When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, he made it clear that by human standards, that kingdom is anything but fair.
Those who are rich, who have worked hard for their money? They will be “sent away empty” (Luke 1:53b). Those who are poor, whether through bad circumstance or faulty personal decisions? They “will be filled with good things” (Luke 1:53a). God’s kingdom, Jesus says, is like an employer who pays his workers the same wage, whether they have toiled since early morning through the heat of the day or they have just come on board in the last cool hour of the evening (Matthew 20:1-16). Fair? No. Gracious? Yes.
Love makes room for the undeserving. Love looks for the lost son, the lost sheep, the heavy laden, the poor in Spirit, the poor in just plain poverty, and swoops them into the arms of God without a second thought. Maybe it isn’t fair at all. But love isn’t in the fairness business. Love bears.
This message is excerpted from “Anything but fair” by Karen Bates Olson in the October 2016 Gather magazine.
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