Sunday’s Gospel comes from Matthew 21:28–32. Earlier in this chapter, Matthew recounts Jesus’ cleansing of the temple (21:12–17) and the subsequent questioning by the chief priests and elders regarding his authority (21:23–27). They ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” The “these things” clearly refers to the purging of the temple. Jesus responds to them with a question of his own. If they answer correctly, he’ll give them the inside scoop about his authority. Jesus asks, “The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from men?” They admit they do not know. If they would have said John’s baptism was from heaven, Jesus would ask why they didn’t believe John. If they say John’s baptism was purely human (i.e., from John), then they feared the masses who held John was a prophet.
The parable of the two sons that we will read on Sunday explicates John’s authority and issues an indictment. In other words, Jesus doesn’t let up after Israel’s leaders fail to respond to his question. He’s going at these chief priests and scribes. “What do you think,” Jesus asks. He’s diggin in. Look at how Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis describes the setting of the scene:
“What do you think?” The energy of divine transformation does not cease to pour forth from Jesus. He will not allow his adversaries to settle back into their longed-for comfort. He will continue to hurl at them the fiery darts of his wisdom, edging his way into the innermost recesses of their heart and conscience. Since straight theological dialogue [see Matthew 21:23–27] quickly met a dead-end, Jesus will now try the more roundabout approach of the parable: “What do you think? A man had two sons…”1
That Jesus has the patience to keep engaging with such thick-headed people gives me hope for myself. “What do you think?” Jesus respects their freedom. He asks for a response. He’s trying to get them to think, to change their minds, to metanoeō, to repent. Then he offers the parable. The two sons represent sinners (and Gentiles) who repent at John’s preaching, and the second are Israel’s leaders who refused John’s message. The real issue at hand is, in fact, repentance. The first son originally disobeyed, then repented (lit. changed his mind) and did his father’s will. The second son seemingly obeyed, then did not carry out his father’s will. He paid him lip service and stopped there. Talked-the-talk, but didn’t walk-the-walk. The first eventually did his father’s will, and the second did not.
Jesus then explains the parable, beginning with a massive charge: Despicable sinners, the unrighteous tax collectors, prostitutes, and Gentiles are will go into the Kingdom of God before you, you scribes and chief priests. It’s an indictment. The word for “go” implies leading or pushing ahead. It’s like a race where the underdog, seemingly against all odds, takes advantage over the heavy favorite and everyone watches in stunned silence. Those the scribes and priests considered to be the scum of the earth, the tax collectors and prostitutes, are entering the Kingdom first.
Is Jesus condoning sinfulness? Nope. That would miss the point. Leiva-Merikakis explains:
What Jesus is seeking from everyone he encounters is conversion of heart. He never exalts the underdog merely because of his condition as underdog, nor does he condemn the rich and the powerful merely because they are rich and powerful. Jesus sees in each person both the need and the possibility to change for the better.2
John the Baptist came in the way of righteousness. He came and “showed a way by which men could become righteous,” says The Jerome Biblical Commentary. That way of righteousness was (and still is) the way of repentance. Repentance is the antidote to the poisons of unrighteousness and self-righteousness. The Commentary continues, “They,” meaning the Jewish leaders, “have not admitted that the life of the Law leaves room for the repentance proclaimed by John and by Jesus as a condition of entrance into the reign.” “John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him” (Matthew 21:32). John issued his message of righteousness/repentance to “you,” meaning to the scribes and chief priests. They didn’t believe him. But the sinners, the “scum” overheard it and they believed and repented and entered the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 1:15). Despite seeing this, the hard-hearted scribes and priests still didn’t repent.
Prayerful Reading
In my own prayer with the Gospel, I was struck by two lines. The first describes the attitude or conversion of the first son:
MOVEDBYREPENTANCE
The second describes the second son and, hence, Israel’s leaders:
YOUDIDNOTREPENT
There are two ways: repentance and non-repentance. One is a way of life and the other is death. One opens into the Kingdom of God and the other goes to hell, I suppose. Or it creates a kind of hell.
