One element that might prove to be fruitful regarding a unifying link between the readings is that earlier in Matthew chapter 21, Jesus entered the Temple! The words spoken by Jesus today are spoken in the temple. How might this fact cloud the way we understand what Jesus is saying? Jesus says: ‘What do you think? A man had two sons…’ Would these words mean something different for us if they had not been spoken in the temple?
Let’s think for a moment about the nature of the temple. The people of Israel had built the temple to be the Holy of Holies, the place of God, and the Ark of the Covenant. The temple too was the place from which proceeded the word and will of God – the seat of authority among the Jews. Indeed, it was also the place where some years ago Jesus himself had gone as a twelve-year old boy to seek the Father’s will in the Father’s house.
On this occasion, Jesus has not come into the temple to seek to know the Father’s will. Jesus has entered the temple for a different reason – a reason Matthew really wants to understand. God had left the temple when it came under the destructive armies of the Babylonians, and ever since the time of the Babylonian Exile, the people of Israel had been waiting for God’s glory to return to the temple. They had been waiting for over 400 years! For those with eyes to see, Jesus the long-awaited return of God to the temple has been fulfilled!
But the very ones who were supposed to help people know the will and mind of God – the religious leaders – had failed to recognise the significance of this moment. It is Jesus, not the Pharisees and Sadducees, who speaks with God’s authority. The simple challenge Jesus gives the religious authorities through the parable reveals their lack of concern with truth, for they seek only to justify their own faithful behaviour.
I come to you, Jesus, as the source of truth for me, and to seek your will each day.
