The King Comes to His Own ... to be acknowledged or rejected. In the opening narrative section three areas of life in which His Own will acknowledge His Lordship are covered first: Marriage and Family, Wealth and Possessions, Work and Status. We are still with Wealth and Possessions.
In the last chapter we looked at the Lord's encounter with the rich young Ruler. Now He says that wealth presents an impossible obstacle to salvation. The disciples react with shocked incredulity: "Who then can be saved?" And Jesus replies, "Only God can cure the curse of capital ... and compensate it." He ends by telling a cautionary tale that challenges our attitude to prosperity and justice.
What Jesus said is reminiscent of Matt. 7:14: "The gate is narrow and the way hard that leads to life." Here that is applied in the area of money. Wealth is a hurdle you have to jump in order to be saved: that is the point the Lord makes; and it is so high a hurdle, nobody can. Only with God can you do it.
We must not roll with the punch here; we must take it on the chin. We are tempted to dodge it by the simple expedient of saying that of course, we are not rich. But Mark in his account of what Jesus said that day remembers that Jesus began by saying, "Children how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God." Not "how hard it is for those who have great riches," but just ... riches. If we in the West think we do not fit into that category, we deceive ourselves. Those whom Jesus addressed that day, the peasant folk of Palestine, were not above the economic level of third world populations today. Ask any of them if we are rich! Jesus broadened the case of the rich man in particular to include all men in general. That is why the disciples reacted as they did: "Who then can be saved?" Their question makes no sense if they understood Jesus to mean only those who are really wealthy. Our money will take us to hell unless we look to God to do something about it. "It's easier for camels," He said. "It is easier for camels to squeeze through a needle's eye than for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom." (Note vs. 24-5: entry into the Kingdom = Salvation.)
By 'the eye of a needle,' did Jesus mean a literal needle (the sort you sew with) or the little 'after hours' gate beside the big town gate, hardly as high as a man and hardly as wide (like the entrance to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem today), which was not uncommon in those days? I am inclined to think He meant an ordinary needle: it is the idiom of hyperbole which in the East was then, and is still, such a characteristic way of lending emphasis to what you said. But there always seem to be folk about who want to reduce the size of the camel, or enlarge the size of the needle's eye.
Either way, the meaning is much the same; for if a camel is to squeeze through such a narrow gate, he will not only have to be rid of any baggage he carries, he will have to be rid of his hump as well. It is his hump that makes the thing impossible. Asses, with a squeeze, can make it: camels cannot. And that is the truth we have to face: we all have a 'hump' that stops us getting through. It is not enough to say that only naked can you go through the Kingdom Gate; Jesus says you have to have surgery done on you. Money and our reliance on it is the hump.
Behind the disciples' question, "Who then can be saved?" lay the Old Testament notion that wealth is a mark of God's favour. There was a contradiction in what Jesus said, they felt. He said (and kept on saying) that entry into the Kingdom was the mark of God's favour, the only one that mattered. Now He said the mark of God's favour they had always believed in was really a curse.
We have the same problem. We say we know better than to suppose that an increase of our wealth is a mark of God's blessing, but the fact is we almost never interpret it any other way. If we make or get more money we almost always say it is because "God has blessed us." When did we ever esteem a bigger bank balance a curse or a shrunken one a blessing? "Sin keeps us out of the Kingdom, doesn't it? - the refusal to repent and believe. What's all this about money keeping us out?"
Why is money such an obstacle? Because we trust it. It is power. It provides for our needs, it enables us to live, it gives us the power to cope with life's emergencies. Money does, not God. We have to be prised loose from our reliance on money to be able really to trust God. It is hard. Could we trust God for everything if suddenly we had no money ... and no way to get any? Would it make no difference to our outlook? Who among us would not be rich if he could? But if we want it for the same reason as those who have it: to see us through, we are no different from them. It is faith that is at issue: what - or Whom - we are trusting.
At a 'Keswick' Convention in Yeppoon I heard Ben Kill of 'Open Doors' read a letter from Vietnam written by a certain Mrs Ho hieu Ha. Her husband was pastor of the Tran cao Van church in Saigon, arrested the same day his church was closed by the authorities, and thrown into Chi Hoa prison. She had seen him only twice in two and half years. After losing the parsonage housing, a modest apartment was provided by Christian friends. In May the authorities expelled her from it, and without official residence papers (denied her family for 11 years) she was, with her mother and two children, forced to seek shelter on the balcony outside her previous apartment.
