If the Bible has anything at all to say to us, it is to place before us the mind of this mysterious other, which we call God. But so much of the Bible has become so familiar, that ordinarily it fails to startle us with its otherness at all. It speaks of loving our neighbor of showing mercy to the poor and neglected, of the dire consequences of sin and of the glories of eternal life. And as it runs along we run alongside nodding cheerily and often sleepily. Fine thing, the Bible, says just what it ought to say, says just what I think about life too. And the mind of this other in the Bible, does not seem strange or alien to us at all.

Until you come running along and collide with a passage like this Parable of the Laborers in the vineyard, which was read just a few moments ago. With its haunting refrain, the last shall be first and the first last. And even the most self-contented mind suddenly realizes that it has had a head on collision with an entirely different way of looking at things, with God's way of looking at things. God is a father, so Jesus taught, but His ways are simply not our ways. There's a radical difference, for example, between our way of judging people and gods. And it's this problem, the difference between God's judgments and ours, that I want to explore with you now.

You know how we judge people, we stand in the middle of our world and draw a horizontal line across it normally just about at our eye level. And this horizontal line is the standard by which we judge others, those who come up to the line we approve, and those who fall below the line, we disapprove. And every day of our lives, we go about judging other people on this horizontal basis, approving or disapproving our children's friends, approving or disapproving the actions of our neighbors approving or disapproving the lives of those who are members of a church. And if a man regardless of his background measures up, then, he's fine. But if he doesn't, he's at least an undesirable and maybe even a bum.

So too in our schools, there, the horizontal line is drawn. And the line is the passing grade the diploma at the end of the course, either a youngster measures up to the horizontal standard and passes or he fails. So, too, in our courts of law, where an effort is made to administer justice as fairly as possible on the basis of the evidence at hand. Here again, the horizontal line is drawn. Those above the line are good upright citizens who pay their taxes and keep out of jail. And those below the line are suspect shady characters, criminals. Granted that attempts are made in our courts to judge on the basis of motive in some instances. And granted that no other system of justice is possible, humanly speaking, than there's horizontal basis where a man either measures up or he doesn't on the basis of evidence. God's judgments are still radically different, even from the highest standards of justice in our courts.

Now, let's take a closer look at this parable, where the basis for God's judgments is made clear. Here is this quixotic character, the master of the vineyard, who goes out early one morning to hire laborers, when men are in a position to bargain with him for their wages. And they agree upon half $1, let us say, for a day's wage, you have to remember labor was cheap in those days. A little later in the morning, the master goes out again. This time the laborers are in a less favorable position to bargain and they go off to work merely on the promise of a fair wage. The master of the vineyard repeats this performance at intervals during the day, hiring the last group just before quitting time because there had been no opportunity for them to work earlier in the day.

Then comes the reckoning. The eccentric employer calls those who are hired last to be paid first, and gives them exactly what the first had bargained for half $1. The same clean procedure follows with the rest until those who had been hired first come for their pay. And they receive exactly what they bargained for half $1 the same as those who had worked only a small part of the day. Well, immediately there was murmuring. Something about the injustice of it. But the employer is unmoved. And Jesus concludes it all with so the last will be first and the first last.

Now what does the story mean? The story does not mean that God is necessarily a quixotic centrical gentleman giving up rewards according to the whim of the moment. It is rather a vivid description of the difference between God's judgments and ours. God's way of judging people is based on tests radically different from ours. The story suggests that whereas our judgments are generally pronounced on a horizontal basis, God's judgments are invariably based upon vertical standards, each man by himself without regard for anybody else.

Now, what are these standards? First, the parable indicates that God's judgments are based not so much on what a man actually accomplishes as upon his motive. If a man thinks he is in a position to bargain with God, then that which he bargains for he will receive a no more. But a bargain with God is always a bad bargain. Not that God doesn't live up to His promises. But the man is never satisfied with his end of it because the man thinks horizontally and compares what he gets with what others get, and it always seems unjust. Whereas if a man simply accepts the assurance of just treatment from God, that trust will be abundantly justified.

God may know the number of hairs on your head, the flight of a sparrow may not escape his notice. But God, contrary to the ideas some people hold, keeps no ledger up in heaven with credit and debit columns in which our accomplishments and failures are duly noted. God has far deeper methods for measuring a man than that. And always it is not results, primarily, but the motives behind the results which measure a man's worth in his eyes. God is possessed by the apparently strange notion that once a man's motives are in the clear, the results will take care of themselves.

How many times shall I forgive? Until seven times? No, Jesus replied 70 times seven. And he didn't mean that we could stop forgiving the 491st time either. What he meant was get forgiveness into your very system, until it is the controlling motive behind your actions. Or, here's a man who gives $1,000 or even $10,000 to a worthy cause. A hospital, a school, a children's home, a church. Measuring this man horizontally, the community calls him a philanthropist because he gives so much more than the rest of us. God might call him a philanthropist too. Or he might call him a miser. Depending upon the motive behind his apparent generosity.

Or, bring it down to our level. You and I are usually very keen to know what others in our situation are giving to the local community chest. Why? So we can measure our giving horizontally, against the average and it's nonsense. $1 a month may be a sacrifice for one person, and no more than a tip to a hat check girl for another. Behind the concrete evidence of what we give which is seen by others, is the unseen motive. And that's what counts in God's eyes. Not how am I doing in forgiveness or kindness or patience or generosity in comparison with others horizontally, but in vertical terms. In terms of me, alone. And God, and God looking down behind the visible evidence into your motives to see what is going on there leads Jesus to conclude, many that are first shall be last. And the last first.

The story also suggests another standard of divine judgment, not only on the basis of motive, but also according to the measure of each man's opportunity. And again, the outward evidence may be totally misleading. Some men are born with brains and health, have the advantage of good family and devoted parents. Of financial security and education. Others, however, neither so strong nor so talented, may be crippled by circumstances from the very start, through no fault of their own. Handicapped by a broken home, poor health, a colored skin. Perhaps they would serve God but cannot serve Him as they would. No man hath hired us.

Some of us, for instance, who seem to be such very nice people, honest, sincere, kind, clean living may, in fact have made so little of our opportunities that we are worse off in God's eyes than the psychopath in prison for attacking a seven year old girl. Can it be possible? Remember, remember that Jesus gave more encouragement to a streetwalker than he did to the priest in the temple.

No man hath hired us. What a world of tragedy is contained in that little sentence. The opportunities which you and I may take for granted as our birthright absolutely denied, by heredity or circumstance, to others. It's just that you and I judge a person by the results which a man achieves according to this horizontal standard. And possibly we have to a man is honest, or he's a thief. A man is sincere, or he's a hypocrite. A man is dependable, or he's undependable. And we hire and fire, recommend or condemn on the basis of it. And in our world, we have to have some horizontal standards to keep order in our communities. But don't jump to the conclusion that God judges by this same horizontal standard.

The point that Jesus is making here is that there are going to be surprises in store for all of us, for God judges a man vertically, according to a man's motives, and according to the measure of his opportunity. And if you asked me why, I can only answer this, because God is love. He alone is in a position to judge because he alone, completely understands and sees into the very marrow of your character. Sees there, the opportunities you've had, and what you've made of them, sees they're the battles you fought and won, and sees there perhaps the battles you ran away from.

He doesn't compare you with anybody else ever. He loves you far too much for that. He simply looks deep into what you really are, and knows you even beyond what you know of yourself. But when you and I stand before the eyes of such a God, though, on the outward evidence of our lives, men may applaud us or condemn us, when we stand before the eyes of such a God, you and I will know that what God judges us to be is true and righteous altogether.