Have you ever noticed that God is a God of the Eleventh Hour?
Often, just when it seems like things are not going to work out or like it’s too late?
Boom! Breakthrough.
“The Eleventh Hour” is not only the name of a Doctor Who episode, it’s a phrase that means “the latest possible time before it’s too late”. It’s no wonder that books, shows and movies have been created with this same title because the tension and suspense can be unreal when you’re living down to the wire; waiting to see what will happen in those final moments before it’s too late.
This phrase actually has Biblical origins and can be traced back to the parable Jesus told in Matthew 20:1-16 (you can read the whole passage below) about a landowner who hires people to work in his vineyard. He goes out to hire workers five times: in the early morning, about nine in the morning, about noon, about three in the afternoon and finally again around five in the afternoon. When he would see people standing around doing nothing, he would ask them why they had been standing around all day doing nothing. They answered him and said, “Because no one has hired us”. So, he sends them to work in his vineyard.
At the end of the day when it was time for everyone to be paid, he began with the last workers who had been hired and he pays them a denarius (the same amount he had promised to the workers he hired early in the morning). By the time the first workers are paid, they began to grumble because they had also been paid only a denarius! Even though they had worked since the beginning of the day.
Look at how the Landowner responds to them:
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Despite being brought onto the work scene in the vineyard after nearly a full day of work (likely eleven hours) they were not too late.
While this was cause for great celebration for the workers who were hired throughout the day, especially the ones who were hired last, it became a source of contention for those who had been hired first.
When God moves and brings about solutions and breakthroughs in the final moments before the time stamp reads “Too Late” will we join in the celebrations? Will we rejoice with those who rejoice? Or will we begin to grumble because the timing or the results or the process looked different than we expected it to?
As we head into Holy Week next week and as we consider the Passion of Christ, I can’t help but think about how unfair and unjust and wrong all of it appeared; how unfair and unjust it truly was! And yet, God was working and moving and bringing into fruition the grandest redemption story the world would ever see!
God’s timing was not off base or wrong back then. And I believe that we get to choose whether we will believe that and apply it faith-fully to our own situations and those around us… or if we will, instead, choose to grumble and complain.
Lord, as we move towards Holy Week and considering all that transpired in the days before your death, may our minds become transformed and renewed to seeing your mysterious work in a new way.
Holy Spirit, would you please speak to us and remind us that with You, things are never too late or too far gone? Would you grow our faith in what is possible when we rely on Your timing?
God, we want to be people who will celebrate Your Astounding Generosity…
and yet it can be so hard to do this at times.
Thank you for promising to bring to completion the good work you have begun in each of us.
We choose to trust you today and we trust that that will be enough.
Thank you for your faithfulness,
Amen
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”