Full Service - 09/24/2017 - Christ Church Nashville

Who Gets to Be First?
Matthew 20:1-16
The Lord’s Parable about the workers who get paid the same no matter how long they worked, may be the difficult thing to hear, accept, or interpret that Jesus said. If we look at the story as a parable about economic life, we will surely see it as fundamentally unjust and unreasonable. However, the parable is actually about spiritual life - who owns a church for example; the one who have been there the longest? Jesus forcefully says “no.” Jews are not more important than Gentiles, and Christians with centuries of roots in the Gospel are not more important than those converted day before yesterday. Everyone gets the same “wage.” This is the main point of the Book of Jonah as well. The people of Nineveh were more righteous than the prophet God had sent to save them. That is the most “fishy” thing about the book of Jonah. Its also the mot fishy thing about the work of the church.