The story of the futsallers in Score Arena

the story of the futsallers in Score Arena

For the kingdom of heaven is like a group of futsallers who agreed to play in Score Arena at 230pm after church. Well, so at 230 there were 4 ppl... by about 245, there were 7... and the 7 ppl waited till 3... and still there were 7... and by 315 there were still 7... There were supposed to be at least 11 ppl who agreed to come. 1 said he would be coming late being busy with matters in church. Another was taking care of his sick mother at home and also said he would be late. Of the other 2 there was no news... So being disappointed and such they decided to close the court and just go home and pay up the 50 bucks. However at about 330pm... one hour from the agreed time... the people gradually turned up. And so they played futsal till almost 430pm. And when the time came to pay up, those that arrived earlier had to pay more because they had played for longer, and those that arrived later.. almost 12 bucks. Those that came late, managed to get away with paying less, the last person that came that played for about 20 minutes and got away with paying about 3 bucks. And so those that arrived earlier began to grumble(ok la, just one person), "Next time want to come say come la, don't want to come say don't come la, don't say i'll come later then don't know whether you're coming or not" ; "Like this if everyone also come late then come early for wat? If everyone come late then who come earlier pay the extra for you ah, then mah u very untung everytime also come late"; "I pay 2-3x the amount of money you pay and you get to play for almost as long as me, what's this la."

So then on the way home.. the Owner of All the Futsal Courts in the world said to one of them who complained (there was only one anyway). "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to play with those people and for that amount of time? I want to give the man that came late the same amount of fun as you did. Don't i have the right to do what i want with my futsal courts and the joy that i give to everyone? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

yeah... this is an allegory of The Parable Of The Workers In the Vineyard(cool... and allegory of a parable) in Matthew 20:1-16. It happened today after futsal lah... and heh, in my head lah... the stuff up there is mostly true-la... including the part where the Greatest Owner of all futsal courts in D world(GOD), although that wan i added my imagination a bit to match wat's in the bible...

but yeah, if what the God said to me was the first thing that struck me, i realized 2 other things also as i wrote this blog entry

- in our service, let us not be so proud as to think we are the saviours of the world. It is only by God's grace and mercy that we accomplish anything, like wise, it is by God's grace and mercy that we are saved too, n in His grace n mercy He chooses to use us to accomplish his purpose in this world.

-Let us always remember that we not serving man but God, who IS our Master. Thus even if we DO have to pay more and play less, it is His right to demand it from us.

- Let us not think also that we're superior to the people whom we serve are the only ones who supposedly benefit from our service. It is not just US who are sent to THEM, but THEY too who were sent to us. The youth i serve probably have thought me MORE than i have or ever will teach them.