answered , ‘I don’t want to.’ But later he thought better of it and went. Then the father
went to his other son and said the same thing to him. This son replied, ‘I will go, sir,’
but he did not go.
Which of the two did what the father wanted?” They answered, “The first.” And Jesus said to them,
“Truly, I say to you: the publicans and the prostitutes are ahead of you on the way to the kingdom
of heaven. For John came, to show you the way of goodness, and you did not believe him; but
the publicans and the prostitutes did. You were witnesses of this, but you neither repented nor
believed him.
Reflect:
Why does, in Jesus’ parables, a man always has two sons, and neither of them is perfect? Neither
in the parable of the prodigal son nor in today’s parable do the sons come off as perfect. Perhaps
that is the truth: there are no perfect sons or daughters in this side of life. A glance through the
Scriptures is enough to convince us that none of the great patriarchs or prophets or kings or
apostles is a paragon of virtues; in fact, many of them did terribly roguish things! It is here the words
of Lord Illingworth, a character in Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play, A Woman of No Importance take on a
deeper meaning: “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a
past, and every sinner has a future.” We are saved by God’s grace, not by our virtues. We just
need to respond to this grace, as the younger son in the story does, the impulse for which also
comes from grace.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022