Humberto Werdine

Are the Spiritists the so called Workers of the Last Hour?

1.           The parable

The most dedicated biblical scholars consider that there are some parables of Jesus of difficult - or at least controversial understanding; and the parable of the vineyard, also called the workers of the last hour is one of them. So in order to propose our response to the question in the title of this article, we will describe below the parable, found in Mathew XX, 1-16: 

For the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, who went out early in the morning to get workers into his vine-garden. And when he had made an agreement with the workmen for a penny a day, he sent them into his vine-garden. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others in the market-place doing nothing; And he said to them, Go into the vine-garden with the others, and whatever is right I will give you. And they went to work.

Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and saw others doing nothing; and he says to them, Why are you here all the day doing nothing? They say to him, Because no man has given us work. He says to them, Go in with the rest, into the vine-garden.

And when evening came, the lord of the vine-garden said to his manager, Let the workers come, and give them their payment, from the last to the first. And when those men came who had gone to work at the eleventh hour, they were given every man a penny.

Then those who came first had the idea that they would get more; and they, like the rest, were given a penny. And when they got it, they made a protest against the master of the house, Saying, These last have done only one hour's work, and you have made them equal to us, who have undergone the hard work of the day and the burning heat.

But he in answer said to one of them, Friend, I do you no wrong: did you not make an agreement with me for a penny?  Take what is yours, and go away; it is my pleasure to give to this last, even as to you. Have I not the right to do as seems good to me in my house? or is your eye evil, because I am good?  So the last will be first, and the first last.

2.           The controversy

Apparently, the lord of the vineyard seems to commit an injustice, since it paid the same salary to those who worked less time. But actually, he pays to those who have begun earlier the salary he had combined with them. He had fulfilled his promise.  With respect to those who have been hired later, he told to some that he would give them what would be fair and to the last ones he said nothing about the payment. But at the end of the day he gives to these last ones the same that was paid to the first ones.   And he responds to claimants who started early, saying basically:" I am good person..., it is not lawful for me to do what I want?  

He must have seen something more on the latter, the willingness to work, the no questioning about the pay and maybe the quality, commitment and intensity during the few hours of work. And he gratified them what to him, the lord of the vineyard, seemed fair.   And he adds to the parable by saying, Thus, the first will be last, and the first last, because many are called but few are chosen.

As we can see, there may be many explanations for this parable and the controversies are also countless. The Gospel According to Spiritism dedicates the twentieth chapter to this parable and four spirits explain it: Constantine, Heine, Erasto and the Spirit of Truth.

A question then assaults us: - if there are four explanations and mostly important, one of them is from the Spirit of Truth, which are the doubts, why the controversy? Let's analyze what these spirits had told us: Constantine, the first spirit to explain the parable uses the following phrase in the course of his argument:  Good Spiritists, my dearly beloved, you are all workers of the last hour.  This phrase, the way it has been translated from the French edition, gives the impression that all spiritists are the workers of the last hour. However, if we go to the French edition from the Union Spirite Française et Francophone, we see the following phrase: “Bons spirites, mes bien-aimés, vous êtes tous des ouvriers de la dernière heure”.  As we can see that the grammatical article that is placed before the word ouvriers  (workers) is the indefinite article des, meaning that the good spiritualists are part of this group and are not unique to this group.

But there is another point to me much more important. It is that Constantine begins the sentence with the adjective good spiritists. Who in reality can in good conscience say that he or she  is a good spiritist? After all what does really mean being a good spiritist? At this point we see the beauty, coherence and integration of the four answers from those spirits, which should be read together and not separated from each other. Erastus also starts his explanation with the phrase Oh, true adepts of Spiritism ...  you are God's chosen ones! And the question is repeated: are we true followers of the Spiritism? 

Kardec, a pedagogue and very concerned about a possible misunderstanding or incorrect interpretations, questioned Erasto about the characteristics of the true and good spiritist. Let´s see his answer: You will recognize them through the principles of true charity that they will teach and practice. You will recognize them by the number of afflicted ones they will comfort. You will recognize them by their love to neighbours, by their self-denial, by their personal disinterestedness. And also if we go to the  Gospel According to Spiritism , it teaches us how to recognize the true spiritist ; it is in cap. XVII , item 4: The true Spiritist can be recognised by their moral transformation and by the efforts they employ in order to dominate their bad instincts. 

Indeed, the Spirit of Truth calls our attention and reminds us of our pride, selfishness, laziness and lust for power, which may delay the work of the Father: Let us work together and unite our efforts so that when the Lord arrives He will find His work finished," seeing that the Lord will say to them: "Come unto me, you who have been good servants, you who knew how to silence your rivalries and discords so that no harm should come to the work!" But woe to those who as a result of their dissensions have held back the time of the harvest, because the tempest will come and they will be taken away in the turbulence! 

As we can see some of us spiritists still have a long way ahead of us to be called good or true spiritists. 

3.           The last hour 

The meaning of the last hour can be inferred in the words of the Spirit of Truth. He said that the Lord wants to find the work done and complements saying that those that have delayed the harvest will be taken by the whirlwind storm. 

This is nothing more than our participation in the transformation of the planet towards its new phase of regeneration. The last hours figuratively represent the time we are living now, the transition from the phase of proofs and atonement to the regeneration phase. We the spiritists are hindering the regeneration of the planet when we keep our jealousy and discord, fighting for higher hierarchical  positions and wasting time that could be used to spread the teachings of Kardec. We are hindering the regeneration of the planet when we are leaving for tomorrow our inner reform, keeping our prejudices against anything or anyone, skin color, race, religion or sexual orientation. These conditions will disrupt, damage the work, contributing to a delayed harvest. Therefore the responsible ones could be taken in the whirlwind towards the reincarnation on other planets and would not participate in the regeneration phase here on Earth. 

4.           Conclusions 

The first conclusion we reached is that by the denomination workers of the last hour, are all those men and women who work for the good, always doing a little more, having already understood that it is not enough not to do evil, it is necessary to make the good. So all people, regardless of their religion, or even being agnostic, that fit these characteristics are part of this group of workers of the last hour. 

The second conclusion is that we Spiritists have all the possibilities to enlarge this group, because we know of reincarnation, the afterlife and the communication with our loved ones who have gone before us. We are sure that life continues beyond the grave. With this, our responsibility is much greater. Why then do we keep our jealousy, pride, selfishness and prejudice?

The third conclusion we reached is that by the last hour we must understand the period we are living now, where spirits of the new age are coming among us ever more intensely, giving incontestable march to the renewal and regeneration of our planet. 

The fourth conclusion is that we are having our opportunity now ... or we reform ourselves to continue to reincarnate here helping the consolidation of the Earth's evolution into the regeneration phase, or we may be unworthy of it and so would leave for more primitive planets to help in their evolution. It is being fulfilled which the Spirit of Truth said above: " But woe to those who, as a result of their dissensions have held back the time of the harvest, because the tempest will come and they will be taken away in the turbulence!! " 

The fifth conclusion is that everything depends on us, whether we will or not be part of the regeneration of our planet, whether or not we are part of this group of the workers of the last hour. After all, we already have the invitation of the Vineyard Lord 's with his instructions and guidelines, for over 2000 years and constantly repeated by many spirits messengers. The decision and choice belong to us, only us.