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Matthew 21:25-32, The Inclusive Bible
Jesus continued, “What do you think? There was a landowner who had two children. The landowner approached the elder and said, ‘My child, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ This first child replied, ‘No, I won’t,’ but afterward regretted it and went. The landowner then came to the second child and said the same thing. The second child said in reply, ‘I’m on my way,’ but never went. Which of the two did what was wanted?”
They said, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “The truth is, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kindom of God before you. When John came walking on the road of justice, you didn’t believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you didn’t repent and believe.”
Reflection
Jesus points out in his closing zinger that tax collectors, hated for collaborating with the Empire and robbing their own people, and local sex workers making a living off of other people’s disordered desires, believed John's testimony, recognized the way of justice, changed their minds and walked in God’s way of kinship. They are already walking in the way of life with God. One could say they had a lot less to lose, although not really less to fear, at least socially. It may be that their biggest advantage over the chief priests and elders was their awareness of their need for a change. Whenever we sit in relative comfort, with significant privilege, changing course feels less inviting.
This very human fear of change and the losses it will bring may cause us to say yes to God’s ways of justice and reconciliation in our heads, while not getting around to it with our bodies and in the deeper places of our spirits. Most of us resist change, even when it's clear the change will lead to fuller, more abundant life, both for us and many more people than are currently enjoying it.
Prayer in Poetry
Wildfires consume
as we have consumed;
orange sky hangs heavy,
a new warning
to turn
people at the helm so hungry
for the power they have not
tasted from love
sisters shot, brothers suffocated,
families left smoldering
without justice
and yet: this year
like every year,
the leaves turn.
Crickets stop their singing.
The moon grows large, slim, returning
and returning.
People fill the streets
with courage.
Time to turn
and follow the ones
we thought unlikely
into the reign of Love.
—
May you
like the leaves
welcome the needed turning.
May Love pull you
into the vineyard,
hands ready,
holding nothing
but the tools given
for harvest.
This Grapevine devotional is a shortened version of a chapter in MW USA's new Bible Study, Abundant Liberation: Scripture Reflections + Blessings.
Written by Samantha E. Lioi
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