Like the vineyard owner’s sons, we sometimes say “yes” but fail to follow through, and we sometimes take a detour on our path to obedience. Either way, we are still beloved and still invited.
Vicar Emily Hagen
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 26 A
Texts: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32; Psalm 25:1-9; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
At first, the parable of the vineyard owner’s children reads like a teaching moment not for us, but for the chief priests.
When they approach Jesus with a tricky question designed to trap him into claiming divine authority, in a classic rabbinical move, he turns the question back on them. They convict themselves a bit when they answer that it was the first child in the parable that obeyed their parent: the child who rebelled at first, but later got the work done. Now that we have heard Jesus’ response, this child sounds a bit like the tax collectors and sinners who had heard John the Baptist’s call to repentance and chosen to follow him and Christ into a new way of living. We can’t be sure whether these religious leaders recognized those newly reformed sinners as the first children who got it right, who turned from rebellion to obedience… or whether they saw themselves reflected in the second child—the one who obeyed in word only.
But when we begin asking where we see ourselves reflected in this parable, there is a danger that we might walk away with the assumption that only one child turned out to be the good child: that is, the one whose motto is “better late than never.” But for us and for our lives, there is something else worth noticing here… and … spoiler alert… it has to do with grace. But let’s explore what we have in common with the parable’s characters to see why.
We might well identify with one or the other of the vineyard owner’s children.
Just as they both received the same command from their parent… to go to work in the vineyard… we also have all received a central commandment: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. We might live out this command in many different ways, but as Jesus points out to the Pharisees in the very next chapter of Matthew, this one sentence sums up the central task of discipleship. And yet it is anything but simple. The world we live in does not make it easy for us to stay focused on our love for God or to love our neighbors as Jesus loves. And that is why we must resist the temptation to take the same lesson the religious leaders may have taken from Jesus’ parable–something like “actions speak louder than words, so go forth and be the first child”–and then just move on. In our everyday lives, there is more to the story than that.
You see, it isn’t simply a question of which child in the parable we are or should be, because the truth is we are all both children.
We are the first child when we see need and suffering around us, and in our hearts, we feel the pull of our call to love our neighbors…but today, right now, we can’t. So we say “no.” We are the first child when we have already said “yes” to so many other obligations that we are running on fumes, and then that one more request comes in, and there is just no way we can make it work, so we say “no.”
We are the first child when we see an opportunity to speak out or do the right thing, but it involves some kind of significant risk… and we hesitate. And sometimes we are just plain mad at God… so we rebel. We all have moments we can identify when we suspect we are receiving an invitation to be part of the simple but not-so-simple work Jesus invited us to do… but for any of a thousand different reasons, we say “no.” And there is no shame in that. Some of them are fantastic reasons, like avoiding burnout, or prioritizing our ability to be there for our loved ones. Those things matter to God, too. This first child… the one that seems to come out as the winner in the parable… also said no. They started out by refusing to obey their parent, and we DO NOT know why. Like us, they might be rebellious, they might have other plans they can’t break, or they might just be overwhelmed. They aren’t perfect, just like we are not perfect. And that’s ok. But in the end, they got it right… as we sometimes do…not because they were the perfect child, but because when the right time came, something moved them.
On the other hand, sometimes we’re the second child. We say “yes” right away out of the very best intentions and then get too busy… conflicts come up… and we forget. Sometimes we say yes at first, but when it actually comes down to it, we are not willing to do the really hard things. Sometimes loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves can cost us more than we expected. This might be what happened for the religious leaders who tested Jesus: the cost of acknowledging that John and Jesus spoke with authentic prophetic voices simply became too high. And how about this: sometimes it can be much harder than we expect to figure out how to care for one neighbor without unintentionally harming another neighbor. When resources or time run short, figuring out the most loving path forward can become more complicated than we first expected.
With all this said, let’s clarify what the parable might be saying to us… and what it doesn’t say.
Is it a problem to claim that we follow Christ, but act in ways that do not show love for God or our neighbor? Absolutely. That is a problem. In the same way, saying “yes” when we already know we will absolutely not follow through is also a problem. Following Jesus does mean living in honesty, authenticity, and integrity: not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. And we might call that the bottom line of this parable.
But also notice this: neither child in this story is perfect, but both are still God’s beloved children—and so are we.
In speaking to the religious leaders this way, Jesus is not simply shaming us for sometimes being the second child in our everyday lives—the child who said yes, but didn’t quite make it to work. The story is open-ended. Jesus never said that time was up for them. In fact, Jesus didn’t even say that time was up for the leaders who were questioning him. He said that those sinners who had chosen to listen to John, to repent, to follow through would experience the abundant life of God’s reign first… not that the religious leaders’ deceit or fear or hesitation had disqualified them from grace.
The good news for them and for us is that whichever child we might be on a given day, whether we are quick to say “no” or our “yes” turns into a “maybe later,” God’s love for us does not depend on our making it to the vineyard on time… or on anything else. We are all people deeply in need of grace, so receive this word of reassurance: this parable is not telling us that it is wrong to say no to a request that is too much. It also does not say that we are failures if circumstances get in the way of following through with a particular commitment.
Sure, God loves you deeply and completely during your most faithful, purpose-filled moments when you show up, act according to your faith, and do the work. But God loves you just as deeply and completely when you have good intentions, but you sleep through your alarm, feel overwhelmed, or need to take your time figuring out how to respond to someone with love. If there truly is an invitation to deeper discipleship that you have been missing, for whatever reason, that is not the end of the story. At any given moment, you might be about to receive whatever nudge the Holy Spirit sent that first child that caused them to turn around and head for the vineyard. There is always hope for all God’s children… because our hope is in the love of Jesus Christ, who will never stop inviting us.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
