God of Mercy

There's a parable that is perhaps the most difficult for many of to swallow. It's the parable of the hired workers. 

This is the one where the owner of the property goes out in the morning and finds some workers and agrees to pay them a day's wage to come and work for him, so they do. Then, a few hours later, he goes out and finds some more workers and agrees to pay them fairly, so they come, too. A few hours later, he does the same thing. Finally, an hour before quittin' time, he goes out and finds even more workers and agrees to pay them fairly to come and help finish up the work, so they come. 

When it comes time to pay them, he starts with the guys who have been there for maybe an hour or so, and he gives them a full day's wage. And then the guys who have been there a little bit longer, they get a day's wage, too. All the way down to the ones he first hired, who also get a day's wage and start grumbling, but he reminds them - that's what you agreed to work for. His generosity to others is none of their concern. 

And yet, we are concerned. Aren't we? 

We are concerned when the drug addict wanders into the church off the street and a few weeks later is adding his voice to the praise band. We are concerned when the single mom starts serving in the nursery. We are concerned when the poor family who doesn't have two cents to their name starts working as greeters. We are concerned when the things that we think we've "earned" by investing our lives in faith and in the church are suddenly open to everyone. 

We're concerned when the Pharisee who was trying to kill all of us, who threatened our way of life, becomes a leader in the church and claims to have a message of hope and good news. 

We like to say that the church is open to everyone, but we really mean like...persons like us. Nice persons. Good persons. Clean persons. Not this riff-raff. 

Then, we have this parable. And we have passages like we find in Romans 10, where Paul says that to God, there is no difference between persons. Everyone who believes has a place with Him. He chooses who He gives mercy to, and those persons He chooses don't fit in our categories all the time. 

And we wrestle. And we struggle. And we question God's wisdom because how could He? 

And then we hear that we aren't in everyone else's categories, either, and we think that must be yet another problem with them and another reason why they don't deserve God's mercy...because look at them, over there judging us. Of all people! US! We've been doing this faith thing for a long time; they're the newcomers. 

Therein proving yet again that God does indeed give mercy to whoever He chooses, to everyone who believes. 

Even us.