Day 297 – Jesus’ Final Trip to Jerusalem

• I would be interested to know what your first reaction was when you read the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Let’s consider the story as Jesus told it first. How much did the the initial workers agree their wages should be before working?
• The first workers started at 6:00am. The third hour was 9:00am, the sixth hour was 12:00pm, and so on. The last few – the ones starting at the eleventh hour – started at 5:00pm. Have you heard the phrase “the eleventh hour”? It means to start doing something at the last possible moment.
• What was the complaint from the men who had worked the longest? Do you think that their complaints were fair? What do you think they wanted – to get more, or the others get less?
• Imagine that the generosity shown by the landowner was like the generosity of God. Imagine you had “worked for God” all your life, and come to eternal life – and another person didn’t accept Christ until their old age, but received exactly the same. Would you resent that gift of grace that the other person received? How can you change your thinking, if so? If not, what is different between this and the parable?
• James and John (and their mother, as Matthew points out) ask what of Jesus? What was wrong with this?
• What was the reaction of the other disciples to brothers’ request, and how did Jesus calm them?
• If you desire to be first, what should you do? How is this different from what our society teaches?

Questions such as those from James and John, and attitudes like those of the complaining workers in the parable, come from a heart that hasn’t been utterly transformed for God. Unless the wonderful news of God’s grace in your life fills your heart to bursting, there will be room for idolising something beyond God – yourself. Self-idolisation leads to the sort of thinking that James and John had, and the ungrateful attitudes of the servants. Instead, be willing to be made low, and to lead by serving others, and you will receive your blessings in due time.

This is something I continue to need to learn personally. So often I like to be at the front, making the joke or being the person people look up to. But I look at people at church who don’t push themselves forward. I have a great deal of respect for the way they quietly conduct themselves, letting other people – and God, often – take the glory themselves.

I hope you, too, can enjoy the blessings of seeing others being lifted up, either in a small day-to-day way, or perhaps even in seeing someone come to faith, regardless of their past.