Dear Sisters, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as so often, the Scripture readings provide us with a remarkable amount of material for reflection; too much to ponder now. I must pass over the glorious Hymn of St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians; apart from any other consideration, this was read at Mass only a few days ago on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and is also read each year on Palm Sunday. The one thing to bear in mind is that today’s extract also includes several verses which precede the hymn and give it, as it were, its context – Paul’s call on the Philippians to be united in love with a common mind and purpose, and always in our dealings with each other to think better of the other person than of yourself. That, too, is a sermon entire in itself.
But talking of context, let me say a few words this morning about the Gospel. We are so used to hearing the pericopes, that is the short, self-contained extracts that make up the individual Gospel readings, that we may well miss the point in the Gospel, at which this word or event which is being reported to us, actually took place, and why.
What is most interesting about today’s pericope is that it takes place within a larger context of the challenge to our Lord’s authority by the Chief Priests and Elders of the People following the Cleansing of the Temple. ‘By what authority do you do these things?’ they asked Him. As so often, our Lord replies to this challenge by asking His interlocutors a challenging question: ‘John’s baptism: was it from heaven or from men?’ You will recall, I am sure, that they were afraid to answer this question because they reasoned that if they said ‘from heaven’, then our Lord would rightly accuse them of disobeying a true prophet sent from God; but if they said ‘from men’ they would lose all credibility with the people, who certainly held John the Baptist to be a true prophet. In response to their silence our Lord states: ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.’
You would be forgiven for assuming that this is where the matter ended. Our Lord has yet again silenced His enemies and can go on His own way. But it is not so. For it is at exactly this moment, as St Matthew reports it to us, that our Lord tells the parable we have just heard, that of the Two Sons of the vineyard owner. Note this, that although the three synoptic evangelists all tell of the Cleansing of the Temple, the Chief Priests’ challenge, and our Lord’s rebuttal, and although they go on to tell the next parable of the wicked tenants (which we will hear next Sunday in the continuation of St Matthew’s Gospel), only St Matthew puts this parable of the Two Sons in this place. The end of the parable explains why it is here. ‘For John came to you in the way of righteousness’, says our Lord, ‘and you did not believe him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.’ This, of course, is His answer to the challenge He had thrown down to the Chief Priests moments earlier: ‘John’s baptism: was it from heaven or from man?’
This parable, then, tells the Leaders of the People that they have indeed rejected God’s messenger in ignoring John the Baptist. But the next parable will tell them that, having rejected not only John, but all God’s messengers, the prophets, they are about to go further still and reject God’s own Son.
We will, as I say, hear that parable next Sunday, and remember where it comes in the sequence of events from what we have just heard today. Note then what has happened already. When the Chief Priests refused to answer our Lord’s question about John the Baptist, He in turn refused to answer their question. Think of it like this: The Chief Priests and the Leaders of the People are not only the aristocratic class, they are the religious authorities par excellence. When they ask a question, they have a right to receive an answer. When our Lord says, ‘Neither will I tell you my authority for doing these things’, He is effectively saying to them: ‘you have rejected God’s prophet, and therefore you have forfeited your right to be treated as the religious authorities over the Jewish People.’ He has already cleansed the Temple, now He is saying that He rejects the authority of those who have defiled God’s Temple, his Law and His prophets.
Hence the force of this parable of the Two Sons. Our Lord has not got the Chief Priests to answer His question about John’s authority, so now He puts another question to them. He begins this parable with this question: ‘What do you think?’ He then explains about the Sons. One replies to his father’s command: ‘no, I will not go’, but repents afterwards and goes. Then the other says ‘yes, I will go’, and does not go. What do you think? Which of these two did His father’s will? There is nowhere for the Chief Priests to hide from this. They cannot deny that it is the one who did go, having first refused, who alone does his father’s will. Having got them to admit that, our Lord can drive home His powerful conclusion: ‘Truly I say to you, (and remember how solemn a formula that is for our Lord to prefix to any statement), ‘Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you.’ Shocking! Our Lord is not just saying, but stating with all solemnity, that the worst and most despised of those the Chief Priests would certainly have assumed were condemned to hell without a second thought, are the very ones who are going to get to heaven before, or rather, instead of, the Chief Priests themselves.
Now we see the connection with what went before made clear, for He continues: ‘John the Baptist came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him.’ They were the ones who had at first said ‘no’ to God, yet repented. The chief Priests, on the other hand, had always made the right noises about God and religion, but had failed to do anything at all to obey the commandments in the only way that could bring them salvation, because lip service is useless, only obedience brings righteousness. Nor is our Lord finished with the Chief Priests yet, for He concludes: ‘yet even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.’ They did indeed realise that John had come from God, but were not prepared to admit it because they would then have had to act on what John had preached and were utterly unwilling to do so for they were too proud and self-righteous.
Nor is this all, for this parable of the Two Sons also gives us hope. For whereas the son who says he does the father’s will but does not is the personification of the faithless Israelites, the other son is the personification of the tax collectors and harlots on the one hand, but also of us, the gentiles, on the other. We, too, are utterly unworthy of salvation, but have been given the call by Christ to enter His kingdom. But of that we will hear more next Sunday in the parable of the Wicked Tenants and the Vineyard.
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