Scripture Basis
2In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
4Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
6So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 7and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” 8Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”
9Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ”
10While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.
11The Lord said to Moses, 12“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”
13That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.
The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
20
1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2He 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. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6About 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. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When 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? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’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 Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
Weekly Devotion
This week’s readings are a double-dose of what could be rather bitter medicine. Matthew is asking us to upend every socio-economic idea we have ever considered reasonable and just. And Jonah’s recalcitrance about sharing God’s mercy with Israel’s sworn enemy is uncomfortably familiar!
Before our immigration sweeps, it was commonplace to see groups of men standing around early in the morning waiting for a chance at a day laborer job. When I saw them, I prayed that each one of them would find work because without it, they and their families might go hungry or they might despair and find less acceptable ways to get their “daily bread.”
A catchy phrase has it that Christians should adopt an “attitude of gratitude.” We first-world folks feel so entitled and enabled to receivewhat we consider the necessities of life that our ability to identify with those day-laborers on our street corners is almost nil. Spiritually, that is a dangerous place to be. If we cannot feel compassion for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40) or, as Amy Carmichael wrote in her book on 1 Corinthians 13, “If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth)…then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
Matthew’s parable about the last being first (a favorite Kingdom theme) invites a re-interpretation of fairness. Do your kids (or,perhaps, do you?) exclaim, “That’s not fair!” approximately every hour on the hour? God loves each of us equally, even when it really doesn’t look that way. God’s “fair” is not our “fair” (see Isaiah 55:9). We are not in charge of the scales of balance or justice in the kingdom of God! Jesus didn’t die for you more than he did for me; nor does he have favorites. Humanity, on the other hand, defines fairness in shallow, quid pro quo ways. In our quest for fairness, we should run fast from any definition of fair that hasn’t been baptized by Christ’s grace, love, and mercy. And, by the way, it is not possible to be grateful and jealous at the same time.
Christ died for all our sins, and Matthew’s passage highlights one in particular…our sinful refusal to accept God’s desire to include everyone equally in his realm. We do not want a God who
has favorites, unless we’re the favorites (Mark 10:37, for example). Additionally, we would like to be in charge of the guest lists for his parties on earth and in heaven, please. The truth of it is that
none of us is getting what we deserve. (Thanks be to God!)
Many of us ‘of a certain age’ remember Bill Cosby’s comedy routine about Noah and the ark. If only he had done a comedic bit on Jonah’s sulking rant after Jonah finally (following a brief time-out in the belly of a whale) delivered God’s word to Nineveh and they actually repented. “I KNEW it! I have always said you were a merciful God. I just can’t believe you were merciful to them!” Jonah’s nervy complaint that God’s mercy had been wildly mis-directed toward people hell-bent against God’s own chosen ones strikes a familiar chord. God kept asking Jonah if it was right for him to be angry about everything God does. God prodded Jonah (as he prods us if we can hear it) to see Nineveh as God sees Nineveh. Getting to God’s viewpoint on our “Ninevehs” is not like flipping our camera lens from portrait to panoramic. It takes prayer and a concentrated effort to remember that we are the Ninevites… those people who don’t know their right hand from their left most of the time!
God gave all of his day laborers work and pay on that day in hisvineyard because, in God’s economy, abundance is the coin of the realm! He rescued the Ninevites for reasons grander than Jonah could grasp. As we learn how to live in God’s kingdom, we must seek the skill of turning justice into mercy even for those who come late to God’s party or barge to the front of his buffet line.
Both passages this week allow us to overhear the grumblings about generosity that we also often hiss under our own God-bestowed breath. But, because of who God is, we have each won his heart, and we are each one his favorite. God’s heart is set. How about ours?