Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
27th of September 2026
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
‘“Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”’
I love that after more than fifty years of church attendance and almost twenty years of regular preaching, the Scriptures can still teach me new things. In today’s reading, we hear a very short parable, unique to the Gospel according to Matthew, which I have always understood in the same way that today’s picture book tells it; the obedient son was the first one who said, ‘I will not’ go and work in the vineyard today, but then did. But what if there is another way of understanding this story?
The setting for today’s story is the Temple. Yesterday, Jesus and his followers entered Jerusalem surrounded by a large crowd spreading cloaks and branches on the road and shouting ‘Hosanna!’ Immediately upon entering the city, Jesus went to the Temple where he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. Understandably, the religious leaders, those who would have felt themselves to be guardians of the Temple and of the faith, now question Jesus’ authority for what he has done, in the first of a series of five controversies between Jesus and his opponents in Jerusalem.
This question of ‘authority’ has existed throughout Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ ministry. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we are told that, ‘the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.’ (Matthew 7:28-9) Later, Jesus tells a paralytic, ‘Take heart, child; your sins are forgiven.’ When the scribes grumble to themselves about this blasphemy, Jesus says to them, ‘so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ and heals the paralytic. When the crowds see this, they are filled with awe, and glorify God, ‘who had given such authority to human beings.’ But all this obvious authority that Jesus has might not come from God. When Jesus heals two men possessed by demons (in Matthew 9:32-34 and Matthew 12:22-28), the Pharisees argue that he is casting out demons by the ruler of demons. Now, when the chief priests and the elders of the people ask him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’ there are at least two answers. If he says, ‘by God’s authority,’ they will have him for blasphemy. But they must also be wondering whether Jesus is going to admit that he is doing these things, ‘by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.’
There is a Jewish joke: why do rabbis always answer a question with a question? The answer is, of course: why shouldn’t rabbis answer a question with a question? Jesus is a good rabbi. He asks them where they think John’s baptism came from. His questioners are immediately in a cleft stick; if they say ‘from heaven,’ they will be asked why they did not believe in John. If they say, ‘from humans,’ the crowd will attack them. They cannot answer, and Jesus does not answer them.
Instead, he tells them the parable of the two sons. There are two manuscript traditions of this parable: the one we have here, when the first son says ‘No,’ but goes; and another in which the first son says ‘yes,’ but does not put his ‘yes’ into action. The second version would have helped Matthew’s first readers understand why Jesus’ own people, the Jews, did not accept the gospel, while many Gentiles did. In that telling, the son who says ‘yes,’ but does nothing, the first son, represents the people of Israel, and the second son, who says ‘no,’ but acts, represents the Gentiles. Matthew’s community could then be reassured that Jesus had foreseen the Jewish rejection of his message, which they would otherwise have seen as an unfathomable tragedy.
However the parable is told, interpretations have seen in it one obedient son and one disobedient one. But if we truly look at the parable, we see that both sons are partially obedient and partially disobedient. One commentator who told this parable to a group of Palestinians was surprised to find that they thought the obedient son was the one who said, ‘yes’ but did nothing. As they explained, ‘A day’s work in the vineyard is a little thing, but to say “No” to your father’s beard is a grievous sin.’[1] This probably gets us closer to the attitudes of Jesus’ first hearers; after all, the Torah says that ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.’ (Exodus 21:17)
It would make sense that there could be two opinions of which son in the parable is obedient and which is disobedient. Jesus needs to give his hearers a real choice, or there would be no point in telling a parable. Commentator Wendell E. Langley suggests that by telling of two partly obedient, partly disobedient sons, Jesus is concealing a third alternative that describes what the chief priests and elders are doing. Whether they say that the first son, even though he was subsequently obedient, failed to do his father’s will because he was initially disobedient, or they say that the second son, even though he was initially obedient, failed to do his father’s will because he was subsequently disobedient, then they are left with the question: how much more disobedient must be a son who is both initially and subsequently disobedient?
And this is what the chief priests and the elders of the people have done! John came to them, and they did not believe him – initial disobedience – and even when they saw that the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed John, they did not change their minds – subsequent disobedience. The collaborators with Rome, the tax-collectors who took money from Jews for their occupiers and the prostitutes who serviced Roman soldiers, while partially disobedient, did listen to John the Baptist and repent. The chief priests and the elders of the people rejected John the Baptist, both initially and when they saw the effect his preaching had.
The Gentiles among Matthew’s first readers might have seen themselves in the first son, who initially said ‘no,’ but then acted. By following Jesus, they were now doing the will of Jesus’ Father. We need to be careful not to be too eager to see ourselves in the first son. We are a long way from Jesus’ time, and now those of us who come to church seem more like the second son whose response is ‘I go, sir.’ We need to make sure that, unlike that second son, our actions follow our words. But we can also be comforted. The parable that we did not hear last week, because instead we were listening to the story of Abigail, was about some other workers in another vineyard, all of whom received the same daily wage regardless of when they started working, because God’s generosity does not depend on our deserts. It does not matter how late it is when we say ‘yes’ to God, nor how many ‘no’s we may have said up to that point. We will be welcomed as fully as those who ‘worked only one hour,’ and were made equal to those who had ‘borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ (Matthew 20:12)
The chief priests and the elders of the people said ‘No,’ and acted on their ‘No.’ One son was initially disobedient and subsequently obedient; the other was initially obedient and subsequently disobedient. But as today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians reminds us, there has been a Son who was both initially and subsequently obedient to his Father. Despite being in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. And so, we gather here today, exalting his name, to the glory of God the Father. In his obedience he has given us an example to follow: loving one another; doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit; looking not to our own interests, but to the interests of others. That seems impossible, but as I have said before about this passage, the word ‘if’ at its beginning should better be translated ‘because,’ because there is encouragement in Christ, because there is consolation from love, because there is sharing in the Spirit, because there is compassion and sympathy, the Philippians can make Paul’s joy complete by living with one mind and one heart. We can too.
And if and when we fail, we just need to join those collaborators with Rome, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes, who are entering the kingdom ahead of the chief priests and the elders of the people, because, however we choose to interpret this parable, it is rooted in the overwhelming, inclusive, welcome of God’s love. Thanks be to God! Amen.
[1] Wendell E. Langley, S.J., ‘The Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32) against Its Semitic and Rabbinic Backdrop,’ The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58 (1996), p. 232.
