It’s hard to miss the hype of a TV show like American Idol. I haven’t really paid much attention to it in the past three seasons, but it caught my eye a couple of weeks ago. It has a lot of interesting elements: the fairy tale ‘rags to riches’ angle; the off-beat personalities; the actual talent that is sometimes good; the hopes and aspirations that are either encouraged or smashed. It’s an interesting cultural exercise to watch. But I also found myself observing some spiritual lessons as the show unfolded. What I concluded is that, in some very significant ways, American Idol represents the opposite of the character of God. Not that its unholy, necessarily. In fact, its not just one TV show. The show really simply reflects our whole society’s obsession with talent and achievement. Merit is praised and failure is scorned. If you have it, you’re instantly popular. If you don’t have, you’re a loser. That American ideal shapes and infects much of how we think about ourselves, and sadly, it colors our whole understanding of who God is and what he is like. I think, if you interviewed the “man on the street”, most people think that God is a lot like the judges on American Idol: he rewards those who are good and who measure up. But, in fact, the Bible reveals that God is a generous God who rewards us, not on the basis of our merit or achievement, but on the basis of his grace.
The fact is, ability doesn’t matter to God. Many people make the mistake of thinking that merit or worthiness counts with God. Jesus told this story to correct that notion.
Notice the statement in 19:30 - just before the story: “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first”. Now look down at the end of the story (20:16). You see a repetition of the same statement: “so the last will be first, and the first will be last”. Those two similar statements act as bookends, marking off this story. So its pretty clear that those statements define what this story is about, and that this story explains what Jesus about the "first" and the "last".
Another thing to notice: Jesus said this in response to an encounter his disciples had just witnessed. Back in ch 19:16: a man came to Jesus to inquire about salvation. This man who was definitely one of those people society would consider “first”. He was a man who was wealthy at a young age - he had everything going for him materially. Another account of the same incident says: he was a ‘ruler’ - he had political power and social status. As Jesus talked to him: it became apparent that he lived a good, moral life - he had kept the commandments since he was young. But this man, who had it all going for him, left Jesus’ presence (19:22) saddened. He was not able to embrace the salvation Jesus offered, because he could not bring himself to surrender things that mattered most to him.
On the heels of that encounter, to help explain what just happened, Jesus told this parable. Verse 1: it illustrates what the kingdom of God is like. In other words, how God operates or how things work under his rule.
The gist of the story is simple. All day long the landowner hires men to work in his vineyard. Some get hired first thing in the morning. (2): they agree to be paid a denarius for the day. That’s the basic wage for a day laborer: let’s say $50. Others come to work at 9:00, some at noon. Some don’t start until 3:00 and some don’t even come down until 5:00. They’ve been waiting in line all day hoping to get work. They just work one hour.
Here’s the twist: the landowner decided to pay them all a full day’s wage. They all got paid $50 regardless of how long they worked. In (8): the last ones hired got paid first as the all-day crew watched. The story is told this way to put the focus on the ones hired first, because this raised their expectations. They thought: if that guy got $50 for 1 hours’ work, maybe would would get a lot more! But (10) they all got paid the same! Of course, this raised the question of fairness in the minds of those who had worked all day long. How was it fair, they grumbled (12): for them to get the same as the guy who only worked one easy hour?
To draw an analogy, it would be like: you worked really hard to prepare for your audition. You’re an experienced vocalist with a lot of talent. You go in front of Randy and Paula and Simon and you knock ‘em out. They announce: You’re going to Hollywood! But when you leave your audition, you find out to your surprise that every single person who auditioned that day is going to Hollywood, too - the whole crowd! Some of them are pretty bad: they’re off key, can’t carry a tune. But they’re going on to the final round the same as you! How do you feel?
This parable points out: those who are first - those who are capable, successful, intelligent, able, good, moral people - often find grace to be a scandal. In (15): the landowner says: “are you envious because I am generous?” People like that rich young ruler stumble over grace. The workers who worked all day long stumbled over grace. Religious, moral people, good citizens and good churchgoers today often stumble over grace. Because we think we have enough going for us to earn something from God. When God gives salvation or blessing away for free, we recoil because we were worthy; they were not. We paid our dues; they did not.
But let’s think about it. Why do we think that we measure up? This parable shows: a lot of people who think they deserve something from God will be seriously disappointed. Again, the parable draws our attention to the statements just before and after it. People who are “first” in this life - people who are successful, beautiful, capable, intelligent, you name it - these are the “winners” of the world. But many of them will find themselves at the end of the line in the life to come. Why? The tendency is: these people don’t see their need. They are self-sufficient and adequate. They have it all. Many are self-made men and women. So they have a hard time receiving God’s free gift of grace. By the same token, people who are last in this world - people who are broken, troubled, unsuccessful, poor, and so on - people who are considered in the world’s terms to be the losers: they will be at the front of the line in the life to come. They are more likely to find salvation - not all, but many. They will be received into eternal life ahead of those who, in world’s perspective enjoy prominence now. Why? They don’t have any trouble seeing their need. They don’t have such a hard time humbling themselves: they’ve been humbled by life and by circumstances. So they don’t have such a struggle to receive God’s free gift of grace.
You see, from a Biblical perspective, none of us is worthy. Its just that worldly success and prominence deceives us into thinking we are. Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Nobody measures up. My wife knows a guy at work. He was having a conversation with a woman he knows who is very religious. She said: I hope Jesus comes back on a day when I’m worthy. What day would that be? Is there a day when we don’t sin? Is there a day when we don’t fall short of God’s glory?
I specifically chose American Idol as an image this morning because that whole program represents the complete absence of grace. If you can’t perform, if you can’t cut it, then you will not advance. This is American Idolatry. Not the craving for fame or our worship of celebrity, although that is certainly an issue in our culture. But its the idolatry of merit, ability and success. You know, they let people in to audition who aren’t very good. In fact, some of them are embarrassingly bad. But they don’t let them in as an expression of grace. They let them in so that the viewers can mock them as a twisted form of entertainment.
Listen: all of us are going to stand, one day, not before a panel of judges, but before one final Judge. If you think it would be nerve-wracking to perform for Simon Cowell, think what it will be like standing before the Holy Creator of the Universe! When we stand in his presence, our lives will not be measured by the achievement standards of this world that declare some people to be winners and some people to be losers. We will be measured against God’s own holiness and perfection. Your life will be set against God’s perfect law of right and wrong. On this scale, based on God’s standards. there are no Kellys or Clays or Fantasias. When we audition before God, we’re all William Hung (or worse).
You get these AI contestants who think they’re pretty good. Maybe they do sound pretty good singing along with the karaoke machine, or maybe they’re better than the other people in the bar. So when they sing before the judges, they simply can’t believe it when they don’t qualify. We feel sorry for them because they are so out of touch. They are so deceived about their own talent, when everyone watching knows they have marginal ability at best. You know what? In the moral / spiritual realm: we are them! We are never as good as we think we are. This is the problem: churches are full of “good” people, at least measured against majority: we don’t steal or murder or swear or get drunk. But measured against God’s character and God’s law, we’re deceived about our own goodness. We’re not as worthy as we think we are. Our day’s work in the vineyard isn’t as impressive as we think. At least: God is not impressed. When God chooses to be generous, it isn’t about being worthy. It isn’t about paying dues. Its not about how hard you worked all day long. Its simply a matter of God’s desire to freely give, whether it is deserved or not.
Because God is a generous God. Tis what undermines the whole system of merit and worthiness and hard work. This is what the “firsts” of this world have such a hard time accepting. God is a generous God!That’s why the last can end up being first. That’s why people who only get started at end of the day still get a day’s wage. Because God is a generous God, who delights in giving what is not deserved, who takes joy in lavishing people with his free gift of grace.
This is the genius of Jesus’ parable. It starts with a common scene that everyone would have recognized in that time. But the ending is a great surprise! And the way the story is told illustrates how radical God’s grace is. Jesus keeps the story building toward the climax, by sending the landowner back to the marketplace every few hours to hire more workers. If we were the landowner, somewhere we would draw the line. We would calculate how many hours each man worked and pay accordingly. Or even if we were generous, we would cut it off at 9 am or even noon. But the story keeps pushing the line of God’s generosity farther and farther out, beyond our expectations.
The complaint against the landowner was about his fairness. But he was fair. In (13): he paid the all-day workers exactly what he had agreed to pay them. They signed on to work for that amount. That’s what they got. But the landowner chose to go beyond fairness; he wanted to be generous.
The parable focuses on the response of the all-day workers. But I can also imagine the response of the late-comers. What! You’re giving me $50? But I only worked one hour! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!
As we said, this parable was intended by Jesus to show how God operates. So, through the landowner, verses (14-15) reveal the heart of God. God is fair. He will never give anyone less than they deserve. But that’s the problem. It’s the fairness of God that gets us in trouble. We’ve all sinned and fall short. If God was only fair, we would be toast! We don’t deserve any good gift or blessing from God. Thankfully, God is also generous! And he wants to gives us more than we deserve. God’s great gifts are given out, not because they are earned, but because God is gracious. God is generous.
So, in God’s kingdom, in God’s way of doing things, because this is the kind of God he is, grace trumps ability every time.
Who do you relate to in this parable? Do you relate to the all-day workers? Why? Do you think you’ve done something for God? We could make the case that all of us were hired at 5:00 p.m., that we’ve done nothing to earn anything from God, that there’s nothing in us that measures up. But God still gives us the full package. God still gives us eternal life. God still forgives our sins and makes us his children and heirs. God still pours out blessing after blessing in our lives, even when we haven’t done anything for him.
You can argue that, in this life, there is some payoff from being righteous, for being a good citizen, an upstanding church-goer. The payoff is: you might avoid a lot of the bitter consequences of sin. You might avoid losing your home and family to alcohol. You might avoid spending time in jail. Those are the benefits of being the ones who work hard all day. But those benefits don’t translate into eternity.
In the larger scheme of things: in God’s way of doing things, the only merit that counts is the merit of Jesus,who lived a sinless life in perfect obedience to the Father. Because his merit qualified him to be our Savior. The only worthiness that counts is the worthiness of Jesus, which is untainted by selfishness and mixed motives. The only achievement that counts is the achievement of Jesus: what he accomplished when he died on the cross to pay for our sins and rose again from dead on 3rd day to prove the success of his sacrifice.
God offers to us the merit of Jesus in place of our sinfulness. God offers the infinite worth of Jesus in place of our unworthiness. God offers the matchless achievement of Jesus in place of our failure. What a folly to try to stack up our worthiness against his! when his is available for us, in our place.
In reality, we’re William Hung all the way. Spiritually speaking, we can’t carry a tune. We can hardly avoid embarrassing ourselves. Yet we still the record contract, we still get our own web site, we still get to appear on TV. Because in God’s kingdom, the last end up first, while human worthiness and success end up empty. Because grace is the only factor that determines what happens at the end of the day.
I want to invite you to rejoice in God’s grace. We saw last week: grace doesn’t mean we live like hell. It doesn’t make us apathetic to what’s right and what pleases God, because grace actually has the power to transform our lives. We can trust in that.
But with that balance in mind, grace means: you can relax! You don’t have to keep on trying to prove yourself to God. The fact is: you have nothing to prove. When Jesus comes back, he’s going to reveal all the stuff in our lives that we denied or weren’t even aware of. When he evaluates our lives, he’s going to burst a lot of bubbles of people who think they’re worthy. So: why not just admit it? Get rid of the whole mistaken notion of ability and merit. Just come to God by grace. Enjoy his generosity. All the faces you see on the screen are joyful! Because they are auditioning for American Idol. For 99%, that joy is going to fade pretty quickly. In the world’s scheme of things, they are going to be tagged as losers. We have a far deeper, more enduring reason to rejoice. We know everything we have is a gift from God. We know: God accepts us, blesses us, gives us wonderful gifts, even when we are not worthy to have them.
As we remember Jesus in the Lord’s Supper this morning, I want you to consciously think of the gifts God has given you - starting with the gift of Jesus himself, God’s own Son. The bread we eat in the Lord’s Supper speaks of his body broken on cross for us. The cup we drink is a reminder of his life blood that was spilled for us, when he took the penalty of our sins upon himself. That’s a gift we never deserved nor could ever earn - that he was willing to give up his life in our place. As these elements come around to you, the Bible says: examine yourself. First, make sure you have truly crossed the line of faith, that you have placed your confidence with God, not in your own merit, but in Jesus’. Make sure also: you are not harboring any unconfessed sin in your life. But as you move beyond that moment of examination, I encourage you today to move into a time of gratitude and rejoicing. You are the worker who came at the end of the day. The landowner gave you far, far more than you deserved! Think of all the gifts your generous God has given you, as expressions of his grace…
