Sunday School
The Gospel Matthew 21:23-32
When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 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. 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 after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
Two paragraphs to this morning's gospel reading. In the first paragraph, it's surprising that the temple authorities allow Jesus to get away with thumbing his nose at them! And it gets worse. In the second paragraph, Jesus turns the tables on his adversaries: the chief priests and elders who challenged Jesus in the beginning have been unwittingly "taken in", now allowing themselves to be examined by him; which puts Jesus in control of the situation. Of course, this does not surprise us, no one ever gets the best of him in verbal confrontation.
Furthermore, and this is one thing if not The thing, there's no correct answer to the question "Which of the two did the will of his father?" The will of the father, indeed the way of life in that society was that the father was due honor and obedience. The first son was rude, disrespectful to his father. Even though he reverses himself and obeys, there is no way back from the fact that he has dishonored his father. The second son is a sorry disobedient creature whose word is worth nothing; he also has dishonored his father. Both of them are liable to Deuteronomy 21:18f
"18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." (NIV)
Mind, the Law doesn't say the parents "may" take hold of him and bring him to the elders, it says they "shall". The confrontation between Jesus and the authorities that the evangelist recalls at Matthew 21:23-32 is a tradition, of course, and Jesus' confrontational parable about the man with two sons is hypothetical, not real, so I'm carrying it too far by extracting it to real life under the Law of Moses. But neither son is admirable, there is no good son here, both sons are evil, both sons are subject to discipline.
But the story. As Matthew has it, Jesus lets the temple authorities themselves make the judgment call about the two sons, condemning themselves: the chief priests and elders with their false pretenses of honoring God are the second son, they say the right words but their lives make them disobedient liars and they are damned, they are even worse than the tax collectors and prostitutes that Matthew always contemns.
It is NOT a story of universal salvation in which ultimately everybody gets into the kingdom of God after all and counter to how highly the priests and elders think of themselves, the tax collectors and prostitutes will be in line ahead of them. More likely, don't nobody go in! Jesus is not here saying the tax collectors and prostitutes are going in. Jesus is stunning, insulting, and infuriating his hearers with the news that, "You think the tax collectors and sinners have no chance? Well, You have even less chance than they do, You have no chance at all, not a snowball's chance in Hell."
There is the question of what both Jesus and Matthew each mean by the kingdom of God (which Matthew often calls the kingdom of οὐρανός, translated "heaven", the dwelling place of God). Noting that Jesus (and Paul) lived in an age of apocalyptic expectation, Jesus may mean the imminent coming of the Son of Man (Daniel 7:9-10,13-14), possibly Jesus himself, and surely Matthew means Jesus as the Son of Man. For Matthew, likely the Second Coming of Jesus Messiah, returning to establish God's reign on earth. Neither Jesus nor Matthew, by the "kingdom of God" or the "kingdom of heaven" likely meant life after death Heaven as most Christians visualize it today, and as C S Lewis visualizes it in his book The Great Divorce.
Half past six Saturday morning: Enviva TS Alpha 597x98 arriving to load wood pellets for Studstrup.
Weather forecast for Sunday morning: hundred percent chance of rain.
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