"We have been obliged recently to leave our modest apartment and for over two months have been living on a balcony. The rain has been beating down and soaking us. Sometimes in the middle of the night we are forced to gather our blankets into our arms and run to seek refuge in a stairwell.
Do you know what I do then? I'm happy. I laugh. I praise the Lord because I can still take shelter in the stairwell. I do not know what words to use to describe the love that the Lord has showed to our family. I can only bow my knee and my heart and offer to the Lord words of deepest thanks and praise.
Although we have lost our house, we have lost our possessions, we have not lost the Lord, and that is enough. With the Lord I have everything. The only thing I would fear losing is His blessing."
Jesus said, "With God all things are possible."
But it is hard - harder than we realise - to rid ourselves of the notion, deep-seated in us all, that "with money all things are possible" ... well, almost all things.
In Matt. 17:20 Jesus has said that "all things are possible to him who has faith." Put the two together: "With God all things are possible" ... "All things are possible to him who has faith" and it is clear that doing the impossible requires both God and faith in Him. We are to trust God to preserve us from the curse of our money. Whether we have much or little is not the point; the point is what it means to us.
"With God all things are possible" is a thing that had been said in Scripture before Jesus said it.
Gen. 18:14 was the first. God Himself said it then to Sarah, Abram's wife, when she laughed at the very idea that she might conceive and bear a child in old age.
Job 42:2 was the second. Job said it then, when he saw how impossible it was to suppose that any but God had created the world and its living creatures.
Zech. 8:6 was the third. God again said it then, when He assured the prophet that He would deliver the Israelites from the power of Babylon.
Put those together, and what Jesus said is that to loose us from the curse of our money needs a work of God as radical and improbable as it does to enable an old woman to bear a child, to create a world of living creatures, or to break the power of a totalitarian state! No wonder both Matthew and Mark tell us that when Jesus said this to His disciples, He "looked at them": He fixed them with His eye while He said it. If He does not, we turn our eyes away; we pay no heed. It is surgery He does on us when He says it. It is reminiscent of Mark's comment that in the moment Jesus challenged the rich young ruler, Jesus, "looking upon, him loved him." He knows what it means to us to be faced with this challenge. He cannot spare us it, but He loves us while He does it. *
When Peter had digested the full import of what Jesus said, he asked, "What's in it for me?" v. 27. Answer: 'Power and property' - the two things we look to money to buy! "You will sit on Thrones; you will receive houses, lands and family (you will be rich in realty and relationships) in the 'New World.'"
The 'New World' (in the Greek 'regeneration') means the same thing as the 'New Heavens and the New Earth' of ...
• Isaiah 65:17 "Behold I create a new
heavens and a new earth, where the former things shall not be
remembered or come into mind." That is complete redemption.
• Isaiah 66:22 "The new heaven and the new earth which I will
make shall remain before Me." That is ultimate security.
• II Peter 3:13 "We wait for God's promise of new heavens and a
new earth wherein righteousness shall dwell." That is final
salvation.
• Rev. 21:1 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the
first heaven and the first earth had passed away." That is total
renewal.
What Jesus says here about the Son of Man on His glorious Throne He will say again in ch. 25:31. In that vision of the Last Judgment He sits as Judge to condemn or to reward, and as King to rule. The Throne of Glory is the Throne of God; so to sit on twelve thrones means to share the rule with Him.
He promised it to "you who have followed me." Judas, though, would not qualify; so the phrase 'you who have followed Me' opens the door to others beside the twelve apostles. That regulates how we understand the phrase 'The twelve tribes of Israel' in v. 28. Did Jesus mean Israel after the flesh, the Jews, or Israel after the Spirit, the Church? Israel after the Spirit, surely; for if even others beside the Twelve judge only Jews, who administers the Kingdom for the rest? Who will be in the majority? In any case, in v. 29, Jesus says "every one." **
And then Jesus added: "Many who are first will be last, and the last first."
It is repeated a little further on at ch. 20:15; it is an 'inclusio,' wrapping up in the same parcel the teaching here with the teaching in the parable to follow.
Peter's emphasis was on the 'we.' "We have let everything go to follow You." He was contrasting himself and the rest to the likes of the rich young ruler.
"He couldn't, we have. We deserve something, do we not?"
And that is the note Jesus responds to with the story that now follows. The Lord says, "Peter, no-one who leaves all to follow Me will lose by it. But dear Peter, and the rest of you too (He said to 'them'), rid your mind of all notions of deserving. The rewards of the Kingdom are not given on a basis of merit; they are given on a basis of grace ... so much so that if you do not understand that and accept it, you'll feel that even in the Kingdom you're not treated fairly.
