Down is the new up!

Matthew 20: 1-28

Every year -- or even several times each year -- periodicals of all sorts attempt to instruct us on which current trends are "in," and which are now "out."

To kick off 2007, the Washington Post provided one such list, which informed us that low-rise boot-cut jeans, yellow-ribbon magnets, and blueberries were now considered "out," while deluxe ping-pong tables, antidepressant perfume, and fantasy bass fishing is "in." How did we survive before newspapers and magazines provided this service?

This is very important information, apparently, because the last thing you want is to be seen wearing low-rise boot-cut jeans while driving your car with the yellow-ribbon magnet on your way to get a blueberry muffin at Baker's Square. People will immediately judge you as completely out of fashion, and not hip to the current trends.

I'm being sarcastic, but it's true that some people harbor a deep-seated anxiety about being perceived as behind the times. Advertisers tap into this fear and cause us to spend lots of money on temporary things so that we might be judged acceptable by our peers, while feeling superior to those still following last year's trends. It seems that the basic drive of our entire culture is the desire to have something better: a better job, a better house, a better car, better clothes, or an altogether better life, and our magazines and newspapers are always eager to tell us exactly what we need to value in order to make ourselves better.

At the end of yesterday's reading, Jesus spoke of the time coming "when the world is made new," and those who had given up everything for Jesus' sake "will receive a hundred times as much in return." Then he says, "But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then." It's a completely upside down kingdom.

Jesus develops this theme further in today's reading. He first tells a parable about a bunch of vineyard workers who, though hired to work at different times throughout the day, all received a day's wages, even though some of them worked only one hour. Those who were hired first (and worked the longest) complained that this was unfair. But the landowner states that the workers all labored for an agreed-upon amount of time for an agreed-upon wage, and he can certainly give the latecomers a full day's wages if he wishes. In the view of the landowner, this is entirely fair.

Then Jesus adds the statement, "So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last," and we're back to this upside down kingdom again. In shaking up his listeners' ideas about the value of work and wages, he shakes up their ideas about what has value at all in his coming kingdom.

Then the mother of James and John comes to Jesus to ask that her sons be allowed to sit in places of honor next to Jesus in his kingdom. They were demonstrating that natural human drive to be better than everyone else, and the other disciples were indignant about it.

Jesus patienty explains how the world works; that those in authority flaunt their positions of power over those under them. But Jesus tells them that whoever wants to be a leader must be a servant. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church titled his book on this subject Descending into Greatness, which I think is a great way of phrasing it. Here Jesus is once again rearranging their ideas of what has value. Whoever wants a high position, must take a low position. Down is the new up!

There is clearly a difference between how Jesus assigns value and how the world assigns value. The world may think that being a servant is "out" when actually it's "in."

Jesus, help us to value things as you value them. Let us not give in to the human drive to always have something better. Instead let us humble ourselves as servants, following the example you set.

Drew Clausen