Seeing Others as Important, Not Condemned
To All,
In our Gospel reading for Sunday (Matthew 21:28-32), Jesus tells the chief priests and the elders a simple parable and then asks them a question. The parable is about a man who has two sons. He tells the first son to go work in the vineyard, but the son says, “I will not.” Later, he changes his mind and goes. The man goes to the second son and tells him to work in the vineyard. This son says, “Yes, sir,” but does not go. Jesus then asks a simple question: “Which of the two did the father’s will?” When they answer, “The first,” Jesus then connects the parable to their own behavior.
Jesus then tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before they do. Jesus says this because they are like the second son in the parable. They say, “Yes, Lord,” but do not do what God is calling them to do. Jesus reminds them that they did not believe what John the Baptist was saying when he preached about repentance and the coming of the Messiah. He then reminded them that tax collectors and prostitutes did believe in what John was saying to the people. And then Jesus points out that this conversion of hearts and minds did not change their minds about what John was saying.
The question for us, I think, is, are we holding fast to our faith, or holding fast to our judgment of others?
The chief priests and the elders had figured that God had already judged the tax collectors and the prostitutes because they had already judged them. So, even when the tax collectors and prostitutes were listening to John the Baptist and then Jesus, that didn’t change their minds or their hearts, about John the Baptist or Jesus, or those they had judged as irredeemable. It’s the same attitude that God speaks about through the prophet Ezekiel in our first reading (Ezekiel 18:25-28):
“You say, ‘The Lord’s way is not fair!’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”
Do we hold on to our judgement of others because that has something to do with how we judge ourselves? That is the lie of racism and any other form of bigotry: “I may not be much, but I’m better than them.”
How can we learn God’s ways? We have in our second reading (Philippians 2:1-11), this beautiful hymn which St. Paul shares with his readers: “Have in you the same attitude that is also 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.
As Jesus humbled Himself for our salvation, we need to be humble and refrain from condemning others. Instead, may we be “of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing…looking out not for [our] own interests, but also for those of others.”
I welcome any comments or questions. Thanks for your time.
In Christ,
Phil, CP
