Hello Advent Family,

Have you ever noticed that the economy of God is vastly different from ours?  We want everyone to get what they deserve except when it comes to us.  We want the grace and blessing that God offers us even though we do not deserve it.  Jesus tells a parable to illustrate God’s economy to us all in Matthew 20.  Let’s look at it together today.

“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 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.”

This doesn’t seem to fit with our sense of fairness.  The reality is that a denarius was more than a fair wage for a full day’s work.  The workers were not complaining that they didn’t receive fair treatment but that others received more than they deserved.  In God’s economy of grace that is the way things work.  We all receive far more than we deserve.  We deserve punishment and receive the riches of eternal life.  Let’s be a people who embrace that grace and share the wealth!