Quick quiz. How much money does soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo make per hour?
- $6.34
- $380
- $22,833
He makes more in a single day than any of us (unless we’re millionaires) make in one year: $548,000 a day. The correct answer to his hourly income is $22,833 per hour, which is $380 per minute, folks.
Does that seem fair? Considering careers and their value to society, shouldn’t teachers, social workers, and first responders should make much more money than professional athletes?
But ticket buyers, TV watchers, and team jersey wearers have created a different standard of fairness. It isn’t fair according to everyday logic but is fair within the operations of our obsession with entertainment and sports. It’s a different, independent standard for fairness.
Jesus once told a parable about fairness, or the lack of it. The key to understanding the parable is this: don’t impose your standard of fairness on God. If our society has created—and operates by—different standards of fairness, then certainly God can have his own standard, too.
The story goes like this: a boss paid workers hired for an entire day the same that he paid workers hired for just the last hour of that day. The all-day workers griped. The boss said, “I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous’” (Matthew 20:14,15)?
“Don’t impose your limited standards of fairness on me!” God’s mercy operates with his own independent fairness. God wants to act in his way of fairness, and his way of fairness is mercy. God wants you to trust in his forgiving mercy that loves even those who are last.
Before saying, “The End,” Jesus summarized his story with a faith lesson about God. “So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).
Some of us look like we’re last. We have a limp, a bald spot, hips that are too wide or scars in prominent places.
Others of us feel like we’re last. We look in the mirror and see a no-good loser who doesn’t have what it takes.
Others of us have been told from little on that we’re last. Parents or older siblings have treated us like dirt. Teachers or coaches berated us.
And some of us are actually last. Last on the quarterly sales report at the office. Last in the class, with the lowest GPA. Always the last to be picked for competitive teams.
But God doesn’t know it. God’s mercy doesn’t know last. In God’s mercy you are only first. Because Jesus became last for you and took the last of your fear and guilt, the last of your shame and worry, and the last of your suffering for your sins.
Mercy says there is no last place and no second place, only first place. In God’s heart you are first place … and he doesn’t want to be second place in yours.
PRAYER: God, sometimes life isn’t fair, circumstances aren’t fair, and even you aren’t fair. Thank you for showing me that your standard of fairness is a divine way, a way of forgiving mercy, a way that I need now. And that I want to share with others. Amen.
SPIRITUAL NEXT STEP: CrossLife donated funds to The Pfaith House to help them attain 501(c)(3) status. Check out their story at thepfaithhouse.org and pray for their mission. They provide transformational (not just transitional) living that empowers single-mom households, women and female veterans who have faced homelessness and endured traumatic experiences.