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Last shall be first

Jesus drives the point home time and time again. Jesus wraps up a story with this statement of how it is going to be in the end.

Things aren’t as they seem to me. God is God.

Just because I think I am first and everything is okay doesn’t mean it is correct.

If I think I am the most important then I will be surprised and find out that isn’t the way it is in the country where Jesus is King.

“Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.” ~Jesus | Matthew 20:16

I don’t get to dictate to God how to do things. God is going to judge things fairly. I should be happy that I and others have an advocate, Jesus, on my side.

What if God grants clemency to murderers and I haven’t killed anyone? I am guilty of what I have done. Jesus has different standards for His followers. If I hate, it is the same as murder. If I lust, it is the same as adultery. Jesus makes that clear in His Manifesto (Matthew 5 – 7).

I am going to get off just like everyone else who has followed Jesus. I should be happy about that and not complain about the crimes of others.

Here is the whole story so you can get the context.

“God’s kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.

“Later, about nine o’clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.

“He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o’clock. At five o’clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, ‘Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?’

“They said, ‘Because no one hired us.’

“He told them to go to work in his vineyard.

“When the day’s work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, ‘Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.’

 “Those hired at five o’clock came up and were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, ‘These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.’

 “He replied to the one speaking for the rest, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?’

“Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.”