"Many that are first shall be last, and the last first."
The introduction to the story Jesus told, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like ..." does not mean that it is like this householder, but that it is like the situation his story unfolds.
The working day was reckoned from sunrise to sunset, so the first group of workers were taken on about 6.00 or 7.00 am; the second group around 9.00 am, and the others respectively at noon and 3.00 pm and the last group around 5.00 pm. A denarius was a standard day's wage for a labouring man. The first group were made a fair offer: the 'award rate,' so to speak. The market place was the local Commonwealth Employment Service (the Government employment agency in Australia.) - free, what is more, of interfering clerks! Bosses engaged men direct.
No explanation is given why the recruiting went on all day. Was it because the lazy beggars did not show up early at the labour exchange, some not till closing time? (Not the reason they gave, of course!) Whatever the reason, this was one time when it was not true that only the early bird catches the worm. There were worms for the most indifferent birds that day. More likely the farmer was looking for workers all day because the harvest was urgent; it had to be gathered in before the rains came. There is always a note of urgency in the Lord's teaching about the Kingdom.
It is a nice touch that the last to be taken on were the first to be paid. As those who had worked all day watched the others get their pay packets, you can see the gleam of greedy anticipation in their eyes ... and then, as they saw no more was being paid for longer hours, their growing dismay and finally their outraged protest. The poor pay clerk must have got the thick end of their tongues. Finally they formed a protest march to the boss's office. Their mood is reflected in their lack of manners: no greeting, no politeness; they came right out with it like a bunch of surly strikers.
The owner's first word of reply to their spokesman was a mild rebuke: "Friend!"
I hate to think what the result might have been in a modern trades union dispute. The state of men's hearts has not changed. If eleventh hour men get a full days' wage, then day workers ought to be paid for a fortnight! You can understand their protest; who would pass up a chance of two week's wages for one day's work?
The owner's reply was to say simply: "You've been paid what we agreed. I never promised overtime rates."
What the parable teaches is that God is not ruled by considerations of justice in his dealings with us, but by considerations of grace. How often Jesus made this point. As we worked through Book IV, the Church, we found Him making the point over and over again: in the fellowship of believers we must be governed by the rule of grace, not by the rule of law. But we will insist that those who slip up be made to pay. Why do we call Him Lord and not do the things He says?
The human standards of so-called justice - fair shares for all, every man to his rights and every offender to his deserts - simply do not weigh with God at all. And thanks be to God that they do not, because if they did, there would be salvation for not a single living one of us. The notion of justice is here, not negated, but transcended by the loftier, richer concept of grace, of undeserved generosity. Because our salvation depends on it we revel in that ... until it means that someone who has offended us gets away with it, and then we cry "Justice." But it is not justice we want.
In the Lord's story the protesters were given justice. But it was not what they wanted at all. In fact nobody in the story wanted justice. Not the 11th hour men: they were not saying anything lest they lost their bonus. But the others were not after justice either. They had been given it - that is the point - and they were far from satisfied. Justice was the last thing any of them wanted. What made them protest was jealousy and greed. All their talk of justice was just a cloak for their greed. They wanted justice only when it was to their advantage.
That is the truth about us all. We only want justice when it is to our advantage. When it is to someone else's advantage we are strangely silent on the issue. For the most part, even churches only protest moral issues with any vigour and passion when it is their religious liberties that are threatened.
What we are seeing here is human selfishness exposed, so as to be condemned, by God's generosity. That is what we have to see.
Remember the background against which this story was told. Jesus had been talking about money, about its damning hold on us, and how desperate is our need to be prised loose from it. It is God we must trust, not gain. The story reflects our obsession with gain. It is the Lord's way of getting under our skin with the truth. He mounted a frontal attack first, now He slips in under our guard with a story.
It is how God disposes matters that matters, and it is all that matters. If we let worldly considerations of gain govern the way we treat others and regard ourselves, we are in for a nasty surprise. We had better give up our demand for 'justice' and settle for grace, or at the end of the day we shall find ourselves out in the cold. God will say to us, "I do not know you."
* Note v. 24 - for once (the only time in
fact) instead of 'Kingdom of Heaven' Matthew has 'King-dom of God' to
emphasise v. 26, 'with God all things are possible': the Kingdom is
His Rule.
** Matthew always says we 'inherit' eternal life - because the word
inheritance means 'deed of gift', which is what salvation - or a
place in the Kingdom - always is. (This is Matthew's only use too of
'eternal life'.)
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