Grumbling
by Maria Rudolph
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When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner (Matthew 20:11).
Read Matthew 20:1–16
Are you good at grumbling? I sure am. I grumble about small things and big things. I, too, listen to people grumbling a fair bit all day long, starting in my own family. I’m sure that never happens in your house, does it?
It’s relatable to read about grumbling in the Bible! The workers in God’s vineyard complain when they realise that the folk who have not been good, faithful Christians for as long as they have will receive the same reward from God! How is that even fair? Someone who has been a committed churchgoer their whole life should be rewarded more! Someone who has tithed and even given money to other charities should receive acknowledgement! Someone who has laboured for the Lord by serving in Sunday school, as an usher, pastor, camp ministry coordinator, Bible reader, in women’s fellowship, in their men’s shed or a youth group should get a more celebratory place in heaven. Someone who literally gets converted and baptised on their deathbed can’t have the same place in heaven prepared for them, can they?!
The same struggle happened for the prodigal son’s older brother in Luke 15:11–32. When he came home from the fields after another day of hard work for his father and realised that the fattened calf had been slaughtered to celebrate his ridiculous wayward brother’s return, he was furious! The father’s loving response to him is the same way in which we need to understand the vineyard owner’s generosity toward those who began their labour at the end of the day: ‘My son’, the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’ (Luke 15:31,32).
Let’s hand our occasional grumbling about our sisters and brothers in Christ over to Jesus and ask him to replace it with his joy and rejoicing.
Loving God, you seek out the lost sheep and bring them back to the fold. You rejoice over one person who returns to you like a woman who has found her lost coin. Fill us with your joy. Let your joy be our strength as we continue to love and serve you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Maria will be ordained as a pastor of the LCANZ on Palm Sunday on 13 April at 2pm at Concordia College Chapel in Highgate SA. She would love to see many Daily Devotion readers there! She has been assigned to serve St John’s Lutheran Church in Perth WA. She also supports the ministry of her pastor husband, Michael. They will be the first pastor couple of our church, but she hopes not the last. They are parents to three children, who are kept busy in their primary and secondary schools. Maria also serves the church on the Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations.
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