The last shall be first

This volume of the Dynamic Dictionary of Trinitarian Ontology is dedicated to the relationship between the first and the last. The Gospel parable of the workers in the vineyard or the laborers of the eleventh hour (Mt 20:1-16) opens up a series of questions regarding the logical, ontological, and ethical priority of the first over the last, the understanding of human justice in the face of the paradox of God’s justice, and finally, the relationship between the historical and eschatological conditions.

How then should we understand Jesus’ statement: “the last shall be first”? How should we understand the “justice of the last” echoed in this passage? According to a human, all too human logic, it could be seen as a promise of advancement in one’s condition which, however, in that “shall be,” refers to a future that continues to be delayed, or perhaps merely to a utopia or a vain consolation.

But when viewed through the logic of the Kingdom of God underlying the parable, it instead invites us to see that future as an eschatological future, which thus transforms into a historical present. That “shall be,” in other words, is also, and above all, an “are.” Precisely because, according to a divine, Trinitarian logic, being last and being first are not mutually exclusive. Otherwise, this transformation of the last into the first would be nothing more than a progression, a leaving behind of the condition that sees them as last or at least penultimate, in the spirit of a substitution.

Is it not this logic that the parable’s verdict bears witness to? Does it not invite us to think that the last are recognized here as “first” precisely as the last, and not as those capable of leaving behind the condition of ultimacy after having excluded it?