Twenty-seventh Ordinary

Matthew 21: 33 – 34

“Here’s another story. Listen closely. There was once a man, a wealthy farmer, who planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, put up a watchtower, then turned it over to the farmhands and went off on a trip. When it was time to harvest the grapes, he sent his servants back to collect his profits”.

Some friends and I found ourselves in the hills of Tuscany in late October one year, staying in a villa that overlooked rolling row after row of grapevines. The leaves on the vines were autumn gold. Royal purple grapes hung heavy on the vines. Their scent was as intoxicating as a bottle of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. It was the harvest weekend.

As we walked around tasting the few grapes we were brave enough to purloin, we were stopped a few times by invitations to join in the picking. We were offered 50 Euros a day to work. We politely declined, in such broken Italian that they knew immediately we were tourists. And with that, we were invited into homes where food and local wine were proudly shared with us.

We learned that deciding the right moment for the harvest was as much an art as it was a science, depending on the annual amount of rain, the temperature, and other factors. Too early or too late and the grapes would produce an inferior vintage. The vintner was always respected and never doubted. Each winery, from a small family owned operation to a larger winery, had their man or woman who spoke in metaphors and old sayings about the decisions that they made. Like the grapes on the vine, we need the wisdom of the experienced to help us reach our potential at the time of our harvest. We call them our saints.