Dear Friends
It would be a misreading to hear this week’s text Matthew 21: 23-32 as Jesus condemning Jews and Judaism. Instead, if we ask, who would be the chief priests and elders today, the answer is, Us. For we are the religiously observant people today. We are the ones who go to church. We are the ones who read our bibles.
If we begin at the end of this passage, Verses 28-32, we hear a story that every child, that is, everyone who is or ever was a child, and all parents can relate to. Talk with children about parents asking them to do chores and you will hear echoes of the same inner and outer conflict that is expressed in the parable of the two sons and their father.
Obedience and rebellion. Wanting to do what needs to be done, yet resenting authority, resenting not being autonomous – not being free to do what one chooses, when one chooses. Knowing that there is a voice, a calling, beyond our own inner voice, that will shape and constrain our own inner desires if we are to do what is asked of us.
The key to the passage is in the question Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of the Father?” The question addresses what the sons DID, not on what they SAID. And thereby cracks open the disparity between what is said and what is done.
Now, it is we who are sitting in church who SAY (and sing and pray) many things. But this text puts the focus on what we actually DO. Just exactly what is it that we do after we leave church on Sunday?
The parable is a teaching about integrity, about putting our money where our mouth is, and offers a comment on the preceding exchange between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day. Their question to Jesus, “By what authority,” or “Who gave you the right,” is a challenge to Jesus’ status. But his question to them is a challenge to their integrity. Will their words match their actual convictions? Will their deeds match their words? Lacking integrity, Jesus has no need to defend his authority to them, for they have lost face, lost trust, lost moral standing with the people.
And that is still Jesus’ challenge to we religious people today. Do our words match our convictions, and our deeds match our words?
Solomzi