Kids can be sneaky. One of the easiest ways to pull the wool over your parents' eyes is to go with the flow while they're around, but the minute their backs are turned…bam. As they say, "When the cat's away, the mice will play."

Perhaps that was the second son's scheme. It's harvest time. The vineyard is full of rich, heavy clusters of ripened grapes. The son really would rather hang out with his friends, go down to the marketplace and ogle the girls. But here comes dear old dad. "Uh, son, I need your help in the vineyard today." Think fast -- "Sure, dad," he says, smiling, and then when dad's out of sight, he just walks away, whistling.

The first son isn't so smart, though. He also wants to do other things, so says "No way, José" when dad asks. We aren't told how the father reacts. Does he get red in the face, yell, scream, hit? No, I picture him feeling disappointed; but then he remembers the good son who always says "yes." So he consoles himself with the fact that his other son will be more tractable than this good-for-nothing.

The irony is that while Mr. "I will, sir" is loafing in the town square, Mr. "I will not" has a sudden change of heart and heads for the vineyard to put in a hard day's work after all.

Or maybe I've got their personalities and motives all wrong. What if the case we're presented with isn't the typical behavior of each brother? Maybe Mr. "I will, sir" has worked every day all day for the past five days straight in his father's vineyard. He's a hard working guy. He respects his father (he calls him "sir" after all); he tries to follow all the rules. But on this particular day he's just plain tired. Burnt out. Meanwhile, his brother always gets away with murder. Mr. "I will not" always doesn't, and his father never calls him on it. When his brother says no (and when doesn't he?), dad just turns around and puts the burden on him. And isn't that always the way of the world? The most responsible person always ends up doing everybody else's work for them. Well, it's time for a break, Mr. "I will, sir" tells himself. But no, on second thought, "If I don't do it, who will? I can't let dad down." So he begins trudging joylessly toward the vineyard.

But suddenly, he sees an astounding thing. In fact, he can't believe his eyes-there, in his vineyard, is Mr. "I will not," for once doing his fair share. "Well," he thinks to himself, "now's my chance." The tables are turned, and seeing that old loafer boy is now hoofing it in the dirt, he finally gets a chance to sample the high life that his ne'er-do-well brother has been taking for granted all this time.

The context in which Matthew places this parable is a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees, and Matthew uses this little story to trot out one of his pet peeves about the Pharisees, that they always say the right thing but never do it. But the great thing about parables is that they're not tied to one particular context. They invite us to play with them, to try them on like grandpa's old hat and big shoes, and to look into the mirror to see how we look when we're dressed in their ancient clothes.

Today's parable is particularly timely, since after this morning's liturgy you are invited to the parish hall to sample the fruits of our own vineyard. The Stewardship Fair is today, and many of you have been involved as laborers in the various parts of the vineyard that is Saint James. Like a large winery, we grow many different varieties of grape, and bottle many different vintages. We have the Pinot Noir of the Social Ministries Community, the Cabernet Sauvignon of the Pastoral Care Community, the Port of the Altar Guild, the sweet Riesling of Youth Programs, the Chardonnay of Adult Ed. So many grapes, so many wines, so much work, so little time.

When we reflect on our own work in the vineyard of Saint James in relation to Jesus' parable about the two sons, three pertinent questions come to my mind:

• First, how do we respond to the work we have undertaken in this place?
• Second, do we find ourselves acting from time to time like the son who says "No" but works or the son who says "Yes" but doesn't, and if so, why?
• Third, what are we called to do as stewards in this vineyard in the future?

As to the first question, how do we respond to the work we've undertaken, I've been thinking a lot recently about how busy we all get around here. In our home lives, our work lives, and our church lives, I see that many of us (including myself) tend to pile things on without ever taking things off. The result is too much of a good thing. While I might enjoy each thing separately, when piled together the resultant stress sucks the joy out of them all. So imagine instead a world where the only things we did were the things that gave us and others joy. I don't mean that we only do easy work, or that the work we do be done just for what we can get out of it, but that when we do things for others, that work leaves us with a sense of joy. Joy is a different thing than a sense of accomplishment: I can spend all day under the hot sun in the vineyard harvesting grapes and have a great sense of accomplishment, but no joy in it. Conversely, I can be engaged in efforts that have no tangible, immediate "results," but still feel joy in the knowledge that what I've done is worthwhile.

Does this seem too idealistic, that we would only do what gives joy to us and to others? I don't know, but something inside of me says it's possible. And if we're not feeling joy, then what? What does that indicate? This brings me to the second question, whether we find ourselves acting like the two sons in the parable. Who do you identify with? It seems to me that a son who says "No" does so because the prospect of working in the vineyard isn't a very appetizing one. Afterwards, regretting what he has told the father, he goes: but does he go out of a sense of guilt, of duty, or does he go willingly, joyfully, with a changed heart and a new attitude? As for the son who says "Yes, sir," but doesn't go, I see him as one who is motivated primarily by duty, but because there's no joy, when the rubber hits the road, he's nowhere to be seen. The problem isn't that one son says No while the other son says Yes: the problem is that their words don't match their actions. If the one son said "No" and didn't, and the other said "Yes" and did, it wouldn't be much of a parable. But the story points to the fact that people, strangely, are consistently inconsistent.

So then the third question comes into view: what are we called to do as stewards in our own vineyard, at least for the immediate future? I think the first thing we are called by this parable to do is to take stock of how our words match our actions. For instance, most of us get involved with a ministry community like Pastoral Care or Youth or Social Ministries or Entertaining Angels because we care about people struggling with illness or teenagers exploring their faith or the poor yearning for justice, or the stranger yearning for a new spiritual home. But we can lose sight of why we're undertaking that ministry in the midst of the busy-ness of the ministry itself. We can say we love the cause, but we can also all too easily come to a point where the cause itself is a burden to us, and as a result, what we do becomes something we really don't love at all. When we run into such disconnects, it is a signal that either we need help in our ministries in order to tap into the joy that led us to them in the first place, or we need to find someone else for whom that ministry is a joy, and equip them to take our place, while we step back for refreshment and nourishment, perhaps through another ministry, perhaps through switching gears, re-balancing our stewardship of time, talent, and treasure so that what we give is generous and even sacrificial, but not deadly.

Frederick Buechner, in Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC, writes:

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." That about sums it up for me. The fact is, we are limited people, with limited resources. Even the wealthiest among us isn't endlessly wealthy. And stewardship is about how we live with our limitations and how we live within our limitations. This morning, you are invited to a Wine Festival, the Stewardship Fair. As you browse in this vineyard of ministry and sample our vintages, listen to your deep gladness as you look for the world's deep hunger. And instead of saying "No" but going, or "Yes" but not going, keep in mind what Jesus says elsewhere in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount: "Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'." Amen.