Matthew 21:28 - 32
Most of the time when we look at this gospel passage we nod wisely and conclude that it’s better to carry out God’s will rather than say we will but then not do it. And we can go for that, it’s reasonable. But there are some deeper things going on here. First, some context. Jesus, who has been up north in Galilee for most of his ministry, has come to Jerusalem during Passover week. At some point Pilate would have marched through town on a horse, accompanied by his soldiers, as a show of force, since with all those Jews coming to town, there was the potential for trouble. But Jesus begins his visit by mocking Pilate; he rides in on a donkey, accompanied by crowds of people, probably most of whom are visitors to the city. Jesus has cursed a fig tree as a prophetic gesture, and storms into the temple with a whip and messes everything up. That’s when the religious authorities approach -- they recognize he is being prophetic -- and ask on whose authority he is doing these things? And that’s when Jesus asks them whether John’s baptism was something from God or something merely human. And they refuse to answer, saying “We do not know.”
That’s when Jesus talks about the two sons. And this time they know the answer -- it’s the son who says he won’t but eventually does what the father wanted, he’s the one who did the father’s will. What Jesus has done, in a way, is disguise his previous question to which they answered that they did not know, and their answer to this question says that they do know. And he goes on to point out that tax collectors and prostitutes were reforming their lives in response to John’s preaching -- certainly a sign that he was carrying out God’s will -- whereas the Jewish priesthood who were supposed to be carrying out God’s will were actually creating barriers between God and the people. Not only did they put a lot of burdens on the common folk, but if you wanted to offer a sacrifice, it could only be done by a certified priest in the temple, and you had to buy the sacrificial animal with temple money. So you went to a money changer who took a bit off the top and gave you coins that did not have a picture of the emperor on them. Most people under this situation could only offer a sacrifice on rare occasions. And of course the passover season saw a tremendous increase in the sacrifice business, so the cost of those things only went up.
And the chief priests and elders are squirming and go to scheming how to get rid of this trouble-maker, which will happen in a few more days.
And the story should make you and I squirm a little as well. Because one of the easiest things for a practicing Catholic to do is to substitute words for actions. One protestant writer talks about learning to speak Christianese. We know what words to say, what ideas to agree with, and as for action, well, because we aren’t living in a state of sin and are contributing to the Church and going to Mass on Sunday, we are doing way better than 90% of our fellow human beings, and God grades on a curve, so we are all right.
But Jesus deliberately names the tax collectors and prostitutes, and says that they are entering the kingdom of God before the chief priests and elders. That is truly insulting, because the chief priests and elders had exactly the same attitude -- they were avoiding sin, praying a lot, tithing, fasting -- they spoke something like fluent Crhistianese, only Jewish. And they knew God graded on a curve as well.
But Jesus’ point is that those sinners, those people who in the eyes of the Jews were the worst of sinners, had actually repented, and they recognized that repentance is not something you do one day, it’s something you work at all your life. And repentance does not mean being sorry for our sins. It starts with recognizing that we are lost, we are helpless, we are around for a few years and then we are gone. I had an old professor who had accomplished a lot in the field of cancer research. As we became friends he confided in me one day that he wished he had not wasted so much time on things that didn’t matter. He wasn’t talking about recreation, family life, or all the many wonderful things that God surrounds us with; he was talking about watching too much TV, spending too much time on the internet, gossipping for hours over the phone with a friend -- even spending all day being so busy you can’t even stop to pray or meditate or ask where you are going with all this? If you are like me, there is plenty of lostness in your life, and the wonderful thing about Jesus and his church is that there is an answer to this in the sacraments and the graces which are there for us to accept.
Because Jesus is not against people who speak Christianese; he’s against any pretend religion that allows its practitioners to be stagnant, that allows them to substitute words for actions. Our faith is meant to be embodied; that’s what incarnation is all about. And Jesus really invites us to be like both sons -- to say yes to God’s invitation and to carry out what he asks of us. And if we did so, as that old song would say, “What a wonderful world this would be.” Because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, waiting to break out through you and I.
