Christ the Cornerstone

Every saint has a past, every sinner a future

“A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” (Mt 21:28-31).

Some of the greatest saints in Christian history were what this Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 21:28–32) calls “tax collectors and sinners.” They were far from perfect people. They had personal histories they weren’t proud of, and only the love and mercy of God made it possible for them to make a radical change in their way of living and follow Jesus.

St. Matthew was one of these repentant sinners. He was a tax collector called by Jesus who looked beyond Matthew’s reputation and sinful past and trusted his ability to change. The scene he describes in this Sunday’s Gospel reading is familiar. A man asks each of his two sons to work in the vineyard. One says no, but later changes his mind and does what his father asks. The other son says yes initially, but then doesn’t keep his word.

The message Jesus conveys in this “parable of the two sons” is simple: What we do is much more important than what we say. Jesus is a patient man, but he has a hard time with hypocrites—people who say one thing (especially in public) but then fail to perform as promised.

This parable is addressed to the chief priests and elders of the people, religious and community leaders who ought to be men and women of their word. Jesus’ criticism is very pointed: “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him” (Mt 21:31-32).

Righteous people tend to be satisfied with themselves. They may have good intentions, but they’re not self-critical. They see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in their own eye (Mt 7:3).

Those who acknowledge their sinfulness (like the parable’s tax collectors and prostitutes) don’t have to spend a lot of time justifying their behavior. As a result, they are closer to the willingness to accept help and gradually to change their ways.

What’s important to Jesus is conversion, the willingness to change our minds and hearts in order to seek and find the truth. We are all sinners, but God’s grace is always available to us, and when we accept the merciful love that God surrounds us with, we are reborn in the Spirit. In fact, whenever a sinner encounters Jesus in the Gospel, he or she is changed.

We are all hypocrites to some degree or another. None of us lives exactly as we wish we could. None of us keeps our promises in an absolutely perfect way. Only Jesus, and his sinless mother, lived in complete conformity to the Father’s will. For the rest of us, there is always a gap between our actions and our beliefs and responsibilities. This innate hypocrisy is the effect of Original Sin, and the grace of Christ is the only cure.

In our culture, the phrase “tax collectors and sinners” does not convey the same sense of opprobrium as it did in Jesus’ time. We should think of the most heinous groups of people we can imagine today (for example, racists and sex offenders). What if Jesus told us that these socially unacceptable people “are entering the kingdom of God before you”? Certainly we would be shocked, but would it be enough to cause us to repent and allow the grace of Christ to enter our hearts?

The great news is that the God of love and mercy is ready and willing to embrace us prodigal sons and daughters as members of his family. All we have to do is ask for God’s help and then be willing to accept it.

When we say no to God, as we invariably do, let’s ask for the grace to repent and do God’s will. And when we say yes, let’s pray for the strength to remain faithful to our promises.

There’s an old saying that applies here: Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Let’s pray for the ability to acknowledge and confess our hypocrisy, for the courage to ask for (and accept) God’s help, and for the gifts of the Holy Spirit that can sustain us in a new way of living. †