Luke 14:25-27, 33 English Standard Version The Cost of Discipleship 25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 9:57-62 English Standard Version The Cost of Following Jesus 57 As they were going along
the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay
his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow
me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[a]
said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim
the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will
follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one
who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
2 He
agreed to pay them a denarius[a]
for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning
he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.
4
He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you
whatever is right.’
5 So they went.
“He
went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.
6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others
standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing
nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired
us,’ they answered.
“He
said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the
owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their
wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired
about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.
10 So
when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one
of them also received a denarius.
11 When they received it, they
began to grumble against the landowner.
12 ‘These who were hired
last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have
borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of
them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?
14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired
last the same as I gave you.
15 Don’t I have the right to do what
I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first,
and the first will be last.”
The Economy of God Matthew 20:1-16
People care about fairness. No one wants to work for eight hours while someone else works only one hour and gets paid the same amount. In Matthew 20, the vineyard owner is not being fair to his workers.
Jesus starts the parable with a vineyard owner going to the marketplace to hire some workers early in the morning, sunrise. The owner finds some workers and hires them for one denarius to do a full day's work on his field. This is fair and normal.
The owner returns to the workers' market and finds more men just standing around. The men are standing around because they have no work, so the owner hires them and agrees to pay them a fair wage. He makes several return trips to the market. In fact, he makes three additional trips throughout the day, hiring more workers each time.
The owner then has his supervisor pay the last ones to start work first. This means the one who came first to work would see what the later workers received. This was intentional.
Jesus shows us in this parable that God desires to save everyone. when you come to God or what work you have done is inconsequential. It also makes us in the church reflect on how we have done this with God. We feel God is not fair when we see immature or weak Christians being saved while others who have given up so much receive the same.
God's justice is a rescue system. It is about bringing all broken people back together, not about ranking or selecting who will be saved or who will serve in the Kingdom of God.
Much like the workers hired later in the day, there are many of us who want to be with God and are waiting for His invitation. We might have received our invitation later than others and are grateful for this. We might have received our invitation earlier than others and should be still grateful that we are saved.
There was nothing the workers could do but wait to be hired. It is the same with our salvation. There is nothing we could do to be saved. Isn't it enough that we are saved as well as countless others?
