Sunday Read: The Scandal of Grace

The workers who labored all day in the scorching heat were furious. They'd started at dawn, worked through the brutal midday sun, and finished exhausted as evening fell. When the landowner paid the workers who'd only worked one hour the same full day's wage, their anger erupted: "These who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day" (Matthew 20:12). They weren't being cheated—they received exactly what they'd agreed to. But grace given to others felt like injustice to them.

Grace is scandalous because it violates our sense of fairness. We believe people should get what they deserve—good things for good people, bad things for bad people, rewards proportional to effort. But God's grace doesn't work that way. The thief on the cross received paradise after a deathbed conversion. Paul became Christianity's greatest missionary after murdering Christians. The prodigal son got a party while his faithful brother got a lecture. Grace isn't fair—that's precisely the point.

Peter struggled with this scandal when he asked Jesus, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?" (Matthew 19:27). His question revealed a transactional mindset—we gave up things, so what do we get in return? Jesus's response was both affirming and correcting: yes, disciples will be rewarded, but "many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first" (Matthew 19:30). Kingdom economics don't follow earthly logic.

The older brother in the prodigal son story embodies our natural resistance to grace. He had every right to be angry—he'd been faithful, obedient, and responsible while his brother squandered the family fortune on prostitutes. Yet his father's response cuts to the heart of grace's scandal: "Everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again" (Luke 15:31-32). Grace celebrates restoration regardless of merit.

We love grace when we're receiving it but hate it when others receive what we think they don't deserve. We want mercy for ourselves and justice for everyone else. We celebrate the gospel of unmerited favor until someone we dislike experiences that same favor. Then suddenly we become Pharisees, calculating who deserves blessing and who deserves judgment.

The truth is, none of us deserves grace—that's what makes it grace. If we earned it, it would be wages. If we merited it, it would be justice. But we don't and it isn't. Grace is the scandal of God giving what we don't deserve, forgiving what we can't repay, and loving who we've proven unlovable. When you resent God's grace toward others, you've forgotten how desperately you needed that same grace yourself.