![\"Worker](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/731\/2016\/11\/Worker-in-Vineyard-300x158.jpg\")
\u201cSon, go work today in my vineyard,\u201d our Father says to us (verse 28).<\/p>\n\u201cSon, go work today in my vineyard,\u201d our Father says to us (verse 28).<\/p>\n
God has planted us in His garden, His Kingdom, and He has called each of you to go and work in His vineyard today.\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonderful thing to be planted in God\u2019s garden.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place filled with every kind of fruit that is good to the eye, good to the tongue, and good to the stomach.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place of unparalleled beauty and joy, and you have been placed in it.<\/p>\n
But, having tasted the fruits of God\u2019s garden and beheld its joys, you\u2019re expected to contribute to the good of God\u2019s garden and be a participant in its goodness and bounty.\u00a0 It\u2019s something that\u2019s there for your enjoyment, but only to the degree that you invest yourself in it and labor together with others for the common good and the glory of God.\u00a0 It does not belong to you but to God.\u00a0 It is a garden, and not a self-governing wild orchard.\u00a0 It needs to be tended, or else it will return to weeds and unfruitfulness.<\/p>\n
Israel, too, was the garden of God.\u00a0 It was a land flowing with milk and honey, and the Israelites were God\u2019s peculiar people, chosen by Him to keep His land.\u00a0 But throughout their history they played the part of the second son, the one who said he would obey the Father and go and work in the vineyard but in reality refused to.\u00a0 At this point in Matthew 21, Jesus is still speaking to the chief priests and the elders of the people, who had just confronted Him about His teaching and authority.\u00a0 The place where they did this was in the temple, the house of God, which could also be seen as the garden of God.<\/p>\n
And so Jesus is warning them that although they speak as if they are obeying the Father, they are actually not.\u00a0 The tax collectors and harlots will enter God\u2019s kingdom and garden before the chief priests and elders, for although they initially disobeyed, in time they repented and obeyed.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lesson for each of us here.\u00a0 At various times in our lives, at various times in our day, we may be acting more like the first son, who said he would not obey but did, or the second son, who said he would go but in the end does not.<\/p>\n
Aren\u2019t there times when, acting like the second son, we\u2019ve said to the Lord that we will gladly die for Him and move mountains for Him, but when He asks us to clean the latrine or forgive our brother or give up our unit of pleasure for another person, we balk.\u00a0 We have a habit of professing our love boldly for God and then continuing to go on our merry way as if we had not just promised God the moon and the sun.<\/p>\n
It can even become like this in that most special of occasions: Sunday morning worship.\u00a0 We may say to ourselves that we go to worship God, but on some Sunday mornings we may not feel like being there.\u00a0 We say that we will establish a holy time each day for God when we can be alone with Him, but when that time comes and the morning is too early or there are too many things to be done or the evening comes and we are in leisure mode, we miss our appointment with God.\u00a0 We hear the voice of God tell us exactly what He wishes for us to do next, and we say, \u201cYes, Lord,\u201d and then fail to do what He\u2019s just told us and what we just vowed to do.<\/p>\n
But aren\u2019t we also like the first son?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t there times when we initially refuse God?\u00a0 We get stuck in our bad habits or patterns and, in a quiet way, refuse the pleading of the Spirit in our lives.\u00a0 We lack faith and refuse to leave our warm, fuzzy cocoon when God calls us out to the adventure of the butterfly.\u00a0 And then, hopefully, at some point, we realize the error of our ways, and we repent.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the difference between the first and second son, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 Their refusal to obey the Father is what the two sons have in common.\u00a0 But what separates the first and blessed son from the second and cursed son is the place they end up.\u00a0 In our lives, taken as a whole, no matter where we begin, there are only two places we\u2019ll end up: in faith and obedience to our heavenly Father, or in pride and disobedience to our heavenly Father.<\/p>\n
In our daily lives it\u2019s the same thing.\u00a0 Sadly, we will continue to sin in this life.\u00a0 That\u2019s an unpleasant fact.\u00a0 But what distinguishes whether or not we\u2019re acting like the first or second son is whether or not we repent.\u00a0 Even the thief on the cross, at the hour of death, had one final chance to repent, no matter what else he had done before.\u00a0 Whether you\u2019re hired first thing in the morning or work only the last hour in God\u2019s kingdom, the wages are the same: the important thing is to step forward and begin laboring in His garden.<\/p>\n
Actually, there\u2019s a third, invisible son in the story.\u00a0 He reminds me of my long lost brother Hector.\u00a0 You see, my Dad used to tell my twin brother and I that we were actually triplets and that we had another brother named Hector, who now worked as an elevator operator, I think at Elmhurst hospital: I\u2019m not sure: I lost track of him in the 1960s.\u00a0 (So you see that I come by my weirdness naturally!)\u00a0 This third son is the one who says to the Father \u201cI will obey,\u201d and then actually obeys.<\/p>\n
Regardless of which of the sons you are today, the point for all of us is the same: listen for the voice of your Father today, and when He speaks, obey.\u00a0 This is the way of the third son Jesus Christ, the Son (who really is my long, lost brother), and all who follow Him in the path of cheerful obedience.<\/p>\n