When I was young, my family farmed both crops and livestock in northern Iowa. Long before farms specialized, as most do now, my family did it all: we husbanded dairy, beef, hogs, and poultry in the barns; we raised corn, soybeans, and alfalfa in the fields. Most of the time our large family—my parents and eight children—could get the work done. But if one of my brothers was sick and unable to milk, or thunderstorms threatened a downed field of hay, or early snowstorms imperiled the harvest, my father had to hire day laborers.
Unlike the vineyard owner in this week’s gospel reading, my father didn’t look for them at a Home Depot parking lot. He picked up the phone and called the slow-moving school custodian with a bum leg. He called the bank manager’s in-and-out-of-trouble son. He called the bachelor farmer who lived alone in a rickety farmhouse. These laborers were of every age, shape, and ability. They were not the strongest workers. But when the dairy cattle needed to be milked or the corn picked in a hurry, none of that mattered.
These laborers were all known to us. They ate at our kitchen table. After the noon meal, they rested for a bit under the oak tree in our front lawn. The laborers left our fields and barns when their own work beckoned, returning again when they were able. It was not an ideal situation. There were probably better options. But my father did not choose these laborers according to their ability. Nor did he pay them the usual daily wage.
