Today we're going to look at another parable of Jesus. To help you prepare for His story, I want to ask you some questions.
Jesus took the man’s actions and used them as a vivid teaching aid. He gathered His students and told them how difficult it is for the rich (those serving mammon) to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were shocked! They could not grasp these words that were so foreign to their understanding of success and the blessings of God. Craig Blomberg explains: “The disciples respond in amazement, perhaps reflecting on the Jewish tradition that equated riches with God’s blessing. If those usually viewed as most blessed by God are so unlikely to make it into the kingdom, who in the world stands a chance?” (300) We find ourselves reflecting in similar fashion. Like the Jews in Jesus’ day we, too, live in a world where wealth and success are seen as God’s blessing. People with their lives put together and with levels of success seem the likeliest candidates for God’s grace. Even within the church, we struggle with comparison and the temptation to create false levels of righteousness. Peter couldn’t take it anymore so he exclaimed with great passion, I believe: “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Follow Peter’s thought pattern. He just saw a man refuse to give up anything and he compares that to his and the other disciples giving up comforts, leaving behind fishing nets, and walking away from a lucrative tax collector post. “Wow!” Peter thinks. “Just imagine our reward.” Jesus hears and understands the heart behind the words. Again, Jesus seizes the moment to teach.
“And everyone.” Everyone who follows Jesus will receive a reward – the same reward. This is not a competition. Wanting to make it clear, Jesus follows His words with a story.
As J. Ellsworth Kalas writes . . . "Now tell the truth: You don’t really like it, either, do you? Doesn’t it strike you as unfair? How can one possibly contend that these people who worked only an hour should receive the same wages as those who put in a whole day, including the brutal heat of midday? What shall we say about a God who promises the same heaven to a self-centered scoundrel, saved on his deathbed, as to a Mother Teresa, who has spent a lifetime in the pursuit of holiness and in service to others?" (88) More than occasionally, we are confused by the ways of God. We establish a logical system, one for instance where the level of reward corresponds to the level of faithfulness. Then God speaks and we must listen. Just as when God spoke to Isaiah.
When we think according to our own ways, God’s ways do not seem fair. We live in a world motivated by competition and that motivation sneaks into our spiritual walk and into our churches. When we lose sight of the amazing gift of grace, we may start dreaming of having the biggest mansion on the streets of gold.
To this, Ben Witherington declares: “No one should be envious when God is generous to others because divine generosity is not merely a matter of reciprocity” (373). God’s generosity is not tied to our deeds in such a way that some of us deserve more than others. Since equal grace is offered to all, we need to be thankful without being envious. And this parable holds the method, one of the best, to avoid envy. What is that method? Well, you remember the words of Kalas calling us to honesty as we struggle with a heaven open to long-time saints as well as barely-reached pagans. After those words, Kalas points out that there is a great tragedy in that when the landowner asked the workers who were still waiting around 5 p.m. when the work day ended at 6, the workers responded, “Because no one has hired us.” We need to help “hire” those who wait through life without a real purpose. (89-90) In order to “hire,” we need God’s thoughts to invade ours so that we see people who have lived most of their lives in opposition to God with love instead of disgust. We need to be able to rejoice with the “workers” who work just long enough to receive eternal life. Jesus’ stories sure aren’t easy to hear sometimes! Yet the one who so often said “I tell you the truth” meant those words, and His truth proclaims the grace that is open to all. D.L. Moody said, “I don’t care how low (a man) has become, the grace of God can purge him of all his sin, and place him among the blessed. In proportion as man is a sinner, much more does the grace of God abound. There isn’t a man but that the grace of God will give him the victory if he will only accept it” (qtd in Foster 364). Until the last day, we will not know who will “accept it.” But we do know that, much to our surprise, “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” God’s generosity will welcome them each one with the equal reward of eternal life. Before that last day,
#ordinarylives For further reading: Blomberg, Craig L. The New American Commentary. Ed. David S. Dockery. Vol. 22 Matthew. Nashville: Broadman, 1992. Foster, Elon. 6000 Classic Sermon Illustrations. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993. Kalas, J. Ellsworth. Parables from the Back Side. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992. Witherington, Ben, III. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary - Matthew. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006.
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