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There is a sentence in one of Jesus’ parables that I must have read dozens of times without really noticing it.
It comes towards the end of the story of the workers in the vineyard. A landowner has been going backwards and forwards to the marketplace throughout the day, hiring people to work for him. He goes first thing in the morning, then again at nine, noon and three in the afternoon. Finally, at about five o’clock, with perhaps only an hour of the working day remaining, he goes back one more time.
There are still people standing there.
The landowner asks what seems like an obvious question: “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?”
Their answer consists of only a few words: “Because no one has hired us.”
For years, I think I unconsciously assumed these were people who had simply arrived late. Perhaps they had slept in, spent most of the day somewhere else, and eventually wandered into the marketplace just as everyone else was preparing to go home.
Except Jesus never says that.
They tell the landowner they have been standing there all day, so they were available; it was just that nobody chose them.
