When Kairos Meets Chronos
Good Morning Friends,
There is a problem with grace related to how we view time and how time has an effect on us. Both time and grace are so difficult to receive and so difficult to share. It is the scandal of our faith. That the first will be last and the last first just does not seem fair. When we put up our actions against the reality of grace the imbalance is clear. Our rejection of it in light of our pathetic situation is truly sad, for it is more than fair for all of us, even though it is strange to us. Indeed, God’s grace is not of this world. It is all wrapped up into God’s timing. It is so foreign. Both grace and time are given to those who don’t deserve it, barely recognize it as love and rarely appreciate it for its power. It is fair to say that grace is not often believed and is not often understood. So too with time. In the end grace means that no one is too bad to be saved…we only have to be willing to receive it and for some that is a very long wait. It also means that some of us may reject God’s grace because we think we can do it on our own time. The problem with grace is that it cannot help us until we are desperate enough to receive it. There is no contest for those who are most deserving of grace. Grace is the great equalizer. Time is the great equalizer. We all need it. Still what should be perceived is very different from what is perceived when it comes to the Goodness of Grace…when it comes to that time When Kairos Meets Chronos.
Scripture: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?'” Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”*
16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
Matthew 20:1-16 (NRSV)
Message: Time is a bit of an illusion. Still for practical reasons our grasp of time here is limited and perhaps that is why today’s Gospel parable is a difficult one for capitalists who consider the time value of money. To understand it we must first realize that it is not so much about economics as it is about grace and the good and bad news of the Good News and perhaps as a guide to help us manage our time strategically in our deployment of grace we might offer to others. Here in the parable of the laborers in the Vineyard, we get to encounter grace and though it is hard to accept and hard to believe and even harder to receive we finally are shocked into what it offers across time. Here we may be frightened into what it does for sinners. We may indeed be astonished at God’s way of work…that grace is granted in spite of what we do or even who we are. That is the problem for many of us. Grace is a bit scandalous and as such it is hard to accept that God does for others what we would never do for them. Because grace costs everything for the giver and nothing to the receiver and is given to those who do not deserve it, we may find ourselves barely recognizing it, or even hardly appreciating it. This means that no one is too bad to be saved but it does not mean that everyone will be saved. Still His grace is greater than any and all of our sins. The bad news is that God’s grace cannot help us until we are desperate enough to receive it. If we think we do not need grace we are doomed. If we think we deserve it, this selfish assumption will also doom us. Friends, once we were lost, but now perhaps we are found. We were blind, but now can see just how amazing God’s grace is and His offer to be part of His family. We await the Lord’s Kairos but hope that God will bless His people with peace, productivity, and provision even as we wait. Friends we are not so removed from the past. Truth is truth regardless of chronology. Grace is Grace regardless of when it is received. Know this, God’s timing is perfect because past, present, future God is. It is harvest time and the grace of God produces much Kingdom fruit. Let’s get to work.
Pray we realize that God is not hurried along. Pray still that we appropriate grace right now in this moment. Pray we recognize the need for salvation right now. Pray we repent of our sins right now. Pray we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and that place where Kairos and Chronos converge time at the foot of the cross. Pray we believe who He is and in what He said and what He did. Pray we receive Him. Pray we open our hearts to Him forever. Pray we understand, accept, believe and receive God’s grace. Pray that we would not be stingy because God is generous. Pray we thank God that He has reached out and hired us into His family with the sweet sound of grace. Pray we thank God that He brings hope even in the eleventh hour when all hope seems lost. Pray we thank God for His grace even as we pray that we would be more gracious with others. Pray we live with great gratitude. Pray we bear witness to God’s presence right now.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 