Holy Monday – April 14, 2025

The Invitation to Renewal

Mackenzie Smith

Scripture Reading: Matthew 21:28–32 (The Parable of the Two Sons)

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

Read that again.

Verse 31 of this passage is among the wildest underrepresented verses in the Gospel of Matthew, one we hardly ever preach or hear or remember Jesus saying in our collective canon or preaching. But it is nonetheless a blatant, if not provocative, display of who Jesus audaciously sides with, and a blatant, if not provocative, picture of who our God is. How scandalous! How challenging that it is these provocative witnesses—a camel-hair-clothed man eating grasshoppers and screaming about salvation in the wilderness, a tax collector who oppressed his own people on behalf of Rome, and a person caught in a career choice many “dignified” people would abhor—are the ones Jesus invites us to believe, and be renewed in our vision.

A person from within this more “dignified” circle, faithful Scripture and law-followers, who have professed faith and followed their God in the way they knew how all their lives, might react like this: How could those weird people possibly earn salvation faster than me? I recently heard a speaker at Goodson Chapel at Duke Divinity School say that parables are always about us—especially if we think it’s about them.

A tax collector or prostitute, or someone else who perhaps once said no to an honorable way, then said yes later, or someone pushed to the margins of society and denied humanity because of qualities immutable or outside their control, might react like this: Hallelujah!

It seems true in this parable of two sons—both beloved, created, raised, nurtured sons, whom their Father is proud of—what Jesus said in the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Our God is one who has unconditional compassion, undying love for the underdog, the neglected, those society has deemed unworthy, or not the priority. They are God’s. Why? The tax collectors and prostitutes Jesus is talking about are the ones who have seen and believed, heard the good news and allowed for God’s renewal. It doesn’t even necessarily mean that they changed their practice completely, but they changed the way they view it, and how they act. Their renewal made God their vision, the Lord of their heart, to guide their steps and change the way they view the world for the better.

Does their favor mean the self-proclaimed righteous are any less valuable? Certainly not! The righteous, as Jesus says, have received their reward in full. But, after receiving our reward in full, are we done being a Christian, done living up to our salvation, done communing with a living God? No! We are forever challenged with renewal, the slow, painful process of changing the way we think, act, and love ALL God’s people, especially those on the margins of society, whom our many blessings and societal positions have made it more difficult to love. We, from places of “righteousness” on earth—wealth, affluence, cultural capital—have a loftier task in our loving, as we have more to lose. Can we see God’s kingdom we’re trying to reach on the other side, through the narrow eye of a needle? Only with God’s renewing vision.

Wherever you find yourself, whoever you are, no matter what you have done or who others perceive you to be, you are a beloved child, a “son,” of God, and the choice is yours to believe and to live in continual renewal. If you have known God your whole life and yet live in disbelief of God’s justice for the poor, your renewal is slowly coming. If you have only just learned about this Jesus, the Son of God, whom you hope to leave your nets behind to follow, your renewal is slowly coming. We are never done but forever invited to follow into God’s renewal. We seek God’s righteousness, and in our seeking, we will find. In our thirst, we will be filled.

Prayer: Savior and friend, we thank you for showing us how to love all your people. We pray that you may open our eyes to see all areas of renewal in our world, and act based on the most righteous example of living we’ve ever known on earth—your very self, come to die, that we may live. Be our vision, the Lord of our hearts. Amen.