A Parable of Grace

1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' 5So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' 7They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' 9And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12saying, '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.' 13But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' 16So the last will be first, and the first last." ~Matthew 20:1-16, ESV

It dawned on me last night as I was getting ready to call it a night, how much this parable is the equivelent of brittle finger nails on the chalkboard for us believers in the West. Could the reason that many of us don't very much care for the parable above (or that we butcher and misinterpret it), be that we don't get grace?

How many times I have heard it said that "it's just not fair" that some people go to heaven and some go to hell. We're especially ticked off about guys like the thief on the cross next to Jesus getting to skip through the pearly gates. There are those of us who despise deathbed conversions after all.

I think it was R.C. Sproul who pointed out the wrongness in this approach. Isn't the fact that one wayward son is welcomed home something we should be rejoicing about rather than splitting hairs about why God doesn't just save the whole lot of us sinners? Isn't the fact that God shows mercy to one single soul a miracle in and of itself?

The more immersed I become in God's good grace the more I learn to appreciate the parable of the workers in the vineyard. It's when I get tripped up by my works and fail to see them as nothing more than made possible by God's grace that the parable begins to leave a sour taste in my mouth.

What Jesus is clearly and empatically saying is that God gives each of us (his) servants what he wants to and what he gives us isn't based on merit.

That is the gospel of grace.

Make me a man of grace Lord.