Sometimes, like this morning, I feel rather foolish to finally realize something I have known for a long time. I talk frequently about sowing and reaping, about the law of the harvest, but I'm not really the one in charge. Like you, I am just a day laborer, sent forth into some small part of the vineyard to work for a wage. I do not choose the location, the seed, the weather, or even the timing. There is a Lord of the Harvest, and I am not he.
During graduate school, I had the rare privilege to work in an actual vineyard. It was attached to the agricultural research station, and the grant under which I was paid called for us to test various things appertaining to grapes and their care, products, and metabolism. During harvest season, owing to the scale and timing of the work, when we were not in class or in media res with an important experiment, we were expected to be available for the harvest. I didn't really understand how it worked until today.
Yes it is true that we reap what we sow. It is however not true that we pick either the timing of the harvest or the fruit that comes forth. My boss would be ready weeks before the harvest testing the berries with a refractometer for the Brix/pH ratio. It tells you when the fruit is ready to harvest. When we arrived in the vineyard, he would tell us which cultivars were ready, but we would just randomly end up picking berries off the next vine that was not being harvested already. He was the Lord of the Harvest, and he decided what fruit was ready and when.
As in the vineyard, our lives are subject to the call of the Lord of the Harvest. He decides when the harvest is ready. Sometimes, what you are doing conflicts with the timing, and so even though you were involved in the dunging, the pruning, the digging about, and the care previously, you do not reap because you are doing something else. Similarly, you do not get to pick what fruit is ready that day; the Lord of the Harvest knows when it is ripe, and He calls those who are ready to come and help in that day.
Unlike the literal harvest of the field, the harvest of mortality does not follow the rules of the carnival barker. You do not miss out on the blessings of the harvest if you are currently preoccupied in some other important but distal matter. If you are on His errand then, and if you were on His errand when you sowed, the Law of Compensation, the Law of the Harvest, both still apply to you, that you reap what you sow. Even if you miss the time of the harvest, you can still attend the feast.
Even after the harvest, the good Lord calls together all of his servants, even those tending other parts of His field, to come and join the feast. After the grapes were harvested, weighed and pressed, we were all invited to taste the juices and, if we were interested, in the wine fermented therefrom. At an annual gala, my boss, just like the Lord of the Harvest, invited people from miles around to come and see what bounty the earth provided. I believe very strongly that even if we are busy on the day of harvest sometimes the reaping lasts through the festival of the harvest when all who had a hand can taste the sweet savor of the fruit!
I have learned a great many things about the holy scripture from a paradoxical assignment working in a vineyard. Although I do not drink, I believe it gave me a different understanding of those passages. Now that I am ready for sowing, the Lord of the Harvest planted in me an understanding of this aspect. He is watching the fruit. He knows when it is good. He knows when it is ripe. He invites me to work with Him and joy in the fruit, because He too knows that life is richer when you share it. For this reason I believe we are taught to trust God's grace, His timing, and His will, because He knows when the fruit is good, and He knows when to take in the final cuttings.
Every now and then the vineyard is encumbered by poor fruit or fruit that is unripe in time for a good harvest. I remember that one cultivar sometimes barely made it off the vine before the winter came in which no work can be done. Those are the only times to be sad- when the work does not bear the correct fruit or fruit in time to be of any use. I did however learn that this is RARE. God's work will be done, and it will be done well, and it will be done on time, even if that time is not one that is convenient for what you desire. I have seen it, and I will endeavor to remember this lesson and trust the Lord of the Harvest, who interests Himself in having the right thing happen at the right time as well as for the right reason.
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