Matthew 20:8

AT EVENTIDE

‘When even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers and give them their hire.’

Matthew 20:8

The householder goes out early in the morning, and then, when eventide is come, he, the owner of the vast and beautiful vineyard, calls the labourers.

I. The call.—The voice and the call of the Householder have come to us. They came in the morning of life. Can you remember that morning, you who are stricken in years, you who are toiling in mid-day life? Can you not remember when your dreams, like Joseph’s, were made of such stuff as godly ambition is made of; when you felt that the whole world was before you, and you heard God’s voice bidding you, ‘Go, work,’ in His vineyard. Illustrate from Moses, Samuel, Isaiah. You may remember faintly still how you went forth. But behind it all you feel that the great Householder was He Who determined your lot, and the decision was with the Lord.

II. The work.—Are there not twelve hours of the day in which it behoveth man to work? You went forth to your work, and now each season asks, ‘How are you doing it? Now that one hour and another and another are striking over your head, are you fulfilling the work which you then, with best resolves, intended to do?’

III. The unity in life.—Our early feelings and joys blend with our later ones. At any hour, ‘something attempted, something done’ gives joy.

IV. At eventide.—There is such a thing as a dark, dreary, godless old age; a sunset dark with gathering clouds. The eventide is coming. The Householder is continually calling. Keep the eventide in your thoughts, the reckoning in your faith, that you may hear the Master’s ‘Well done.’

—Canon Rowsell.