10-2-2021

 Good Morning All!

        Matthew 20:16; “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

    Do you remember the TV show “Maude”?  It starred Bea Arthur and Bill Macy.  Maude was supposed to be Edith Bunker’s cousin.  She was the knee-jerk liberal to Archie Bunker’s blind-sided conservatism.  Maude’s “catch phrase” was “God will get you for that”.  Anytime one of the other characters would get a leg up on her; that was her response.

    That is a phrase that many Christians like.  They may not say it out loud, but they think it.  We like to think that God is keeping score of all the little slights that have occurred against us.  We like to think that, in the end, God will “get even” for us.  That is why many people really like this verse; the last will be first and the first will be last.  We might even call this verse “the great even-er” or maybe “the equalizer”.  We want it to be something that shows we win.  All those people who ever slighted me, “dissed” me, showed me too little respect, laughed at me, or in some other way put me down; well, “God will get them for that”.  At least that is how I see it.

    The trouble with seeing it this way is that somewhere; there is a Christian who wants me brought down a peg or two and there is a Christian who thinks the same about you.  The real trouble is that we have God keeping score; that is keeping track of sin.  I don’t think we really want that to happen; we can only lose that deal.  Yet we really don’t want to read this verse this way.  I think if we really want to read it properly; we look not at what is said but at who is saying it.

    Jesus tells his disciples this after the parable of the vineyard workers who all get paid the same thing regardless of how long they worked and right before the mother of James and John asks Jesus to let her sons rule with him.  Yet what Jesus is talking about here is not equality of saints but of the plan of salvation.

    Jesus is God’s Son who laid aside his majesty and glory and humbled himself to be a man even unto death on a cross.  Jesus, the firstborn of the kingdom, became last, the bearer of all sins.  Jesus, the first became last so that you and I, the last among all because of our sin and failings, might become first; forgiven of our sins.  We are among the first to get our heavenly rewards.  Not by time or by rank but by grace we are God’s holy people, a royal priesthood, and a chosen nation.  We are the apple of God’s eye.

    This verse is really a snapshot of Christianity.  We, who should be last, are first because He who was first chose to be last to save us.  God’s love poured out upon us with an unstoppable flow of grace to redeem us and to make us into his holy family.

 Dear Father, we give you thanks for your grace and mercy.  We thank you that Jesus gave up his glory to humble himself to save us and exalt us.  Help us to share this wondrous message with all those around us.  Be with those who are being tested and keep them strong.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen            

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret