The Kingdom of heaven is like a homeowner who went out early in morning to hire some laborers to work in his vineyard. When they settled on a pay rate, a penny a day, he sent them out to vineyard. The homeowner went out three hours later, and say some people not doing anything in market place, so he told them, to go the vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage for their work. And they went on their way. After six hours he did the same, and after nine hours he did it again. And after eleven hours he went out and found some more people standing around doing nothing and he asked them why they had stood there all day, doing nothing. They tell him no man hired us! So he tells them to go to the vineyard and you’ll get what you deserve.
That night, the owner of the vineyard tells his steward to call the laborers and beginning from the last person to the first person. So the he gave the folks that were hired in the eleventh hour each a penny. The first men got kind of excited because they thought might receive more than penny. But they only got a penny, and they grumbled about it, saying those guys only worked an hour, and you paid as much as we do and totally bore the burden of the day and the heat. So the boss man tells them he didn’t do them wrong, they agreed to do the work for a penny. Take your pennies and go, I’ll give the last people the same as you. That’s my within my right, I can do what I like with my money. Are you giving me the evil eye because I am good? So the last will be first and the first last, because many will be called but few will be chosen.
Yeah, those are um… great business practices. Really good for team moral. You’ll surely get a lot of workers who want to continue working with you early every morning that way. Am I evil because I think that the boss is kind of a jerk? I mean I’m fine with him paying everyone the same, but a little discretion maybe? Pay them in groups… don’t make the first ones feel like they just worked harder for their penny then the rest of them.
JC goes to Jerusalem and takes his disciples away from the crowd and tells them, okay, we are entering Jerusalem and I will be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes and they will condemn me to death. And I’ll be delivered to the Gentiles to mock, scourge, and crucify, and on the third day I’ll rise again.
Enter the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him and asking a favor. Okay I took the time piece that out, she’s talking about her sons the disciples John and James. So Jesus asks her what she wants… and she answers she wants James and John to sit on either side of him in the kingdom of heaven. JC’s all you don’t know what your asking.
Can you drink form the cup that I drink from? Can you be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with? They answer yes. You will drink from my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with but my dad picks who sits next to me.
When the ten other disciples heard it, they were indignant against the brothers. JC tells them, you know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and have great authority over these two.
It won’t be that way among you guys. Whoever will be great among you will be your minister, and whoever will be a leader among you… let him be your servant. I can’t be ministered to, but I can minister to you, and I can give my life for many.
Okay, so did John and James just get their mom to ask JC if they could sit next to him in heaven? Or was it just and overzealous mom looking after her boys. I bet Peter was annoyed because JC already called him the rock of the church and walked on water with him.
They depart from Jericho will a big following. Two blind men were sitting by the wayside when they heard JC pass by. Have mercy on us Lord, Son of David! The crowd rebuked them for bugging JC, but they kept crying out for mercy. JC asked them what they wanted him to do, um duh JC they want to see! So JC touches their and they can see. They follow him.
Nice. I love it when I get paid the same as someone doing way less than me. It totally makes me want to show up for work the next day. I think JC's problem is he needs to find more balance in his life, he seems to really swing from compassion to nasty in an arching pendulum. Maybe he should study the teachings of the Buddha. Namaste.
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