Christ illustrated by the resurrection of the body. That actual thing itself, how¬
SERMON 229E 283 he came to see you, armed with his medical skill against your fever? He tells you, for example, "Don't drink cool drinks." You are not to drink cool drinks, you heard it from the doctor, the enemy of your fever. When the doctor's gone, the fever says, "Drink cool drinks." When the fever says this to you, what you've got to say is, "This fierce longing is the fever." A silent argument is being addressed to you; it dries up your mouth, the thought of a cool drink delights you; but remember what the doctor said: "Don't drink." But the doctor's gone, the fever's right there. What did the doctor say? Do you want to beat the fever? Don't give in to it. If you make an alliance with the doctor against the fever, there will be two of you; if you consent to the fever, the doctor loses—but the loss is the sick person's, not the doctor's.
Perish the thought, however, that Dr. Christ should lose in those whom he foreknew and predestined; because they are the ones he also called; and those he called are the ones he also justified; while those he justified are the ones he also glorified. Curb your vices, quench your lusts, let the devil and his angels be tormented with frustration; if God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:29-31).
Christ is both food and wages to those who work in his vineyard
4. Begin, though, by living good lives to practice in a spiritual way what Christ illustrated by the resurrection of the body. That actual thing itself, how¬ ever, that is to say, the incorruptibility of the flesh in its own proper reality, that you must not hope for now; it's the wages of faith, and wages are paid at the end of the day. Now, for the time being, let us work hard in the vineyard, looking forward to the end of the day;7 the one who hired us to work, you see, doesn't abandon us, doesn't let us faint. The one who is preparing to give the laborer his wages at the end of the day provides him with food while he's working. So too the Lord is now providing us with food as we work in this world; not only food for the stomach, but also food for the mind. If he wasn't feeding us, I wouldn't be speaking; because he feeds us with his word, though, I am; I'm preaching him not to your stomachs but to your minds. You receive him hun¬ grily, in feasting on him you praise him; what's the meaning of your shouts, if no food has reached your minds?
We here, though, what are we?8 His ministers, his servants. What we are setting before you is not being produced from our pantry and cellar, but from his. We too live off it, because we are your fellow servants. And what, precisely, are we serving you with: his bread, or him as bread? Any human being9 who hired a worker for his vineyard could give him bread to eat, but not himself. Christ gives himself to his workers, he provides himself as daily bread, he saves himself up as wages. We've no grounds for saying, "If we eat him now, what will we get at the end of the day?" We indeed eat, but he isn't finished; he fills the hungry, but he doesn't fail himself.10 The laborers receive as food now what is waiting for them undiminished as wages. What is there, after all, better than himself, that we could possibly be going to receive? If he had anything better