gospel you heard a parable suited to the present season, about those who work in the vineyard. For it is now the time of the bodily grape harvest. But there is also a spiritual vintage, in which God rejoices at the fruit of his vineyard. For we worship God, and God cultivates us. But we do not worship God in such a way that by our cultivation we make him better. For we cultivate him by adoring, not by ploughing. But he cultivates us as a farmer cultivates a field. That he cultivates us, then, makes us better; for a farmer too makes his field better by cultivating it; and the very fruit he seeks in us is that we worship him. His cultivation of us is this: he does not cease by his word to root out evil seeds from our hearts, to open our heart as with the plough of his speech, to plant the seeds of his commands, and to wait for the fruit of godliness. For when we have so received this cultivation into our heart that we worship him well, we are not ungrateful to our farmer, but yield fruit in which he rejoices. And our fruit does not make him richer, but us happier.

See, hear how, as I said, God cultivates us. For that we worship God need not be proved to you; everyone has it on his lips that men worship God. But that God cultivates men—the hearer is almost alarmed when he hears it, because it is not usual among people to say that God cultivates men, but that men worship God. We ought, then, to prove to you that God too cultivates men, lest perhaps we be thought to have spoken an undisciplined word, and someone argue against us in his heart and, not knowing what we meant, find fault with us. So we have resolved to show you that God too cultivates us; but, as I have already said, as a field, to make us better. The Lord says in the Gospel: “I am the vine, you are the branches, my Father is the farmer.” What does a farmer do? I ask you who are farmers: what does a farmer do? I think he cultivates a field. If, then, God the Father is a farmer, he has a field, and he cultivates his field and expects fruit from it.

Indeed, he planted a vineyard, as the Lord Jesus Christ himself says, and let it out to tenants who would render him the fruit at the proper seasons. And he sent his servants to them to ask for the vineyard’s rent. But they treated them with insults, killed some, and refused to render the fruit. He sent others; they suffered the same. And that householder, the cultivator of his field, the planter and lessor of his vineyard, said: “I will send my only son; perhaps they will respect him at least.” And he sent, it says, his son too. They said among themselves: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” And they killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. “When the Lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those wicked tenants?” The answer was given: “He will destroy the wicked wickedly, and let out his vineyard to other tenants, who will render him the fruit in its season.” The vineyard was planted when the law was given in the hearts of the Jews. The prophets were sent, seeking fruit, their good life: the prophets were treated with insults by them and killed. Christ too was sent, the householder’s only Son; and they killed the heir himself, and so lost the inheritance. Their evil plan turned against them. They killed in order to possess; and because they killed, they lost.

And now you have heard the parable from the holy Gospel, that the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out to hire workers for his vineyard. He went out in the morning and hired those he found, and agreed with them on a denarius as wages. He went out also at the third hour, found others, and brought them to the work of the vineyard. At the sixth hour he did this, and at the ninth. He went out also at the eleventh hour, near the end of the day, found some idle and standing, and said to them: “Why do you stand here? Why do you not work in the vineyard?” They answered: “Because no one hired us.” “Come,” he said, “you too, and what is just I will give you.” He was pleased to make the wage a denarius. Those who were going to work one hour—when would they dare to hope for a denarius? Yet they rejoiced that they would receive something. They too were brought in for one hour. When the day was ended, he ordered the wages paid to all, from the last to the first. Then he began to pay from those who had come at the eleventh hour, and ordered that a denarius be given them. Those who had come at the first hour, seeing that the others had received a denarius, the sum agreed with themselves, hoped they would receive something more; it came to them too, and they received a denarius. They grumbled against the householder, saying: “See, we who bore the burden of the day and the heat, you have made us equal and on a par with those who worked one hour in the vineyard.” And the householder, giving a most just answer to one of them, said: “Friend, I have done you no wrong”—that is, I have not defrauded you; I paid you what I agreed. I have not cheated you, because I paid what I contracted. To this man I do not want to pay, but to give. “Am I not allowed to do what I want with what is mine? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” If I took what belongs to another from someone, I would rightly be blamed as a cheat and unjust; if I did not pay someone what was owed, I would rightly be blamed as a cheat and one who withholds another’s due; but when I pay what is owed, and also give to whom I wish, neither can the one to whom I owed blame me, and the one to whom I gave ought to rejoice the more. There was nothing to answer; and all were made equal, and the last became first and the first last—by being made equal, not by being put in reverse order. What is “the last became first and the first last”? That the first and the last received the same amount.

