Which of the Two Did the Will of His Father?

The chief priests and elders confront Jesus in the temple while he teaches: ²³"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" They have standing to ask. They oversee the building where he has just overturned tables and healed the blind and the lame in daylight. Jesus answers with a question of his own about John's baptism. ²⁵"From heaven or from man?"

The leaders calculate. If they say ²⁵"From heaven," he will ask why they did not believe John, and if they say ²⁶"From man," they ²⁶"are afraid of the crowd." Their private discussion is an unintended confession. They are weighing risk, and the question of truth never enters. Their answer, ²⁷"We do not know," is chosen to avoid both costs, which makes it a lie dressed as modesty. Jesus declines too: ²⁷"Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things." The refusal fits, since people who will not answer a question about John are not ready for an answer about Jesus.

Jesus tells a short story anyway. ²⁸"A man had two sons." The father sends each of them to work in the vineyard. The first says ²⁹"I will not," but afterward changes his mind and goes. The second says ³⁰"I will, sir," and does not go. Jesus asks which son did his father's will, and the leaders give the only possible answer, the first son. They have just convicted themselves a second time in one conversation, once by refusing to answer honestly and now by answering a parable correctly without noticing that it describes them.

Then Jesus says the sentence that must have stung: ³¹"the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." The reason he gives concerns how people responded. John came ³²"in the way of righteousness," and the leaders did not believe him, and the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. The leaders had every credential and every reason to recognize a true prophet. Even after they saw sinners repent in front of them, ³²"you did not afterward change your minds and believe him."

Someone else's repentance works like a mirror. Watching a person with less claim to God's favor turn to him can stir resentment in people with long religious records, and the resentment can feel like zeal. The son who said no and then obeyed gave his father what he wanted, and the polite yes that never reached the vineyard gave him nothing. A change of mind that becomes a change of direction counts for more than a respectable answer.

Authority, in this passage, is recognized by how a person responds when God's messenger arrives, often through someone inconvenient and with a message that costs something. The leaders asked Jesus for credentials. Jesus asked them for obedience.

Ask yourself which son describes you at the point where God has asked for something. If you have been saying yes with your mouth, go to the vineyard today.

Prayer

Father, we have said yes to you with our words more easily than we have gone to the vineyard with our feet. Show us where our respectability has become a substitute for obedience. When we watch someone with less claim to your favor repent ahead of us, save us from resentment and give us the same honesty. In Jesus' name, amen.