Jesus’ parables are known for being obscure and difficult to understand. They are like zen koans in many ways, or at least like verbal puzzles that people—including Scripture scholars—are never completely sure they understand. Having said this, today’s Gospel parable is the exception. This one is pretty clear. Paraphrased it might read: “What counts is what your actions say ‘yes’ to.”

It would seem that Jesus was losing patience with the chief priests and the elders. This chapter in Matthew has already recounted Jesus driving the money changers from the temple, cursing the unproductive fig tree, and being faced with yet another question about where he got his authority, just one of the obvious traps set to catch him and which Jesus was always able to skillfully avoid. As we might put it, Jesus had had it up to here and he was tired of playing games with the supposed holy men of his tradition. So he let them have it: Let’s see your commitment to God instead of listening to you talk about it.
Ezekiel echoes this call of God who wants to put a stop to the whining about unfairness on God’s part. Speaking for God, he tells the people that they’re getting what they deserve. If they will only turn from their wickedness, they will have the life they proclaim to want. Once again, it’s not talking the talk but walking the walk that makes the difference.

And set between these two similar messages is Paul’s magnificent statement, poetic, musical, about Jesus and who he is and the truth he brings and the path he chooses to follow, out of his loving care for all humanity. No wonder Ezekiel’s God was incensed at being called unfair; no wonder his Son Jesus was infuriated at the petty attempts to avoid the essence of his message, God’s message. It’s how we live and not what we purport to believe that makes us God’s people, Christ’s followers. We hear this passage of Paul’s on Palm Sunday and later on in Holy Week as part of the Tenebrae Office. During the Triduum we build up our song each day until the entire mission of Jesus is finally proclaimed on Holy Saturday. From the statement that Christ came in obedience to God’s desire to live among us which is sung on Thursday, we add that he went to his death out of that love for us on Friday. He was not forced to die; he was sent to live. But life’s fullness could not be handled by the petty yes-men he encountered. Finally, we sing in high, soaring notes in the tomb-like silence of Holy Saturday, that, as a result of his human mission, his “yes” to God and his actions which followed, Jesus has earned a name above all other names. At Jesus’ name and because of the loving action that was his earthly life, we bend our knee and proclaim him Lord. Jesus was surely one who followed the will of his Father.

That’s what we’re reminded about today. Jesus did all this. And we are to follow his lead. There are similarities in the signs of Jesus’ times and the signs of our own. But there are also differences. We’re not called to repeat what Jesus said and did. We are asked to appraise and respond in the same Spirit in which he appraised and responded. One thing that characterizes both his mission and our own is compassion. We are called to be compassionate in our immediate surroundings of home and family and in our work lives, of course. But also, in the broader society where chaos reigns in the voracious monetary appetite for war, the frustrating political stalemates, and the widening of economic injustice. When 22% of people in our neighboring state of Indiana are estimated to be going hungry, to cite just one situation close to home, we’re called to look beyond our personal security and do what we can to share in the power of Jesus’ action. And power it is; the power of God.

Recently I read a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that captures for me the call of today’s readings. In his Book of Hours, Love Poems to God Rilke says to God: “Only in our doing can we grasp you./ Only with our hands can we illumine you./ The mind is but a visitor:/ It thinks us out of our world/…I don’t want to think a place for you.”

We might conclude by carrying away into our lives today’s question of Jesus: “What is your opinion? A man had two sons. Which of the two did his father’s will?” This question was, of course, addressed originally to the supposed holy men of Jesus’ time. But here we are today, listening to it in the cycle of the liturgical year, so it’s clearly posed also for us as well. We know the answer to the question, as did those people of Jesus’ day: It is the one who did something who carried out that father’s will.

What had made that child reluctant to respond positively to the father’s request in the first place? Did he think he was incapable of doing what was asked? Was he afraid of what a “yes” would demand and so he put off a positive response? Was he unsure of what the father was asking? Was he too tired to take a challenge? Too wrapped up in his own concerns? Are these some of the things that lead us to be reluctant to embrace what God asks of us. We might take this moment to ask forgiveness for the yeses we have made to God and then not followed through on. We might also let ourselves be grateful for those efforts that God’s power has made possible for us, amid the sufferings and deaths they demanded in our lives. At least let us pray that we will respond wholeheartedly and also carry out in hope and with strength what God asks of us in days to come. Without our loving actions, who will bring the obedient, compassionate, Christ into these times of ours?