'Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.'
He said in reply, 'I will not,'
This son who said no represented the tax collectors and prostitutes who had chosen lives that were outside the will of God, antithetical to the Father's call to work in the vineyard. They may well have chosen these lives out of desperation. The first son didn't seem to spend much time considering before replying flatly, "I will not". Nevertheless, he had been invited to prefer God's will to his own but had not done so. Perhaps the first son was convinced that such a life in the vineyard sounded good but was in practice actually unattainable or impractical, at least for one such as him.
This initial posture of refusing the call was fortunately malleable. The first son realized he wasn't where he wanted to be and wasn't happy about it. Thus this son "changed his mind and went" just as tax collectors and prostitutes heard John proclaim the way of righteousness and believed him. That group of the marginalized and the outcasts may have imagined themselves as unredeemable sinners. John would then have helped them to overcome that self-image by preaching that the way of righteousness was a possibility for anyone, including them. He brought a hope that corresponded to their dissatisfaction, and they seized that hope readily.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order.
He said in reply, 'Yes, sir, 'but did not go.
This second son represented the chief priests and elders who said the right things but did not do them, who preached but did not practice. They conveyed a carefully constructed religious facade, speaking politely, even reverently, but still lived lives that were primarily in service of self rather than God. They were the hypocrites condemned by Jesus for using the appearance of religiosity to conceal their own selfishness. They apparently had a much greater knowledge of the truth than tax collectors and prostitutes, and yet subverted that knowledge to justify their own pride and self-indulgence.
Which of the two did his father's will?"
They answered, "The first."
The answer was obvious when they saw it in the context of the parable. But they were so invested in their image of themselves as righteous that they could not or would not recognize the way it was playing out in real life. They didn't recognize the fact that they had said yes but never actually gone. They seemed convinced that to say yes was in fact to do the work. And when they were offered a second chance in John the Baptist they did not recognize it a positive sign that sinners and tax collectors were being offered a second chance. They didn't even recognize in these outcasts brothers who had ever been invited. The chief priests and elders were thus unable to celebrate when they saw such a brother finally respond to the invitation. In fact, to them it made that invitation seem all the more suspect. But it should have been a sign, and a reminder that they themselves had not yet responded to their own invitation, but that to do so was still a possibility.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
you did not believe him;
but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
Yet even when you saw that,
you did not later change your minds and believe him.
We probably have a bit of both of these brothers within us. At times we may have said no out of an initial impulse of selfishness or despair. At other times we may have said yes, and even believed we meant it, but still did not actually allow that yes to transform our lives as much as it should have. The good news for us is that neither of these flawed responses need but permanent. If we did not go we can hear the invitation again and go. If we said yes but didn't actually move very far in the direction of obedience then now is the time. We may need to look past our image of ourselves as righteous to see where our yes has yet to transform us. We, like the chief priests and elders, may have a lot invested the appearance of religiosity. But if this is true for us we may benefit from looking at how miraculously the grace of Jesus is able to transform the least likely lives from rocky bottom conditions into true workers in the vineyard. In them we may recognize a fullness of robust response that we ourselves have yet to make. We are meant to see that such a response is possible for us, just as it was for them.
We are called to "change our minds", to repent, as the first son did, but as the chief priests and elders did not do. Our change of mind can just be a mantra where we say yes while ignoring all that that response is meant to mean. It must rather be an attitude like the one in Christ Jesus.
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
When we hear of humility and self-emptying we may be tempted to give our official religious yes but continue to live as before. But this self-emptying is what it truly means to work in the vineyard. We need not despair as though it will destroy us to follow in this way, because Jesus has already demonstrated that it is the path to glory.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name
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