Working with the Word
Focusing the Gospel
Key words and phrases:
chief priests and elders
tax collectors and prostitutes . . . before you
way of righteousness
change your minds
To the point: This seemingly simple parable upends the world of the chief priests and elders.
They thought they were models of holiness—now they must learn the “way of righteousness” from tax collectors and prostitutes.
They thought they already had a foot in the kingdom; now they must stand in line behind notorious sinners who converted their lives.
This is what conversion does: it upends our world and challenges us to change our minds. our hearts, and our lives and to do the Father’s will.
Connecting the Gospel...
...to the last several Sundays: Many of the narratives and parables have described the graciousness, generosity, and mercy of God toward us.
This Sunday highlights the importance of our response to God: whether we do God’s will or not is our choice.
...to our experience: Change is difficult for everyone—house, job, schools, marital status, etc. Even more difficult is change of self—values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors.
As difficult as change is, it defines Christian discipleship.
Understanding Scripture
Radical change of mind: Chapter 21 of Matthew’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday.” There, Jesus enters into controversy with the “chief priests and elders” (21:28) who have the home court advantage: Jerusalem is hone to the Temple, the primary seat of their authority.
In this Sunday’s parable, Jesus employs the image of a father and two sons—it is a familial and personal image, and thus different from previous images such as king and servant (18:23-33) or landowner and hired laborers (20:1-15).
As Jesus makes clear, the first son who initially refused the father’s command but then “changed his mind” represents the tax collectors and prostitutes; the second son who said “yes” but disobeyed represents the chief priests and elders.
Note the implication of the parable’s use of the father-son image: the chief priests and elders are brothers to the tax collectors and prostitutes! Just making them members of the same family was insulting!
Tax collectors and prostitutes were despised by the religious leaders for two reasons. First, their conduct was sinful: tax collectors were suspected of cheating people, and prostitutes violated moral laws.
Second, both were viewed as collaborators with the hated Roman occupiers: taxes were collected for the Romans, and prostitutes largely serviced Roman soldiers. Yet these sinners have the same father as the religious leaders.
Just as the religious leaders have had their world upended by the teaching of Jesus, so have tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners They had been conditioned by the social and religious mores of their culture to view themselves as somehow outside the world of the righteous.
Trapped by their need to make a living, they had embraced a life of public sin. Yet it is to these that Jesus has come preaching a Gospel of hope and redemption. Repentance is possible for anyone.
The first way in which these public sinners needed to repent was to change their minds about themselves: they were not beyond redemption. They, too, were beneficiaries of the blessings Jesus brings.
The call to repentance upends everyone’s world—the righteous and sinners alike!
**From Saint Louis University