The context of this text is the series of encounters between Jesus and the chief priest, elders of the people, and Pharisees after he has entered the temple during his passion week (21:23, 45). This parable, like's Luke's better known story of "the prodigal son" (Lk 15:11-32), may be called "the parable of the two sons."
I share the following insights from studying the text below.
1. The parable seems to recommend a correspondence between the actions of the father and the actions of his children. What the father does, he commands the children to do. In the text, the father does two things: he goes to each child and he speaks to each child. What he commands the children to do, similarly, is to go and to work--"in his vineyard" (23:28). As the father has two activities, so his children. This suggests to me, simply, that the sons and daughters of God must go where he calls us. That is always the first step. The second step, simply, is to be about God's business when we get there. We are to "work" in God's vineyard. That in turns suggests a challenge, for we must clearly discern between God's work and our own, and then submit to doing God's work when we may in fact prefer our own.
On the theme of this correspondence, one exceptionally bright girl from our study group suggested that "what God does, we can do because we are made in the image of God." That theology and anthropology has its place, especially in this setting of historic disempowerment (colonialism and apartheid), of people's own sense of their loss of agency as human beings. On the other hand, that kind of theology and anthropology is in the ascendancy here among types of churches with sometimes destructive effects upon community--since the encouragement to exercise one's authority in the image of God can be taken in a highly individualized sense, as though my God-given authority blinds me to the reality that God has also given his authority to others. Thus, if two people who are "anointed" are to have a relationship, they must yield to one another. So the continuing challenge is to affirm human dignity while not robbing others of their own.
2. "The man" or the father in the story gives to both his children the same, basic tasks. The text says that he "said the same" or "likewise" to the second child as he had said to the first. This suggests, in the phrase of the same girl from our group, that "God is no respecter of persons." And of course, what that old aphorism has always meant is that God does not privilege one of his children over another. God does not see as humans typically see. God looks not upon the stature of David, inferior to his brothers, but on David's heart, finding him fit to lead God's people. In the text, this takes the form of Jesus deeming the unesteemed--the tax collectors and the prostitutes--as worthy of the kingdom as the esteemed, the religious leaders. In fact, due to the leaders' pride, the tax collectors and prostitutes "are going into the kingdom of God ahead [of the religious leaders]" (v. 31). But the basic point remains; in the beginning, both children--those who, because of whatever turn, became prostitutes and those who became religious leaders, were called by God "to go and work".
3. The difference between the two children is that the first "changed his mind and went" (v. 29), whereas the second did not go. Of course, for the first child to change his mind implies that he once had a different mind from his father, that is, a mind not to do what his father told him to do. In this sense, the first child is no different than the second child who clearly shows that he never had a mind to go even though he told the father that he would. That is, both children did not want to go as the father commanded. One, on the other hand, did go, after changing his mind--and that makes all the difference.
This means, therefore, that the decisive difference in God's eyes does not lie in what each child has spoken to his father. If that were the case, then the second son would have been approved and the first not, since the second spoke what was right. He said, in response to his father's call, "I go, sir" (v. 30). While we could wish that the first child would have also made a right reply with his mouth, what is of first importance is that he put his actions in line with his father's will.
4. The priority of doing over saying in Jesus' parable confirms the word of the apostle James, that true faith does not exist without good works (Ja 2:18-26). The dynamic could be expressed like this: humans beings are justified, "declared righteous by God" on account of their faith, but their faith is justified, "declared righteous by God" on account of their works. So then, by logic, do works justify us before God. That still leaves us with the question of what kind of works justify, since works of ritual and purity are "morality" for some as much as compassion and mercy are for others (I believe Jesus sides definitively on that question as well). Let it simply be said, however, that any confession that denies the place of works for salvation is less than true faith.
5. Jesus puts the matter of entering the kingdom of God in the hands and in the mouths of human beings. He asks the religious leaders for the answer to his riddle--"Which of the two did the will of his father?" (v. 31). Jesus does not condemn his opponents; they stand self-condemned. It is they who give the right answer, knowing that the child who went and worked was the one who did his father's will, even as it is they who do not, in their own lives, do their father's will. It is they who, like the second son, profess with their lips what is right but do not do as they say. Thus, it is truly "by our words that we will be judged", for our words reveal our knowledge of God's will and leave us without excuse for making an honest attempt to put our actions in line (see Mt 12:36-37).
One final point:
No matter how obvious some of this may seem to works-oriented Christians, it is still worth saying that words are meaningless apart from their confirmation in the actions of human beings. There is still too much posturing behind words without real substance in the world in which we live.
One final point:
No matter how obvious some of this may seem to works-oriented Christians, it is still worth saying that words are meaningless apart from their confirmation in the actions of human beings. There is still too much posturing behind words without real substance in the world in which we live.
-Joe
