So the last will be first, and the first last.
As a young kid, I would use this verse to feel good about having to stand in the back of the line at school. As the other kids fought for the first place in the line to drink from the water fountain, I smugly went to the back. I felt good knowing that somehow this move would actually place me first. As the confident little person that I was, I would obnoxiously announce, “the last will be first, and the first will be last!” I wanted everyone to know that while it appeared as though I was last, I was actually first. I was winning.
I think eventually over time my announcements and actions resulted in a daily fight to get to the back of the drinking fountain. I think we missed the point.
When Jesus shares this kingdom concept as a part of a parable, He takes yet another opportunity to share with us the surprises that await us when we come to the place where we can see the kingdom in its fullness. The dynamics of the Kingdom of Heaven uproot and flow against what we think makes sense.
We think of God’s actions of grace through the filter of our own human understanding and experiences. This filter often times looks like earning. We have to earn our wages. We have to earn respect. We have to earn our grades in school. We have to earn a spot on the sports team. Earning is a part of the worldly economy.
A glimpse of heaven occurs when someone gets some good that they do not deserve. In the parable of Jesus, the workers who worked the longest days of all got exactly what was agreed upon: a full day’s wage. The justice of the vineyard owner could not be questioned. When the workers who worked less than a day’s work also got a full day’s wage, justice was still maintained for no agreement was made with these workers; they were subject to the property owner’s view of what was right. The act of the property owner was not an effort to be unfair (for justice was maintained). The property owner paid the workers according to his heart of grace to give them what they needed to survive one more day.*
As followers of Jesus, it’s easy to look at what God has done for someone else and think, “I’ve been waiting and working more faithfully and longer than them, and look what God has done for them! That’s not fair!” God’s grace is hard to understand through the filter of earning. If we are able to look at our own lives and the lives of others through the kingdom filter of His love for others and His desire for them to make it one more day and when we see that none of us deserve or can earn the salvation which we enjoy, then we will have that same grace and desire to share it with ourselves and others.
The first will be last, and the last first had more to do with God’s grace toward all than it does about our earning. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who was first or last; God’s grace is for all who would receive it.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to give more grace to yourself and others. Perhaps He wants you to take off the filter of earning and look at the world and those around you with grace. Maybe He wants to welcome you in to His field for blessing and He wants you to be okay not having to earn it.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.
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*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 498–505, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 19:30–20:16) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).