Perhaps tomorrow another chance will appear. Perhaps not. We do not know. So you better take today the chance that is offered to you. A story may tell you what it’s all about. 

This story is about a vineyard. There a lot of work has to be done. So the landowner, to whom this vineyard belongs, goes out early in the morning to the market-place to look out for some helping hands. Some people standing there agree with him to work in his vineyard and accept the salary he proposes them to receive at the end of the day. And they set out for the work in the vineyard. 

Yet it soon turns out their manpower is not sufficient for the amout of the work. So the landowner goes out after three hours again, to the market-place to look out there for additional help. And again he finds some people being willing to work for him. Them he hires. But as there is still more work to be done, than those being already busy in the vineyard can accomplish, he steps out another three hours later to bring in successfully some more workers for their support. 

And even nine hours after the first workers have started he goes out once more to look for some additional workforce. And some more helping hands come in indeed. So the number of workers waxes as the working-day is waning. And as this working-day counts twelve hours, you can easily compute there are now only three hours left to persevere, until the work of this day will be finished. 

Than everything will have come to an end, the salary will be distributed and the time to relax will start. Probably everyone in the vineyard has such thoughts increasingly in his or her mind. Everyone? No. Only nearly everyone. One person in the vineyard has a different intention than to just wait for the end of the working-day, and to keep the rules that he has given to himself. 

The landowner has set up a three hour time slot to enforce his working crew regularly, by adding some more workforce. He has exe-cuted this reliably at the hour zero of the working-day, at the hour three, at the hour six and at the hour nine. According to his own rule his hiring of some more workers should be terminated, because at the hour twelve the working-day will be over. But what does he effectively do? He breaks his own rules! Not by prolonging the working-day to thirteen or fourteen hours. This he can not do be-cause the workers did not only agree with him for the fixation of their salary but also in the duration of the working-day. And he, like everybody else should, has to stand firm with the agreement he has made. And so astonishingly he does something unexpected. 

He steps out again. Against his own rule of the three hour slot. Incredible, yet true. At the hour eleven, when everybody else is looking out for the end of the working-day he goes a last time to the market-place if he may find some more men to hire for the work. (Why does he behave this way? Is this some kind of a philantropic stance? Or is his intention that as much work as possible should be done in the vineyard? We do not know. You may assume for yourself why he behaved this way.) Anyhow. He really goes to the market-place. And he really finds there some more standing idle. And he asks them „Why have you been standing idle all day?“ 

What a question. He does not only ask them routinely to join his work, rather he diligently enquires how they are doing. And they answer „Because nobody has hired us.“ He than tells them „You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.“ Were they really idle all the day? With his question about their occupation all day long, dubbing it as ‚standing idle‘, he protects them effectively from shame. Because they possibly had not been idle at all, though it now may appear as they had been so all day long. 

Perhaps some or even all of those standing there had been very busy all the day long. Doing this and doing that. But unluckily they were not successful. Nearly at the end of the day they did realize that their occupation since the early morning had effectively been in vain. Maybe what they did was at first quite impressive (for whom ever). Yet one hour before the end of the working-day they realized everything they had done all the day long did yield no lasting success. And now they are standing here and do not know how to cope with their unsuccessfulness. They can not step back to the hour zero. And they certainly can not wipe out everything that reminds them of their failure. A faint despair creeps in, making them ask how to escape. But suddenly inmidst of this wavering void there this unique chance appears. 

Unpredicted, The chance for a change. A real hundred percent change. Not only a slight alteration. Promising earnestly to cover all their unsuccessfullness with only one hour work in the vineyard of this landowner. And those, standing there empty-handed at the hour eleven of the working-day, looking out for nothing but a perfect unsuccessfulness, threatening to become increasingly manifest, with every minute that will pass until the hour twelve, when everything will be over? They do not question the conditions of their hiring and they do not ponder if everything is worth while. They really take their chance for a change. And they respond to the promise of hope by going into the vineyard. 

They seize this unique chance. This personal chance to save not only the last hour but moreover the whole day. And even their whole life. With nearly all of their actions up this moment, they seemed to have inevitably failed. But everything is different now. 

Is this only a story? No. It is a wide-hearted offer and a serious demand for everybody hearing or reading the story to take his or her chance at every time of the day. At the start of the day, early in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and even just one hour before the day will have been come to a close. So this story is not just a story. It is a heavenly story. 

Told by nobody else but by Yeshua ha Moshiach. If you want to read it in full please open the chapter twenty in the Gospel according to Matthew. You will detect this story contains much more than we can take now into consideration. G-d willing I’ll add from time to time some more thoughts thereupon. But for now let’s stay with the central good news. 

Even if the end is near and there is nothing left in your life but despair and disgust over the things that have happened and can not be put aside as they were non existent, there is hope. Not dimly and not vaguely. But firmly and certainly. 

The owner of the vineyard asks you to join his working crew. So do not look back to all the things that have gone wrong. Take your chance to make everything right during the last hour of the day. But who is this landowner of the vineyard? HE is nobody else but the ONE G-d having created heaven and earth and formed therein mankind and upholding since everything and everybody with HIS mighty power. A G-dly power to lift up and not to destroy. 

So if you agree to seize this unique chance please turn directly to this landowner of the vineyard and to HIS steward, who will even pay to you the same salary as to all the others working in HIS vineyard. If you’d like to have some assistance please ask for it at your local synagogue or church. And if you want to know more about this wonderful landowner of this vineyard and HIS steward please feel free to read something of my collected thoughts and conclusions which I will offer at this site as tidbits.

May HE richly bless all of us.