Matthew 20: 1-16 Equal Reward is More Than Ok

In the twentieth chapter of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable of a land owner and workers.  As the story goes, the land owner goes out in the morning and tells some people looking for work that he would be willing to pay them at the end of the day if they were willing to come work in his fields.  Later in the day, the land owner does the same thing with a second group, and right before the work day ends he does it again.  When it comes time to pay the workers he pays each worker the same amount. 

This is where it gets interesting.  The workers who had worked the entire day become upset because they thought their pay would be greater than those who came in at the final hour.  The land owner then replies that they knew the reward when they agreed to work in the morning.

As we can see, this is a pretty transparent analogy to the reward of eternal and everlasting life.  It's easy for many of us who already believe in Christ as our savior to unwittingly become like the first workers in the field when we are presented with the possibility that someone who lived a very different lifestyle than ours found Christ late in life.  It's easy to ask what the point is to be in the first group of workers if everyone receives the same reward. 

I would challenge us all to view this story from a different perspective.  Let us look at the story from the point of view of one of the workers in the last group. If we read the story more carefully we see something  extremely critical.  Verses six and seven give us a glimpse into the last workers: "...He asked them 'Why haven't you been working today?' 7 "They replied, 'Because no one hired us.'"  Notice the answer there; these workers didn't spend their day sleeping until noon and then partying.  They had been searching all day for something to dedicate the day to, for something to give them the reward they were seeking, but nothing could do that except this land owner.

If there has ever been a time in our country's history where we should be able to view what that existence must be like, it should be now.  Imagine you have lost your job.  You don't know how much longer the money you have will last you or how long you'll be able to put food on the table.  You spend your days and nights searching for openings and applying to the ones you find.  Still, nothing seems to be going your way.  Your days are full of anxiety and uncertainty of what will come next.  This is the life without Christ.

It is the nature of this world that we will have hard times and we will suffer setbacks.  Throughout my short time here I've had my share.  But I also have an inner-peace that is always with me, because I know this life is temporary.  I have moments when I grumble about how nice it would be to not have to do the work that God calls us all to do and just do whatever I wanted, but I always end up coming back to the fact that I'm thankful to know I have work to do.  I'm no longer filled with anxiety of how I will get my reward.   I'm no longer searching.

You see, there's something amazing about kingdom work - they're always hiring.  Maybe instead of worrying about measuring our reward, we should be sharing the help wanted ads with the people we see searching.

A Preview to This Blog

I was debating what the subject of my first blog should be, and I have made my decision.  It will be about my blog and what you can expect to see if you choose to subscribe.  As you might be able to tell from my profile, I am a bit of an eclectic person, and therefore it seems only naturally that my blog be the same.  There will be posts about religion, economics, politics, sports, and any other random events that get me fired up enough to force me to share my opinion on the situation.  I will try to post at least a couple times a week to make sure the material stays relatively fresh.  I welcome all feedback, criticism, and different viewpoints on my page and all that I ask is that you respect everyone's opinions and keep the discussions professional. 

Now on to the good stuff - just a little taste of some of my thoughts from the week.

• Ndamukong Suh should have a permanent spot on Sunday morning's "C'mon Man" segment on ESPN for his comment after the Thanksgiving Day game.  You were losing your balance?  Really?  Could you please explain how kicking violently helps you regain your balance?  They didn't cover that in my physics classes apparently.

• I was so excited to hear that the NBA lockout was over - now all their fans can watch forty-six minutes and thirty seconds of lazy basketball followed by one minute and thirty seconds of good basketball that lasts twenty two minutes and includes thirty four commercials.

• I was honestly excited about college basketball starting again.  The next four months will be full of buzzer beaters, upsets, and actual defense.  

• Urban Meyer is the new Buckeye's head coach?  Yea, I guess that life threatening heart condition is better after ten months.  Also, the whole being judged by what type of husband and father you are at the end of your life thing - yea he solidified that in 10 months I'm sure.  At least he went to a program where the pressure is way lower than at Florida.

• Barney Frank announced he won't run for re-election.  I guess we will need someone else who said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fine financially less than 18 months before they were virtually bankrupt to write our financial reform laws and sit on our House Finance Committee.  It's hard to imagine anyone as out of touch with reality as this guy thinking he did things that made this country better.

• ADP said 200K+ jobs created by private sector, jobless claims report said 402K made initial claims, and the government jobs report comes out in about 8 hours.  Could this be a case of one story, another story, and the truth?

• Lastly, I will have an entire post on Tim Tebow, but tonight I just want to address Jake Plummer's comments.  A.) Jake Plummer?  I was unaware he was even still on an NFL roster.  B.) What would the reaction be if Tim Tebow was Muslim and Jake Plummer had told him to shut up about Allah?  C.)  Tim Tebow's reaction to this was pretty much right in line with his reaction to all the other adversity he's had to face this year- 100% class.

Ok, there's the appetizer - hope you liked it!