In our Monday-morning co-ed bible study, we’ve been reading
N. T. Wright’s Simply Jesus. We’ve
gotten to the part about what sort of kingdom Jesus is establishing, and Wright
emphasizes that the parables show us what he had in mind. The question that
keeps popping into my mind is, “What does the world look like when God is in
charge?” The parables that Jesus tells aren’t descriptions of a heavenly realm.
They are declarations of what happens when God establishes his reign on earth.
In other words, these parables aren’t descriptions of the aftereffects. They
put forward the mechanics of the kingdom itself.
In today’s gospel lesson (Matthew 20:1-16), Jesus says that
the kingdom is like a landowner who hired a series of workers—some for the
whole day, others for most of the day, and some only for an hour—and then paid
them all the same amount. The radical declaration here isn’t that God’s riches
are bestowed equally upon all people once God’s kingdom is established. The
message is that God’s kingdom is only established when everyone receives the
same. God’s reign doesn’t come down from heaven in a powerful moment of triumph
that then sets everything straight according to kingdom priorities. God’s reign
only comes down through the radical reorientation of our entire lives as
demonstrated in this frustratingly illogical parable.
If you are waiting for God to come back before you seek to
live in the kingdom, you’ve mistaken the prerequisites for the syllabus. You
can’t wait on it. It waits on us. Jesus came and established God’s kingdom here
already. His death shows that it is
time for rewards to be distributed according to God’s universal love and grace
and not according to what we think is right. If you’re not already living
according to the kingdom that Jesus established, then you’re actively opposed
to it.
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