What does it mean, then, that he began paying from the last? Will not all, as we read, receive at the same time? For we read in another place of the Gospel that he will say to those whom he places at his right: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” If, then, all will receive at the same time, how do we understand here that those who worked from the eleventh hour received first, and those who worked from the first hour later? If I can say it so that it reaches your understanding, thanks be to God. For you ought to give thanks to him who pays out to you through us; for we do not pay out from our own. If you ask about two men, for example, which received first, the one who received after one hour, or the one who received after twelve, everyone answers that the one who received after one hour received sooner than the one who received after twelve. So, although all received at one hour, yet since some received after one hour and others after twelve hours, those are said to have received first who received after a short time. The first righteous, like Abel, like Noah, called as it were at the first hour, will receive the happiness of the resurrection with us. Other righteous after them, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and whoever belonged to their age, called as it were at the third hour, will receive the happiness of the resurrection with us. Other righteous, Moses and Aaron and whoever were with them, called as at the sixth hour, will receive the happiness of the resurrection with us. After them the holy prophets, called as at the ninth hour, will receive the same happiness with us. At the end of the age all Christians, called as at the eleventh hour, will receive the happiness of that resurrection with them. All will receive at the same time; but see after how long a time those first ones receive. If, then, they receive after a long time and we after a short time, though we receive at the same time, we seem to have received first, because our reward will not be delayed.

In that reward, then, we shall all be equal, the first as the last and the last as the first: because that denarius is eternal life, and in eternal life all will be equal. For although they will shine with a diversity of merits, one more, another less, yet as regards eternal life it will be equal for all. For what is equally everlasting will not be longer for one and shorter for another: what has no end will have none for you and none for me. In one way there will be conjugal chastity there, in another way virginal integrity; in one way the fruit of good work, in another the crown of suffering. This in one way, that in another; yet as far as living forever is concerned, neither does this one live more than that one, nor that one more than this. For they live equally without end, though each lives in his own glory: and that denarius is eternal life. Let not the one who received after a long time grumble, then, against the one who received after a short time. To the one it is paid, to the other it is given; yet one and the same thing is given to both.

There is also something similar in this life. Apart from that explanation of this parable by which those called at the first hour are understood as Abel and the righteous of his age, at the third Abraham and the righteous of his age, at the sixth Moses and Aaron and the righteous of their age, at the ninth the prophets and the righteous of their age, at the eleventh, as at the end of the age, all Christians—apart from this explanation of the parable, the parable can also be observed in our own life. For those are called as at the first hour who begin to be Christians fresh from their mother’s womb; as at the third, boys; as at the sixth, young men; as at the ninth, those declining into old age; as at the eleventh, the altogether decrepit: yet all will receive the one denarius of eternal life.

