God Is Not Fair
Jesus said to them, “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 21:28-32
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
A couple agreed to eat out on date night. When the husband asked the wife what she wanted to eat she said it depended on him. So, he said “Italian”. However, at the ristorante the wife suggested to eat Japanese. The husband got annoyed because the wife changed her mind.
You see there is nothing wrong if one changes mind. In fact, it is a sign of a wise man to change mind once. But it is a sign of the foolish to change his mind again and again.
In this Sunday’s parable we see two sons changing minds. The elder son refused his father to work in the vineyard but later repented, changed his mind, and worked; while the younger son agreed to work but afterward did not actually obey the father. Both changed minds but are they wise?
Who is the better son, asked Jesus. Of course, the answer is the one who in the end obeyed his father, although both had changed their original plans. What matters most actually is what ones does in the end. The end is important – but not in the sense that the end justifies the means.
Jesus said the prostitutes and tax collectors considered great sinners by everyone are entering heaven ahead of each one because in the end they were repenting – unlike the Pharisees who never repented neither in the beginning nor end because they do not see themselves as sinners.
The Pharisees do not see themselves correctly. They need to hear the words of St. Paul which says that they must not be proud but instead “humbly regard others as more important than themselves.” They need to look at Christ as model “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as 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.” Phil 2:1-11
Thus, we understand what Ezekiel is telling the Jews when he says: “When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”
And in the end, unlike the Pharisees one must not say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” Ez 18:25-28 Do you?
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