February 8, 2004

The 11 th Hour

“And about the 11 th hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard... ”

What time is it, anyway? Can we linger here a little while, or is our time up? Is some other pressing appointment causing us to rush out, fight traffic, compress time by making cell phone calls on the run, and hurriedly parking so we might just make our next meeting?

I used to pride myself on my ability to know just how long it would take me to get to an appointment so I wouldn't leave where I was until the very minute I needed to depart. Even when I worked in Martinez, in the north Bay Area, and I had a 3 p.m. meeting in Sunnyvale, I would time my departure, knowing the traffic patterns and slowdowns, picking my route— and hating the fact that I would be out of that meeting at the height of the south bay rush hour, making me at least an hour late for dinner. One day I was making my way south on the Nimitz freeway to such a meeting and my beeper went off. Cell phones were prohibitively expensive then, so my office had not provided me with this extravagance yet. I uttered some choice words for this inconvenience, but figuring it must be important or they wouldn't have paged me, I fought my way over from the fast lane, chose an exit from the freeway, looked around frantically for a commercial strip where a pay phone was likely to be found… I found one finally, after searching high and low. This one was low —it was also used for things other than making phone calls. I rang the office.

“What on earth is it?” I said to the receptionist, nicely . “Oh, thanks for calling back. Bill just wants to know if you sent in that bid.” Slow burn . “You just tell Bill the following, verbatim: I just spent 20 minutes trying to find a telephone to answer his page. Now I'm late for my appointment in Sunnyvale. The next time he thinks of asking me a silly question, have him ask me before I leave. And yes, I sent the bid: I do my job.” I slammed down the receiver. From that day, I have referred to pagers as leashes , for, like a dog leash that a master may yank at any time, sending the dog spinning and straining for air, a pager yanks my chain and stops me on my busy way.

Americans are busy. We rush about, never having enough hours to do the things we want, taking time management classes, keeping daytimers or, like me, little pocket computers with all our appointments scheduled for us. The jazz-rock group Chicago sang a song about this in the late 60s: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so I can't imagine why; we've all got time enough to die.”

The Gospel according to St. John frequently refers to an appointment that Jesus had to keep. He was watching the clock of His life in order to keep that appointment, not rush it, and not let anyone bring it on early or forbid Him from keeping it. He called it “ His hour .” When chiding His mother at the wedding in Cana when she asked for a miracle, He reminded her: “My hour is not yet come.” Again and again He tells His disciples about that hour. It was an hour for all humankind, not just for our Lord. “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. John 5:25 “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.” John 5:28 And when He had finally arrived at Jerusalem for that fateful week, He said to some foreign Jews seeking Him out: “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified… Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.” The Father answered from heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” Jesus said, “This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me…

“Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” John 12:23-36

Jesus' rather gloomy words reflected His sadness in having to save the world by being the world's scapegoat. He had to die to save mankind, and all mankind wanted was to kill Him. Yet, He willingly kept His appointment with death and, passing through it, He made a way for us through death that we might rise again to life forever. His words of eternal life and the judgment coming gave urgency to the message of His Apostles to the world.

St. Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only… For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be… Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come… Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Matthew 24:36-44

In Old Testament Hebrew, there isn't a word for “hour,” as we use it. There was a word used, instead, for an appointed time of meeting, of a commanded sacrifice, of a religious observance. But not an hour of the day.

The word “ hour ” in the New Testament was an approximate measure of the day or night, roughly counting twelve time periods from sunup to sundown, or similar periods of the night. The first hour corresponded roughly to 6 a.m. The sixth hour was noon. The ninth hour was mid-afternoon, and the 11 th hour was just an hour before sundown. The 11 th hour was late in the day to start anything, and certainly awfully late to be looking for employment in an agricultural community. The 11 th hour workers in Christ's parable of the workers in the vineyard were loafers . The boss implies this when he asks them: “ Why stand ye here all the day idle?” Now this same boss had been to that same marketplace several times already, hiring every able hand. These had only shown up the last hour or two, late in the day, finally waking up to the fact that they needed a job.

Looking for a job is the hardest thing in the world to do— or at least I think so. Being unemployed seems already two strikes against you. Coming in, hat in hand, asking to be hired and waiting for another rejection is a miserable feeling. Hope springs eternal , but seldom for the unemployed. This hopelessness will often translate into a listless job search. The jobless sleeps late, looking over the classified pages, cleaning imaginary spots off his ties, watching snatches of TV, anything but to go out and face the employers. I have often encouraged young people caught in this quicksand to get up really early, be waiting for the employer at the gate as he arrives to work, looking awake and eager, showing up every morning until he sees that you mean business. The worst impression you can give a potential employer is to shuffle in his door at 4 p.m., looking tired and lame, and mumbling something about work. He will conclude that you don't know the meaning of the word.

St. Paul encourages Christians to run the marathon. Our Epistle from 1 st Corinthians reads: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run.” The Christian life is not one that you shuffle in at the last minute mumbling something about joining it, if it doesn't cost much and there aren't many expectations that this religion will make of you . I hate the easy path that some ministries seem to offer the unsaved. I'm not sure that very many of the “Christians” in our nation have any idea what they're associated with. That's why about half of those who call themselves “Christian” in America also believe that Jesus probably committed sins .

The Lord is looking for workers in His vineyard. Now, it may be sufficient for someone to wait until the end of his life to consider Jesus Christ and want to come under His dominion at the last minute. That person may make it to heaven, just as the good thief who asked that Jesus remember him when He should come into His kingdom was told: “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” 11 th hour conversions stories encourage us regarding the patience and forbearance of God. We hear that Charles Darwin repented on his deathbed for making up his infernal theory of evolution, denying the Creator His role as our God. I'd like to believe that. Early Christians, especially those involved in the Roman military or government, forestalled their baptisms until they neared death, for fear that a great sin after baptism might take away their salvation. So it was with Constantine.

But waiting until later, giving yourself enough time to sow the wild oats, to taste the sinful pleasures of the world, to strike it rich in Vegas, to get some experience, to party a little: can get you into real trouble, trouble you may never get out of. People die pursuing such pleasures. Real disease and accidental death take their toll of the party-hearty . There are addictions that you weren't counting on. And the world, the flesh and the devil have their ways of keeping their captives. Take it from me, a man of the world for many years, and a confessor for the rest of my years, sin is boring. Nobody is really having fun out there. The jet setters are all lonely.

Salvation is forever , and there is a life to live right now that the Creator of the universe, and of your soul, has mapped out for you to live in exciting detail and importance. The real adventure is to show up to work in His vineyard, and do it early. When you have been proven faithful in the little things, in picking grapes, in being on time: He will give you rulership over greater things. Just show up, show up early, every single time.

PFH+