But pay attention and understand, my brothers, lest anyone delay coming to the vineyard because he is secure that, whenever he comes, he will receive the same denarius. He is secure, indeed, that the denarius itself is promised him; but he is not commanded to delay. For when the householder went out to hire those he found at the third hour, for example, and hired them, did those hired for the vineyard say to him, “Wait, we are not going there until the sixth hour”? Or did those he found at the sixth hour say, “We are not going until the ninth”? Or those he found at the ninth, “We are not going until the eleventh; for he will give everyone the same: why should we tire ourselves more?” What he will give and what he will do rests in his own counsel: you, when you are called, come. For an equal wage is promised to all; but about the hour of working there is a great question. For if, for example, those called at the sixth hour—placed in that age of the body where the years of youth burn hot, as the sixth hour itself is hot—if those young men, when called, said: “Wait; for we heard in the Gospel that we will all receive one wage; when we have grown old, we will come at the eleventh hour; we will receive the same, so why labor?”, it would be answered them: “You do not want to labor, you who do not know whether you will live to old age? You are called at the sixth hour: come. The householder has promised you a denarius even if you come at the eleventh; but no one has promised you that you will live until the seventh.” I do not say until the eleventh, but until the seventh. Why, then, do you put off him who calls you, sure of the wage, unsure of the day? Take care lest perhaps what he would give you by promising you take away from yourself by delaying. If this is rightly said of infants, as belonging to the first hour; if rightly said of boys, as belonging to the third hour; if rightly said of young men, as placed in the heat of the sixth hour: how much more rightly is it said to the decrepit: “See, it is already the eleventh hour, and are you still standing, slow to come?” Or perhaps the householder has not gone out to call you? If he has not gone out, what is it that we are saying? Surely we are servants of his household; we have been sent to hire workers. Why, then, do you stand? You have already completed the number of your years: hurry to the denarius. For this is the householder’s going out: becoming known. For one who is in the house is hidden and is not seen by those outside; but when he has gone out of the house, he is seen by those outside. Christ, when he is not understood and not recognized, is in secret; but when he is recognized, he has gone out to hire. For he has come forth from hiddenness into knowledge: Christ is known, Christ is preached everywhere; all things under heaven proclaim the glory of Christ. He was in a certain way laughed at and found fault with among the Jews; he was seen as lowly; he was despised. For he was hiding his majesty and displaying his weakness. What was displayed in him was despised, and what was hidden was not recognized. For if they had recognized it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. Is he still to be despised as he sits in heaven, if he was despised when he hung on the wood? Those who crucified him shook their heads, and standing before his cross, as if they had reached the fruit of their cruelty, they mocked him and said: “If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross. He saved others; can he not save himself? Let him come down from the cross, and we believe in him.” He did not come down, because he was hiding himself. For he who could rise from the tomb could much more easily come down from the cross. For our instruction he showed patience and deferred his power, and he was not recognized. For he had not yet gone out then to hire workers; he had not gone out; he had not become known. On the third day he rose, showed himself to the disciples, ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit on the fiftieth day after the resurrection, the tenth after the ascension. The Holy Spirit, when sent, filled all who were in one room, a hundred and twenty people. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they began to speak in the tongues of all nations; the call was made manifest; he went out to hire. For the power of truth began to become known to all. For then even one man who had received the Holy Spirit spoke in the tongues of all nations. But now in the Church unity itself, as one man, speaks in the tongues of all nations. To what language has the Christian religion not come? To what borders has it not reached? Now there is no one who hides himself from its heat; and still there is delay on the part of the one who stands at the eleventh hour!

It is plain, then, my brothers, altogether plain—hold it, be sure of it—that when anyone turns to the faith of our God Jesus Christ from his way, whether vain or most wicked, all his past is forgiven him, and, as when debts are remitted, the accounts are made new with him. Absolutely everything is forgiven. Let no one be anxious that anything is not forgiven him. But again, let no one be perversely secure. For these two things kill souls: despair or perverse hope. Hear a few things about these two evils. For as good hope, right hope, sets free, so perverse hope deceives. First notice how despair deceives. There are people who, when they begin to think of the evils they have done, think they cannot be forgiven; and while they think they cannot be forgiven, they give their soul over to perishing now; they perish by despair, saying in their thoughts: “Now there is no hope for us; for the great things we have committed cannot be pardoned or forgiven us; why, then, do we not satisfy our desires? Let us at least fill up the pleasure of the present time, since we have no reward in the future. Let us do whatever we like, even if it is not lawful, so that we may have at least a temporal sweetness, since we do not deserve to receive an eternal one.” Saying such things they perish by despairing, whether before they believe at all, or as Christians who have fallen into some sins and crimes by living badly. The Lord of the vineyard comes out to them, and, as to men who despair and turn their backs on him who calls, he knocks and cries out through the prophet Ezekiel: “On whatever day a man turns from his most wicked way, I will forget all his iniquities.” Hearing and believing this voice, they are revived from despair and emerge from that deepest, bottomless pit in which they had been sunk.

