The Bible informs of this again and again. “The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1Samuel 16:7). “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Isaiah 55:7). Paul writes as if overwhelmed by this truth: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33)\ He also wrote of “the foolishness of God” being wiser than men ( 1 Corinthians 1:25).

Jesus puts this truth in parable form in Matthew 20. “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard,” the story begins. He first hired workers, presumably at daybreak, and agreed to pay them a denarius a day, a fair wage for a day’s work. At 9 a.m. he hires still more, promising to pay “what is right.” He hired still more at noon and a 3 p.m. Finally, at “the eleventh hour” -- 5 p.m. -- he employs still more, assuring them that they will receive “what is right.”

Once the day‘s work was over, the landowner had his bailiff to have the workers stand in line to receive their pay, with those who came to work last first in line.. Those who came to work first were last in line.

If you want to get into the kingdom of God -- or receive your reward -- you have to stand in line. And it may not go the way you expected, as in this story. Those who were first in line, who had worked but an hour, received a full day’s pay! Does that make sense? Those who had “borne the burden and heat of the day” didn’t think so, and they complained to the landowner. He reminded them that they had received what they had agreed to, and then said, “I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?”

Then Jesus said, explaining the parable, “So the last will be first, and the first last.” We instinctively -- it is part of our fallen nature -- resent that kind of logic. If we are “first” -- and aren’t we all? -- then we should be first in line. The landowner showed grace to the eleventh-hour workers without being unjust to the others. But we don’t like that. If we are always at church, study, pray, give alms, and hang in all our lives -- really faithful Christians -- we should be ahead of the fellow that we see mowing his lawn on Sunday morning as we drive to church. But he’s in line ahead of us!

Not only do we have to stand in line to get in. but we might be unprepared for who is ahead of us in line. We are “first,” aren’t we?

All our good works and faithfulness make that evident. We visit the sick and take our turn at the soup kitchen. All that and more. We even write and read email essays! So we are “first,” right? So we go to the end of the line -- “the first shall be last.”

Ahead of us in line is a motley crowd -- people not as good as we. The “last” -- the losers of society, the marginalized -- maybe the illiterate who mowed our yard, the black fellow who picked up our garbage, and the man who died of AIDS. Perhaps even a lesbian. On ahead of us we see the homely girl who was usually ignored at church, and the fellow who was never called on because he stuttered. We are at the back of the line with the preachers and elders!

Well, aren’t the preachers and the elders -- and of course ourselves - “first“ at church? Then we all go to the back of the line!

This parable teaches us that we don’t quite get it when it comes to the nature of the kingdom of God. To get in we have to stand in line, and while in line we learn what we have never been able to see in this world -- that we are no better than anyone else. If we see ourselves as better or more righteous -- deserving of greater reward -- then we’re “first” and we go to the foot of the line,

The author of Psalm 84:10 would probably understand the parable of the laborers and such teaching as “the last shall be first, and the first last,” for he could magnificently affirm: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.” Only a doorkeeper? He is saying that he would be pleased to be at the foot of the line! That makes him “last” -- so he would go to the head of the line!

That’s the point. It is only by grace that we are in line at all, and we should be pleased -- even praise God -- if the thief or the harlot is in line ahead of us. We might even at last decide that we don’t deserve to be in line at all. That would make us “second,” so we would then go ahead of the line! First or last in line, or somewhere in between, we all get in! But only by the grace of God!

But to get in you have to stand in line.

Notes

Ouida is presently coping with a nagging cough, but beside that we are surviving the holidays. Our daughter Phoebe, still in rehab, signed out long enough to be with us for Christmas dinner, along with husband Ernest. Her son Ashley and his wife Amy, along with their son Tyler, were also with us. Little Trinity was conspicuously absent. It would have been her second Christmas with us. We count our blessings and move on. Our son David and his wife Vickie were with us earlier, then went on to do Christmas at the River Walk in San Antonio. They will be with us again on their way home back to Missouri.

I share this thought for 2007: Each year is a milestone in the race of life, a race we run to win. We run to win an imperishable crown. It isn’t how we started the race that counts -- we are to forget the missteps of the past -- but how we are now running and how we finish the race. Each year is a part of that race, and we will win, for we run with wholesome fear of all the pitfalls.

Our new address: leroygarrett@verizon.net