Matthew 20:16 (CSB) — 16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.”
What God values is different than what we value. Here Jesus tells a parable about a vineyard owner who goes out early in the morning to hire laborers to work his vineyard. As the day progresses, he hires more laborers — again and again — until the work is finished. When it comes time to compensate his workers, he generously gives to those hired last what he promised to those hired first. But those hired first object when they’re not given more. They’re offended by the vineyard owner’s grace. But why?
Jesus’ parable is a rebuke: “are you jealous because I’m generous?” (v. 15). In context, how can God make the gentiles co-inheritors of his Kingdom when Israel has suffered so much and gone through the heat of the day? The story isn’t about economics. It’s about the nature of grace and how quickly we resent it when it threatens our pride.
We believe in grace — until it offends our sense of fairness.
Deep down, we want to be first. And we want to feel like we deserve it. So, when others come along who are, perhaps, not as refined as we are, or who haven’t made the sacrifices we’ve made, we don’t want to give them space where we’re standing. We can’t let them in because the grace they might receive threatens the standing we believe we deserve.
This is why we sometimes struggle to celebrate the restoration of a broken life or the repentance of someone who “should’ve known better.” It’s why we are sometimes quietly uncomfortable with (ex)addicts, former prisoners, or the poor taking positions of honor or leadership. We want to celebrate achievement, but God cherishes the poor in spirit. We want to elevate the best speakers, but God’s ear is attuned to a broken and contrite heart. Indeed, grace is what welcomes the weak to stand with the strong. But learning to accept grace is what humbles the best of us. Tolerating those in our midst who don’t know our traditions is terrifying because it can test what we think we stand on. And this is why we must learn the lesson Jesus is teaching that “the last will be first, and the first will be last,” because this is how we will come to care about the things that matter most to God: justice, mercy, and faithfulness!
Grace challenges us to accept those whom God has accepted even when we don’t believe they’ve measured up to what we’ve done. “Are you jealous because I’m generous?” God is accepting people into his Kingdom that we don’t believe belong there. But God sees their broken and contrite heart. And he has compassion on them.
So, allow me to suggest that the reason the first vineyard workers were offended by the owner’s grace was because they measured their worth in comparison to the latter workers wrongly, placing their value in things the vineyard owner did not value. Today many think they know “the doctrines of grace” while imagining themselves to be first among God’s people because of their theological knowledge or religious tradition, but, these are in danger of being offended when Jesus says, “the first will be last, and the last will be first!“
Are we offended by grace or do we truly celebrate God’s generosity?
A Dedicated Faith 
So true! I’m guilty.
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