I’m not sure how many households that read this still hold on the magic of Santa, but if you are one of those households and you are reading this out loud to your children (although I am not sure why you would) you may want to hit the pause button. That being said, this morning my 10-yr-old and I were having a conversation whereupon he made it known that he would like an in-ground pool for his birthday. After spraying the living room with the sip of coffee I had just taken, I quickly explained to him that an in-ground pool costs roughly about $20,000. He thought for a moment and then announced that he would just ask Santa. Being relatively quick on my feet I responded that Santa kind of works based on our economies. He really can only bring us what we already can afford. He thought for a moment and then said, ‘well what about an above ground pool?’

I love the imagination that surrounds childhood and the acquisition of stuff. They really don’t get economics and how things work. You have to earn a certain amount of money to be able to afford certain things. Someone else who really didn’t get economics was Jesus. There’s a parable he tells in Matthew 20 about some workers in a vineyard who are hired at different parts of the day. And those who worked one solitary hour got the same amount of pay as those who had worked all day. It really didn’t make any sense at all and it infuriated those who had worked all day to ‘get what they deserved’. Then he ends the parable with this statement, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” – Matthew 20:16 I think Jesus must have been confused. You see, those who are first are first. Those who work the hardest to achieve what they deserve should get everything they work for. Those who come sliding in at the last moment do not deserve the same reward as those who have worked so much harder.

But Jesus began this parable with a statement that often ushered in his stories that didn’t always make sense. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” The Kingdom of Heaven. It’s one of those phrases is scripture that we have a hard time wrapping our heads around because it is now and it is coming. It is present and yet it’s not yet here. But what it truly is, is. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is an alternate reality to the reality we find ourselves in. In this Kingdom the lowly are exalted and the exalted have to learn to become lowly. The last become first and the first must become like the last. In this economy one is praised for losing their life and if they try to save their life on their own they are missing out. Jesus says to us, ‘Your effort to save your own skin is void, the only real effort you must put forward is to lose your life on behalf of those around you’. Grace shows us that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, but all of our efforts should go to seeing those around us, even the last, lowly, meek, poor, outcasts, etc. know what grace looks like. The economy of mercy doesn’t make sense in this world sometimes, but it really is the only economy that matters. May you find yourself caught up in bad economics today as you extend the grace that none of us could ever deserve.