Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Thursday 18 September 2008

Temptation

There is a very helpful, solid piece online about introducing and using more suitable music, (one might say, the "most suitable" music,) into a parish setting to which I was tempted to link, and then refer with its own author's frequent Chekovian swipe (the Star Trek character, not the Russian playwright,) but in the midst of typing up programs for the weekend...
Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.
Going out about nine o’clock,
the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard,
and I will give you what is just.’
So they went off.
And he went out again around noon,
and around three o’clock, and did likewise.
Going out about five o’clock,
the landowner found others standing around, and said to them,
‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’
They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’
He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’
When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman,
‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay,
beginning with the last and ending with the first.’
When those who had started about five o’clock came,
each received the usual daily wage.
So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
‘These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.

So instead, welcome to the party! Good ideas! Glad you thought of them! (By the way, I certainly don't number myself among "the first", I am too lazy to have ever been part of a group ready to work at dawn...)

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