“Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” (Matthew 21:28)

In today’s parable, Jesus’ hearers would have understood the Scriptural allusion to Israel as the Lord’s Vineyard, and so would have understood that the father referred to there, the owner of the vineyard, is God. (Cf: Isaiah 5:1ff) This parable, then, is about God asking his sons—in those days, a “son” was thought of as one who does his father’s will (Matthew 21:31. cf: 12:50)—to go and prepare Israel for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

It was about this time that John the Baptist came preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2) He, then, is like the true “son of the father” in the parable, for he at least did go and prepare Israel for the coming of the Lord’s Kingdom.

Just prior to this parable, the chief priests and the elders came to Jesus questioning his authority: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus responds by saying, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” The chief priests and the elders say privately to one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’” So, they say to Jesus, “We do not know.” (Matthew 21:23ff) What they are really saying is that they do not believe that John is from God, and so they feel no inclination to accept anything of what he says, and they do not feel any need to heed to his call to repent.

With this in mind, we can understand Jesus’ comment at the end of today’s parable: “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.” For, it is as Jesus put it of himself in John’s Gospel: “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38) The chief priests and the elders saw the good works that John the Baptist did, and yet they refused to admit that he was a man of God, and so they felt no need to listen to him—but tax collectors and the prostitutes did! These notorious sinners, then, repented of their sinful ways, and so they are going on into the Kingdom … ahead of the chief priest and the elders, those who felt in themselves no need for repentance. (Cf: John 5:36; Luke 15:7) This was really something quite shocking to say to the Religious Leaders of Israel. One can understand why, after he had finished preaching these parables, they wanted ‘to arrest’ Jesus. (Matthew 21:46)

Now, Jesus came Jesus preaching the same message as John: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) And many tax collectors and sinners heard him, and they repented, leaving all to follow him and be with him. (Matthew 9:9ff) When the leading religious men of Israel saw this, they were astonished: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11) They refused to see that Jesus, too, might be of God, and that he, too, was working God’s vineyard. (Cf: Matthew 15:24)

Well, we here, we all know ourselves to be sinners and we all know of our need to repent. And, in our gathering as we take our place at the Lord’s Table, we proclaim that we know that Jesus is of God, and so, we ‘listen to him,’ striving to repent and turn from our sinful ways that we may come into the Kingdom. (Matthew 17:5. Cf: 8:15-16; John 6:68-69; Luke 3:10ff) The sheer numbers of those who have accepted Jesus as Lord should make our testimony overwhelming, but sadly there are many who still do not accept him. So, this Jesus says to us: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21) We, too, are to go and work in the vineyard.

But as the Parable points out, we have to show ourselves to be among the Father’s children by doing the Father’s will—by actually going out and working our Father’s vineyard. (Matthew 21:31) What, then, are we to do? (Cf: Luke3:10) The chief priests and elders show us what not to do: they shun notorious sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes, making them always feel unclean whenever they come across them. (Cf: Luke 15:28; Matthew 9:13) This is no way to get people to repent of their ways. For it doesn’t matter what they might do, these religious leaders will not let them forget that they are sinners (Cf: John 9:34); they do not forgive, for they will not grant them even the slightest chance of being able to change. (Cf: Luke 7:39; 19:8; Ezekiel 33:11)

So, the first thing we must do to reach out to these lost souls, as the parable suggests (Matthew 21:28), is to see these sinners as our brothers and sisters about whom we are concerned, and not as some ugly alien we want nothing to do with. (Cf: Luke 15:20, 19:9) Then, as Jesus put it: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you—and you also must do the same.” (John 13:15, 34; 15:9) Or as the prophet Isaiah put it: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) We are to love them … as Jesus loved us in our sins; we are love them with the same love as God had for us. (Romans 5:8; John 3:16. Cf: Rule of St Benedict [RB] 2:12; 64:15)

This does not mean that we have to shame them, adding to their burden by confronting them with the fact that what they have done, and perhaps are still doing, is wrong—they already know they are sinners; they don’t need us to tell them. What we have to do is let them know that God loves and care for them anyway … by seeing their need and responding to it as best we can. (Matthew 25:35-36) We have to go out to the peripheries and seek them out, like our Good Shepherd Master, and in of our compassion for their weakness be willing to help shoulders some of their load, and so in this way help carry them back to the flock—in so doing, we will end up smelling like these lost sheep, as Pope Francis would put it, and for which some won’t like us either; this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. (RB 27:9; Luke 15:5) For it is love such as this—that lets them know their sins are forgiven and forgotten (Isaiah 65:17)—that will see them change their ways. (Luke 7:44-47) So do we work the Lord’s vineyard.

It is our care for the least these brothers and sisters of the Lord in their need (cf: Romans 8:29 30) that will see us welcomed into “the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), where will find ourselves at home in the Kingdom of God our Father with his beloved Son. For we will have loved as God so loves the world, giving our all to reach out and lead some back into the Kingdom with us. (John 14:23-24; 3:16; RB 72:3-7)