Jesus told a story immediately following His
remark in Matthew 19:30 that, “…many who are first will be last; and the last, first.”
What
is the Lord’s intention in this story? What lessons can we learn about God and
what He is doing? This story in part was answering Peter’s self-centred
question in Matthew 19:27, “Behold, we have left everything
and followed You; what then will there be for us?” It also serves as a
warning to His disciples as well as us, concerning an attitude we ought not to
adopt in serving Him.
In the story, the landowner is obviously referring
to God. In Christ, God came to usher and establish His Kingdom and reign. He
has been recruiting workers for His Kingdom and is still recruiting. The
workers are obviously referring to people who have been recruited into the
Kingdom. The nation of Israel was where He began His recruitment but now
extended to the whole world. Different groups were recruited at different times.
But essentially the Lord had in mind only two groups of workers. Those recruited
earlier and the last group who was recruited in the final hour. Why weren’t the
last group spotted earlier? Weren’t they in the marketplace? They had been
there all day long but no one wanted them. They were in fact the type of
workers nobody wanted to hire. Nonetheless the landowner hired them and told
them to go to the vineyard to work. And what’s amazing was the fact that they were
paid the same amount as all the workers who were recruited earlier and had been
slaving for hours.
What is the Lord’s point? He wanted the disciples to
know that just because they were workers who had been with Him earlier, it
didn’t mean that they would finally be more opulent and prominent in the
Kingdom than others. They might have started with Jesus, but there would be
those that would be recruited later after them, yet all will be equally compensated.
This
story also tells us that God’s grace is not something we can haggle with. It is
not something that one can store up or have more than others. It is available
to everyone equally. We need also to know that what we get in serving the
Kingdom is not some kind of reward for work we get done. Serving Jesus and His
Kingdom is not a business venture where we can negotiate for a better deal. It
is a covenant we enter into where He guarantees to bless us with everything,
and at the same time expects us to surrender all that we are. We need to know
that when we are blessed in life, it’s not a reward for effort put in, but it’s
the outpouring of His generosity. And being generous is in God’s nature. There
is always the danger to think that in serving God, we are the special one and
of necessity must have priority over others. We need to know that God is all
the time out there looking for people whom others would not accept. He is
welcoming them and offering them the same generous grace.
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