Let your 'yes' be 'yes'

 Ezekiel 18:25-28 · ‘When a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed, he shall save his life.’

Philippians 2:1-11 · ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.’

Matthew 21:28-32 ‘He changed his mind and went. The tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.’

 

Which of the two did the will of his father?

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Who knew that Walsingham has a vineyard?

As it happens I did know, because amongst the many wonderful welcome gifts my family and I have been given since our arrival here, one was a bottle of Walsingham wine.

And very enjoyable it was too!

Last week the grapes were being harvested, even though this year’s weather with a bad frost early on and lack of rain later, means it’s not the biggest yield.

On Wednesday I visited the vineyard, tucked behind the old railway near the Catholic Shrine, to see the harvesters picking the grapes by hand.

It evoked last week’s gospel reading about the master of the vineyard hiring labourers to go into his vineyard, and this morning’s, in which a man asks his two sons to join him in working his vineyard.

Vineyards are an important setting for Jesus’ parables.

St Gregory the Great likes to see the human soul as a vineyard of God’s presence.

Just as vines need tending, so the task in the vineyard of one’s soul is attending to the disciplines of prayer, of seeking after virtue, of allowing Christ to tend our souls so that they are fruitful, like a vine.

In the parable today the vineyard is the setting for a key question for us about discipleship and our response to the Lord’s call, and its implications, in our lives.

The direct context of this passage is that the chief priests and elders of the people had heard John the Baptist call them to the vineyard but, despite outward appearance, they failed to repent and turn their lives around, but when John called the tax collectors, the prostitutes and even the run of the mill sinners to repentance they did.

Origen of Alexandria summarises it well for us:

in this parable the Lord spoke to such as promise little or nothing, but in their works shine forth; and against those who promise great things but do none of these things that they have promised.

So we too are invited to a deep self-examination about how we respond to the will of God: will our ‘works shine forth’?

Two sons are asked by their father to work in the vineyard.

One says ‘no, I won’t go into the vineyard’ but then does.

The other says, ‘yes, of course I will go into the vineyard’ but fails to.

‘Which’, Jesus asks, ‘does the will of his father?’

The answer is clear enough, it’s the first, he didn’t ‘talk the talk’, but he did ‘walk the walk’: he did what had been asked of him.

That is of far more value than the willing child who says yes and does nothing.

We should want to be like the first son; but, if we’re honest, we know we are prone to act – or not act - like the second.

Something very wonderful happened to the first son, and Jesus commends it to his hearers, it is a change of mind, a change of heart, what we call repentance.

The Greek text of this passage tells us that it was a sense of remorse that the son felt that prompted his change of heart.

Guilt, remorse, regret are generally regarded as bad things, and they are if they are left to fester and corrode our souls.

But they can also be the prompt we need to amend our lives.

So, for example, if I feel guilt over neglecting my obligations to a family member this can be the prompt to amend my neglect and make it joyful service.

If I have remorse over something I have done, rather than wallowing in misery, I can make restitution.

The son in the parable who said ‘no’ to his father felt guilt, remorse and regret over his unwillingness and this became the spur to act as he was called, despite his initial ‘no’.

The flip side is that enthusiasm and saying yes, needs to be followed up by action: prayer, reception of the sacraments, acts of mercy.

The letter of James expresses this nicely:

be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1.22-25

The ladder of virtue that we seek to climb takes us even beyond the ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but integrates our ‘yes’ into our action.

We’re not saved by good intentions and neither are we saved solely by doing good.

One son said ‘no’, one said ‘yes’ to the father’s call, neither said the words to which we should aspire:

Be it unto me according to thy word.

In the Blessed Virgin we see the one who both says ‘yes’ to God and acts in fidelity to his will.

Through her total openness to the Father’s will, in the simple word, ‘Fiat’ - ‘let it be’ - she is free from guilt and remorse and is always open to the intention and purpose of the Heavenly Father.

In that she is a mirror and reflection of her Son, Jesus Christ, who was ‘obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’.

Let us respond then to the call to work in the Lord’s vineyard, sharing in the life of the Christ the Vine, who shed his blood for the salvation of the world.

May we walk into the vineyard of his love as ‘fiat’ people, ready to respond in word and deed like she who did the will of her heavenly Father.