And there are two types of people: the unrighteous who repent and become righteous, and the self-righteous who don’t and remain unrighteous. But what is righteousness, really?
I appreciate Pope Benedict XVI’s explanation of this in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives. There, he comments on Matthew 1:19, that passage that says Joseph did not heap shame upon Mary after finding out she was pregnant. He was going to privately divorce her because he was a “just man.” The word for “just” in Matthew 1:19 is dikaios, which is the root of dikaiosynē, the way of righteousness issued by John the Baptist in Matthew 21:32. This word denotes justice and uprightness. It describes the man who is as he ought to be, righteousness, the condition acceptable to God. Reflecting on this concept, Pope Benedict explains:
Psalm 1 presents the classic image of the “just” man. We might well think of it as a portrait of the spiritual figure of Saint Joseph. A just man, it tells us, is one who maintains living contact with the word of God, who “delights in the law of the Lord” (v. 2). He is like a tree, planted beside the flowing waters, constantly bringing forth fruit. The flowing waters, from which he draws nourishment, naturally refer to the living word of God, into which he sinks the roots of his being. God’s will is not a law imposed on him from without, it is “joy.” For him the law is simply Gospel, good news, because he reads it with a personal, loving openness to God and in this way learns to understand and live it from deep within.3
Actually, the tail end of that quote is a good description of what lectio divina is all about. But, I digress. The one who is righteous maintains contact with the living word of God and delights in the Gospel. For the righteous man, God’s words cause joy and he receives them with a loving openness, a desire to understand, and a longing to be transformed by those words. The righteous man or woman is the one who comes into contact with God’s will and who does it with joy.
The unrighteous person is sinful or wicked. He chooses not to hear and does what he wants. He makes his own law and constantly moves his own goalposts to suit his fancy. The self-righteous person is wicked in his own right. He’s characterized by the persons of the scribes and chief priests in the Gospel passage and convinces himself of his own righteousness in contrast with the morality of others. Self-righteousness is often narrow-minded, pietistic, moralistic, and all these sorts of things. The self-righteous person puts on airs spiritually. He’s holier than thou, or at least he thinks he is. The self-righteous person fashions an imaginary kingdom that demands little or nothing and put himself on the throne, propping himself up by condemning everyone else — their lifestyles, ways of worship, and so forth. In the end, self-righteousness is unrighteousness in its own way, because it is a form of pride. And pride is the root of all sin.
In a fallen world and within a fallen humanity, unrighteousness reigns, regardless of its form. It’s like a given. If all humanity suffers from the effects of original sin and is sinful, then all humanity is unrighteous. Sunday’s Gospel invites us to repent, to turn to the Lord, to ask for help, to beg and plead for forgiveness and mercy. It invites us to pray that God would meet us in our unrighteousness and lead us on the way to righteousness. It’s a matter of becoming righteous. We haven’t arrived yet. So we’re called to a life of continuing conversion by getting on target, which is to say, setting our sights on Christ and allowing him to transform us (see Gaudium et spes, §22).4 The worst thing, as becomes clear in this Sunday’s Gospel, is to not repent and to hear Jesus’ words to the self-righteous: YOUDIDNOTREPENT. The unrighteous and self-righteous alike need to repent. The scum and scoundrels, along with the pharisees, scribes, and elders, they all need to repent. We all need to repent.
In a fallen world, the way of repentance is the way of righteousness. We come to the way of righteousness via the way of repentance. Sunday’s Gospel invites us, whether we’re unrighteous, self-righteous, or whatever, to repent and believe in the Gospel (again).
Please note that I resisted every urge to simply offer Flannery O’Connor’s excellent short story “Revelation” as a commentary (and a lectio reflection in its own right) on this parable. Her exceptional writing paints a vivid picture of this parable in modern terms and displays the insidious dangers of self-righteousness. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t. I do comment on this in an article I once wrote about Purgatory.
Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 3, 445.
Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 3, 455. Emphasis mine.
Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, 39–40.
The word “sin” in Greek is hamartia, “to miss the mark.”