Matthew 21:28-32
Dear Friends, The events of today’s text from Matthew take place just after Jesus’s glorious entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. The next item leading to further conflict is the cleansing the temple. The impact of these events set the scene for even deeper conflict with the religious leaders. With today’s parable of the two sons, Jesus is not subtle in escalating the tension.
The contrary actions of the two sons highlighted in today’s parable point out the contradiction of the leaders’ program and the all-inclusive mercy of the God revealed by Jesus. Jesus’s point about the tax-collectors and prostitutes entering the kingdom before the chief priests and elders was intended as a challenge to those who thought themselves to be God’s chosen and, therefore, the favored sons and daughters. Later on, this was going to be a test for the Christian Jews to accept Gentiles into the early church. It also questions our acceptance of the ever-expanding invitation of the gospel for the outcasts of our day in whatever manner they invade our complacency.
The parable is a vessel of self-awareness. It does not take much insight to see that we share the ambiguity of commitment that Jesus discloses in the two sons. The perennial fickleness of the human heart is never far from us. We play the role of both sons at different times in our lives. The struggle for us is to constantly search for the singleness of purpose. We need to make our yes to God more faithful and more determined in our daily lives.
A true spiritual life helps us come to grips with the problem of personal ambiguity. Prayer opens the eyes of heart to the experience of the Hound of Heaven, God’s grace in relentless in pursuit of us. God’s love continually seeks to make our yes ever more generous and more consistent. Faithful and committed personal prayer lets us see our situation. God’s wondrous and merciful love is always present to us no matter the distractions, attachments or fancies of our fractured heart. We need to simply accept our poverty which enables us to respond to the unending call to new life. This is our yes to Jesus. It is especially fitting that we use our weekly presence at the Eucharist as a time of renewing our yes to God for the entire week. Our weekly encounter with the Eucharistic Christ is always preparing us for the special and, so often, surprising moments of grace that await us during the week.
As we get to know ourselves, we become more familiar with our tendency to self-deception. Our strongest inclinations are to work out a comfortable compromise where our yes is a minimum for God and a maximum for us. By faithfulness to prayer, we learn the geography of the human heart. We learn to identify the great chasm between the good intention in the mind and the lived reality.
God is patient with us but just like the disciples, there comes a time we when have to walk with Jesus to Jerusalem. It is in faithfulness to prayer that we die to ambiguity. We are left with only one longing in our heart, a free and generous yes to Jesus.