But these must fear lest they fall into another pit, and those who could not die by despairing die by hoping perversely. For they change their thoughts to others, far different indeed but no less deadly, and begin again to say in their hearts: “If on whatever day I turn from my most wicked way God in his mercy forgets all my iniquities, as he truly promised through the prophet, why should I turn today and not tomorrow? Why today and not tomorrow? Let today be like yesterday; let it be spent in most wicked pleasure, in a whirlpool of vices; let it wallow in deadly delight: tomorrow I will turn, and that will be the end of it.” The answer to you is: “The end of what?” You say: “Of my iniquities.” Good: rejoice that tomorrow there will be an end of your iniquities. What if before tomorrow there is an end of you? So you rightly rejoice that God has promised you pardon for your iniquities when you turn; but no one has promised you tomorrow. Or if perhaps an astrologer promised it, that is far different from God. Astrologers have deceived many, for they often promised themselves gains too, and found losses. So because of these too who hope badly, the householder comes out. As he came out to those who had despaired badly and were perishing by despair, and called them back to hope, so he comes out also to these who want to perish by hoping badly, and says to them through another book: “Do not delay to turn to the Lord.” As he had said to the others, “On whatever day the wicked man turns from his most wicked way, I will forget all his iniquities,” and took away the despair by which they had already given their soul to perdition, despairing of pardon in every way, so he comes out also to these who want to perish by hoping and delaying; and he speaks to them and rebukes them: “Do not delay to turn to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day. For his wrath will come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy you.” So do not put it off; do not shut against yourself what stands open. See, the giver of pardon opens the door to you; why do you delay? You ought to rejoice if he ever opened to you when you knocked: you did not knock, and he opens, and you remain outside? So do not put it off. Concerning works of mercy Scripture says in a certain place: “Do not say, Go and come back, tomorrow I will give, when you can do good at once; for you do not know what will happen the next day.” You have heard the command not to delay being merciful to another, and are you cruel to yourself by delaying? You ought not to put off giving bread, and you put off receiving pardon! If you do not put off showing mercy to another, “have mercy also on your own soul, pleasing God.” Give alms to your own soul too. We do not say that you should give to it, but that you should not push away the hand of the giver.

But sometimes people harm themselves very much by fearing to offend others. Good friends are very powerful for good, and bad friends for evil. Therefore the Lord, so that we might despise the friendships of the powerful for the sake of our salvation, did not choose senators first, but fishermen. Great is the mercy of the Craftsman! For he knew that if he chose a senator, the senator would say, “My rank was chosen.” If he chose a rich man first, the rich man would say, “My wealth was chosen.” If he chose an emperor first, the emperor would say, “My power was chosen.” If he chose an orator first, the orator would say, “My eloquence was chosen.” If he chose a philosopher, the philosopher would say, “My wisdom was chosen.” “Meanwhile,” he says, “let these proud men be put off; they are very swollen.” There is a difference between greatness and swelling: both are large, but not both are healthy. “Let these proud men be put off, then,” he says; “they must be healed by something solid. Give me first,” he says, “that fisherman. Come, you poor man, follow me; you have nothing, you know nothing: follow me. Unlearned poor man, follow me. There is nothing in you to be dreaded, but there is much in you to be filled.” To so abundant a fountain an empty vessel must be brought. The fisherman let go his nets, the sinner received grace, and became a divine orator. See what the Lord did, of whom the Apostle says: “God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong; and God chose the low things of the world, and the things that are not as though they were, so that the things that are might be brought to nothing.” And now the words of fishermen are read, and the necks of orators are bowed. Let the empty winds, then, be taken away; let the smoke be taken away, which vanishes as it grows; let these things be utterly despised for the sake of salvation.

Suppose someone in a city were sick in body, and there was a most skilled doctor there who was an enemy of the sick man’s powerful friends—suppose, I say, someone in a city were sick with some dangerous bodily disease, and there was in the same city a most skilled doctor, an enemy, as I said, of the sick man’s powerful friends, who said to their friend, “Do not call him in; he knows nothing,” and said it not from judgment but from envy: would not that man, for the sake of his health, put aside the tales of his powerful friends, and, so as to live a few days longer, call in that doctor whom report had commended as most skilled, to drive out the disease of his body, whatever offense he gave them? The human race is sick, not with bodily diseases but with sins. Throughout the whole world, from east to west, lies a great sick man. To heal the great sick man the almighty physician came down. He humbled himself even to mortal flesh, as if to the sick man’s bed. He gives the precepts of health; he is despised; those who listen are set free. He is despised when powerful friends say, “He knows nothing.” If he knew nothing, his power would not fill the nations. If he knew nothing, he would not have existed before he was among us. If he knew nothing, he would not have sent the prophets before him. Are not the things foretold long ago now being fulfilled? Does not this physician prove the power of his art by fulfilling his promises? Are not deadly errors being overthrown throughout the whole world, and desires being tamed by the threshing of the world? Let no one say, “The world was better before than now; since this physician began to practice his art, we see many horrible things here.” Do not be surprised. Before anyone was being treated, the physician’s surgery seemed clean of blood. Rather, now that you see this, shake off vain delights and come to the physician; it is a time for health, not for pleasure.

