Avoiding the vineyard
This week's verses are on Matthew 21:28-32:
These verses are from Jesus talking to the Pharisees about obedience, but there's also a hidden lesson in there about self-righteousness. A lot of times Jesus would throw a surprise twist into his parables, and this is one of them.
The story starts simply enough. You have two boys, one of whom is all talk and the other of whom seems like trouble at first but turns out OK. The Pharisees are asked, which of these boys did the right thing? The one who said the right thing, but didn't deliver, or the one who didn't say the right thing but did what he was told? Obviously the one who did what he was told is the one who did the right thing. It seems like a softball question for the Pharisees. They easily get the right answer. Better to underpromise and overdeliver than to be a disappointment or a liar.
The problem with the Pharisees' answer is that they thought they were like the first son. Before they were Pharisees maybe they weren't righteous, but now they'd been to seminary, did the internship, bought the books and courses, and followed the model given to them by other Pharisees. Hear and do, right? How could you not be righteous at that point? And yet they failed. Even the people they looked down their noses at, people who were "disobedient" to their traditions were more likely to get to heaven than the Pharisees were!
Jesus, as usual, was right. John the Baptist had been telling them all along how to do the right thing, calling them to change and to love others and to follow Jesus, and they were saying "Yes God!" while doing their own thing, "playing church" as some call it. In their mind, they were the lighthouses of righteousness for the rest of the people, especially people like tax collectors and hookers. But in reality they were following the wrong god. They followed their self-righteous traditions rather than the living God who called them to join his work. They were obedient, but not to the Father.
Compare that to the tax collectors and prostitutes. At first they wanted nothing to do with God, but then they had a change of heart. They started off not being obedient to anything but their own hearts, but eventually became obedient to the Father. So they were the real righteous lighthouses, not the Pharisees. It's a shocking indictment of the system when an untrained missionary, or an unordained minister, or an uncredentialed teacher, or a new Christian can sometimes be more righteous and effective than someone who has spent their whole life inside of its walls.
And that's a bit of a lesson about self-righteousness. If you're self-righteous, you measure righteousness by what you already do, so you'll automatically assume you're the hero of the story and not the villain. What a shock it must have been to the Pharisees to have found out they had it all wrong! It's a bigger lesson than the intro about obedience. The Pharisees thought they were joining the Father in the Vineyard, when they were actually just wasting their lives alone with each other.
When reading Bible verses, it's always better to suspend judgment until you've really had a chance to pray and examine yourself. If you don't, you'll be like the Pharisees and write yourself into the story as the hero without realising you're the villain. You'll see yourself as the model other Christians should be guided by, when in fact you're the cautionary tale. You'll think the verses are to convict someone else, when in fact you're the one they're meant for.
Much like the ideal case would be for one of the boys to have promised to follow and then kept his word, the ideal would be for us to get things right every time. But we don't. These verses show that it's better to get things wrong first and correct yourself than to assume you've got it right the first time and abandon your chance of getting it right at all. Jesus tells the Pharisees that the tax collectors and prostitutes are ahead of them in the kingdom of God. In other words, they can still go if they change their ways.
So the lesson in these verses, both in the parable and in Jesus' discussion afterwards, is "Blessed are those who eventually wake up." It's a beautiful truth. Previous centuries are full of stories of renewal, where large groups of people realised they've been wrong all along and they still had time to be right. The vineyard they'd inadvertently avoided was open in front of them. They could still please the Father and join the Son who had been there all along. If you're alive and reading this now, that chance is open to you too.
“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The boy answered, ‘I will not.’ But later he had a change of heart and went. The father went to the other son and said the same thing. This boy answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, tax collectors and prostitutes will go ahead of you into the kingdom of God! For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe. Although you saw this, you did not later change your minds and believe him.
These verses are from Jesus talking to the Pharisees about obedience, but there's also a hidden lesson in there about self-righteousness. A lot of times Jesus would throw a surprise twist into his parables, and this is one of them.
The story starts simply enough. You have two boys, one of whom is all talk and the other of whom seems like trouble at first but turns out OK. The Pharisees are asked, which of these boys did the right thing? The one who said the right thing, but didn't deliver, or the one who didn't say the right thing but did what he was told? Obviously the one who did what he was told is the one who did the right thing. It seems like a softball question for the Pharisees. They easily get the right answer. Better to underpromise and overdeliver than to be a disappointment or a liar.
The problem with the Pharisees' answer is that they thought they were like the first son. Before they were Pharisees maybe they weren't righteous, but now they'd been to seminary, did the internship, bought the books and courses, and followed the model given to them by other Pharisees. Hear and do, right? How could you not be righteous at that point? And yet they failed. Even the people they looked down their noses at, people who were "disobedient" to their traditions were more likely to get to heaven than the Pharisees were!
Jesus, as usual, was right. John the Baptist had been telling them all along how to do the right thing, calling them to change and to love others and to follow Jesus, and they were saying "Yes God!" while doing their own thing, "playing church" as some call it. In their mind, they were the lighthouses of righteousness for the rest of the people, especially people like tax collectors and hookers. But in reality they were following the wrong god. They followed their self-righteous traditions rather than the living God who called them to join his work. They were obedient, but not to the Father.
Compare that to the tax collectors and prostitutes. At first they wanted nothing to do with God, but then they had a change of heart. They started off not being obedient to anything but their own hearts, but eventually became obedient to the Father. So they were the real righteous lighthouses, not the Pharisees. It's a shocking indictment of the system when an untrained missionary, or an unordained minister, or an uncredentialed teacher, or a new Christian can sometimes be more righteous and effective than someone who has spent their whole life inside of its walls.
And that's a bit of a lesson about self-righteousness. If you're self-righteous, you measure righteousness by what you already do, so you'll automatically assume you're the hero of the story and not the villain. What a shock it must have been to the Pharisees to have found out they had it all wrong! It's a bigger lesson than the intro about obedience. The Pharisees thought they were joining the Father in the Vineyard, when they were actually just wasting their lives alone with each other.
When reading Bible verses, it's always better to suspend judgment until you've really had a chance to pray and examine yourself. If you don't, you'll be like the Pharisees and write yourself into the story as the hero without realising you're the villain. You'll see yourself as the model other Christians should be guided by, when in fact you're the cautionary tale. You'll think the verses are to convict someone else, when in fact you're the one they're meant for.
Much like the ideal case would be for one of the boys to have promised to follow and then kept his word, the ideal would be for us to get things right every time. But we don't. These verses show that it's better to get things wrong first and correct yourself than to assume you've got it right the first time and abandon your chance of getting it right at all. Jesus tells the Pharisees that the tax collectors and prostitutes are ahead of them in the kingdom of God. In other words, they can still go if they change their ways.
So the lesson in these verses, both in the parable and in Jesus' discussion afterwards, is "Blessed are those who eventually wake up." It's a beautiful truth. Previous centuries are full of stories of renewal, where large groups of people realised they've been wrong all along and they still had time to be right. The vineyard they'd inadvertently avoided was open in front of them. They could still please the Father and join the Son who had been there all along. If you're alive and reading this now, that chance is open to you too.
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