September is the beginning of the gardening season in Bermuda. I had two weeks of intensive gardening, digging my plot over twice and then planting the first seedlings and seeds.

Though September is a bit cooler than July and August, it was still very humid and hot. Jesus once told a parable about working in the heat.

In the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Mt 20:1-16) a vineyard owner needs harvest helpers and hires some in the early morning, promising them the usual denarius for a day of work. During the day he hires more labourers even until one hour before the end of the work day.

When it comes to paying the workers, he begins with the last ones and he pays them a full denarius, even though they only worked for an hour.

Imagine, you would have been one of those who worked all day. What would you think? My first thought would be, I will probably get about dozen denarii. That is human. That is how our economy works. So how does that apply to faith or Church membership and commitment in Church?

In the parable, when the other workers receive their wages, they just get one denarius each as well. How would you feel now?

Here is what happened in the parable (verses 11-15, NRSV): “When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

Wow, that is a different perspective. It reminds me of the story of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing firm. In 2015, the CEO surprised his staff by raising the minimum salary for every employee to $70,000 per year.

A friend had told him how hard it is for her to make ends meet even with two jobs, and he also read a study by Princeton researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, suggesting that the "happiness tipping point" for an American was roughly $75,000 a year.

The CEO famously slashed his own $1 million salary down to $70,000 and mortgaged his homes to pull cash. Years later, the company raised its baseline minimum salary even further to $80,000 per year.

Christ tells us his parable to make a point about the Kingdom of Heaven! This is not a lecture on economics. It is a story about those who follow Jesus.

God calls all he can reach. Without his call, no one would come to the vineyard. That is important for us to remember: faith is God’s choice, his call so we may not boast about it.

Our salvation is by grace alone. That is the call. Once we are reached by his call, we become his workers, which is faith. We’ve got something to do, and sometimes it is back-breaking hard work.

Church is not an invitation to a holiday resort where you can lay back and be idle. The time for rest comes later, when the day is gone and the work is done.

Thus, if the Lord calls us to work in his vineyard, it means to get active. As long as Christ’s followers are on this Earth it means we have to contribute to the vineyard, according to our calling and our talents.

Then there is that little economic revolution - this landowner does not pay for the work but supplies what is needed: eternal life in His presence, Heaven.

The landowner does not hold against the workers that he called them later in the day. It is interesting that he asked them, why they were still idle at 5 o’clock. There is a sound of resignation in their answer: “Because no one has hired us.” (Compare verses 6 and 7)

It is hard if you are willing to work, but there is no job. For a long time Bermuda was spared from unemployment, something that Europeans, Americans and people in many other countries know much too well. However, today it is reality for some families in Bermuda as well. Right now, AI will change the work world tremendously as well, and I am worried about the consequences.

What can you do if you cannot earn your living, but you still have to take care of your basic needs and of those in your family? What can you do if you cannot earn eternal life and you have not yet really heard God’s promise of Grace?

So it is not just about the money. It is about a life worth living. A life you can be proud of, a legacy, something that will last and also meet all your needs.

All we can hope for is the generosity of God, his grace and mercy. Christ reminds his disciples here that being a diligent worker is the consequence of the call, not the condition.

Call to mind John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

The reformer Martin Luther put it in four simple statements: by faith alone, by grace alone, by scripture alone, through Christ alone.

It is by faith alone that we are saved, but to get to faith is by God’s grace alone when we have heard the call (scripture alone) that Christ came to save us (Christ alone), and thus, those who hear the call late, are saved in the same way as those who gave their life to Christ early on.

Heaven is not the reward for being a Christian, the reward is that we know about and can totally trust our salvation in this life.

In John 3:18, the next verse it says: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

To be called last, or maybe not at all, is in itself already a deficit. For 11 hours of the day, for most of their life that is, those who did not hear the call had to live without hope. To live without hope is loss, condemnation, punishment. Call it what you want. Hell is to live without hope, and to live with a living hope, that is salvation.

Does it matter then how we live, whether we are Christians or not, or whether we only become believers sometime late in life, maybe on our deathbed? The good news is, you will still go to Heaven. However, it matters, because it matters for this life, for the life before death.

Most of those who become Christians very late actually wished they had followed Christ earlier. It would have given their life a different and true meaning and purpose beyond what the world or the universe can give us.

We cannot fill the void ourselves, we cannot save ourselves and invent meaning. The Good News thus is truly good news: God loves you, he came into this world in Christ to call you to trust that his promise is sufficient.

• Karsten Decker is an ordained Lutheran pastor and novelist from Germany who has lived and worked in Bermuda since 2001. At the moment he helps the Centenary Methodist Church at Collectors Hill as pulpit supply.