Let us be healed, then, brothers. If we do not yet recognize the physician, let us not rage against him like the frenzied, nor turn away from him like the lethargic. For many have perished by raging, many by sleeping. The frenzied are those who go mad without sleeping. The lethargic are those who are weighed down by too much sleeping. People are exactly like this. Some want to rage against this physician; and since he now sits in heaven, they persecute his faithful members on earth. He heals even such as these. Many of them, converted, have become friends instead of enemies, preachers instead of persecutors. Such were even the Jews themselves, who raged against him when he was here; he healed them as frenzied men, praying for them as he hung on the wood. For he said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Many of them, when their fury was calmed, as if the frenzy had been subdued, came to know God, came to know Christ. After the ascension, when the Holy Spirit was sent, they were converted to him whom they had crucified, and, believing, drank in the sacrament his blood, which they had shed in their rage.

We have examples. Saul was persecuting the members of him who already sat in heaven; he was persecuting grievously in frenzy, out of his mind, with a severe disease. But he, with one voice crying to him from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”, struck down the frenzied man and raised up a healthy one; he killed the persecutor and gave life to the preacher. Many lethargic people too are healed. For like them are those who do not rage against Christ and are not malicious toward Christians, but merely grow languid by delaying, with sleepy words, are too lazy to open their eyes to the light, and find troublesome those who want to rouse them. “Get away from me,” says the languid, lethargic man, “I beg you, get away from me.” “Why?” “I want to sleep.” “But you will die from it.” He, for love of sleep, answers, “I want to die.” And charity answers from above, “I do not want you to.” Often a son shows this affection of charity even to an aged father who is going to die in a few days, his old age certainly already at its end. If he sees him lethargic, and learns from the doctor that his father is seized by the lethargic disease—the doctor saying to him, “Wake your father, do not let him sleep, if you want him to live”—the boy is at the old man’s side; he knocks, plucks, pricks him; out of devotion he is troublesome; he does not let him die quickly, though by his very old age he will die quickly; and if he lives, the son rejoices that he, the successor, may live some few days more with the one about to depart. With how much greater charity ought we to be troublesome to our friends, with whom we may live not a few days in this world, but forever with God! Let them love us, then, and do what they hear through us, and worship him whom we also worship, so that they may receive what we also hope for. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Your Holiness knows well, as we do, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the physician of our eternal salvation, and that he took on the weakness of our nature so that our weakness might not be everlasting. For he took a mortal body in which to kill death. And though he was crucified out of our weakness, as the Apostle says, yet he lives by the power of God. They are the words of the same Apostle: “And since he no longer dies, death will no longer have dominion over him.” These things, then, are well known to your faith. And it also follows that we should know that all the miracles he did on bodies serve to admonish us, so that we may receive from him what will not pass away nor have an end. He gave back eyes to the blind, which death was certainly going to close at some time; he raised Lazarus, who would die again. And whatever he did for the health of bodies, he did not do so that they would be everlasting, though at the end he will give everlasting health even to the body itself. But because the things that were not seen were not believed, through these temporal things that were seen he built up faith in those that were not seen.

Let no one, then, brothers, say that our Lord Jesus Christ does not do these things now, and on this account prefer the earlier times of the Church to the present. For in a certain place the same Lord prefers to those who see, and therefore believe, those who do not see and believe. For in that time the weakness of his disciples wavered so far that they thought they must even handle him whom they saw already risen, in order to believe. It was not enough for their eyes that they saw, unless their hands too were put to his limbs and the scars of the fresh wounds were touched; so that the disciple who doubted, suddenly touching and recognizing the scars, cried out, “My Lord and my God!” The scars revealed him who had healed all wounds in others. Could not the Lord have risen without scars? But he knew the wounds in his disciples’ hearts, and to heal them he had kept the scars in his body. And what did the Lord say to him as he now confessed and said, “My Lord and my God”? “Because you have seen me,” he said, “you have believed: blessed are those who do not see, and believe.” Whom did he mean, brothers, but us? Not us alone, but also those after us. For after a short time, when he withdrew from mortal eyes so that faith might be strengthened in hearts, all who believed believed without seeing, and their faith had great merit: to acquire that faith they brought only a godly heart, not a hand to handle him.