The Sauntering Pilgrim

When the teacher makes the same point again and again, you can be sure it will be on the test. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16), Jesus said, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (v. 16). At the end of the previous chapter he said, “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (19:30). And a few verses later he will say, “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (10:26-27).

You get the point, don’t you? In the world Jesus describes, the order of things is reversed, our expectations are upset, our notions of fairness are overturned, and the rules we believed govern life turn out to be misleading. The student voted most likely to succeed ends up with nothing, while the one who graduated in last place gets the corner office in the executive suite. The kid chosen last for the team turns out to be the captain, and the former captain gets benched. Life isn’t fair, and it turns out, neither is God.

We were taught that if you work hard, you, too, can be successful. We learned perseverance pays off, and if you stick with anything long enough, you’ll be rewarded. The principle even applies to spiritual growth. “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,” the old hymn goes, and “every round goes higher, higher” until we get to the top, where heaven’s reward awaits. Keep climbing, we’re told; keep striving, keep achieving, keep reaching for the stars. The payoff will come in the end.

But Jesus says, wait a minute. That’s not how the life I’m talking about works. Accumulation doesn’t make wealth, acquisition doesn’t build power, climbing the ladder doesn’t guarantee success or get you to heaven, and the one who dies with the most toys isn’t the winner. Empty yourself and seek the lowest place, and you’ll find true wealth. Your notions of fairness don’t govern God’s grace, and the greatest treasures come in the smallest, plainest, most easily overlooked packages.

Five hundred years ago, Fra Giovanni Giocondo wrote to a friend:

“Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty: believe me, that angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too: be not content with them as joys, they too conceal diviner gifts.” (“Letter to a Friend,” 1513)

It took me a long time to learn the truth of what Jesus said and of what Fra Giovanni wrote, and I’m still learning it. The days when I was climbing the ladder of success are past. So is the wider influence I might have had. I’ve saved as much wealth for retirement as I’m ever going to save. My life is no longer enlarging; it’s growing smaller.

It’s also – and here’s the blessing I’m discovering – it’s also growing deeper and richer. I learned that the higher I climbed, the more unstable my footing became. As my influence grew wider, it also grew thinner. The more I accumulated, the more I had to lose, the more attention things required, and the less attention I had to give to the still, small voice within and to what it has to teach me. Now I’m learning less from the great thinkers and theologians of history and more from the common yellow wood sorrel that grows in my backyard. Most people consider it a weed and try to keep it out of their yards and gardens. I consider it a messenger of God, and I welcome it.

The wood sorrel with it’s tiny yellow blossom reminds me of beauty to be found in the smallest unwanted things. It reminds me to live slowly and deliberately, to live close to the ground, and to look carefully at the parts of life that are easily overlooked. It reminds me that even tiny weeds have a beauty of their own and a necessary place in the scheme of things, and that the small, well-lived life has value and a place in the order of creation. The last and the least are turning out to be first, after all. ▪