TRUE OBEDIENCE: Avoid Appearance

Read­ing Time: 4 minutes

Matthew 21:28–32

²⁸But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go, work today in my vine­yard. ²⁹He answered and said, I will not, but after­ward he regret­ted it and went. ³⁰Then he came to the second and said like­wise. And he answered and said, I go, sir, but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his fath­er? They said to Him, The first. Jesus said to them, Assuredly, I say to you that tax col­lect­ors and har­lots enter the king­dom of God before you. ³²For John came to you in the way of right­eous­ness, and you did not believe him; but tax col­lect­ors and har­lots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not after­wards relent and believe him.

The Context

The chief priests and the eld­ers of the people were the worst oppon­ents of Jesus. The reas­on is that Jesus vehe­mently con­demned their cor­rup­tion, selfish­ness, and dis­hon­esty. Mat­thew 21:28–32 is dir­ectly addressed to them (cf. Matt 21:23–27). The pas­sage fur­ther emphas­ises Jesus’ zero tol­er­ance for evil and mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion. Jesus is now found in Jer­u­s­alem, the final des­tin­a­tion of his mission. 

After his tri­umphant entry into Jer­u­s­alem, he first vis­ited the Temple, the holy place of God. What he saw was not pleas­ing. Hence, “…drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and over­turned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And said to them, It is writ­ten, ‘My house shall be called a house of pray­er, but you have made it a den of thieves’ ” (Matt 21:12–13). This caused a ser­i­ous con­front­a­tion between him and the chief priests and the eld­ers of the people (cf. Matt 21:23–27). It was after such intense dis­agree­ment that Jesus con­tin­ued to address them with the mes­sage found in Mat­thew 21:28–32.

First Impression

First impres­sion is the first and imme­di­ate opin­ion or feel­ing a per­son forms when he or she encoun­ters someone or some­thing for the first time. Usu­ally, such an opin­ion depends on the nature of the object and on the atti­tude of the per­son encountered. No mat­ter how gif­ted a per­son might be, it is not advis­able to base our def­in­ite eval­u­ation of someone only on our first encounter (first impres­sion) with the per­son. If the man in Mat­thew 21:28–32 based the eval­u­ation of his sons’ reac­tions on his mes­sage, he would have con­demned the first son and rewar­ded the second.

Beyond Appearance

God rejec­ted Saul as king and sent Samuel to anoint a new king He had chosen. When Samuel arrived at the house of Jesse the Beth­le­hemite, he saw one of the sons of Jesse Eliab and wanted to anoint him, think­ing he was the chosen one. God inter­vened and warned Samuel thus: “Do not look at his appear­ance or at his phys­ic­al stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the out­ward appear­ance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1Sam 16:7).

Appear­ance, it is said, deceives. The second son of Mat­thew 21:28–32 rep­res­ents priests and the eld­ers, and prob­ably the entire rul­ing Jew­ish class. With their mouths, they pro­nounced yes, but their yes did not come from their heart because they nev­er truly repen­ted (cf. Isa 29:13). On the oth­er hand, the first son rep­res­ents those they tagged as sin­ners. Ini­tially, they said no with the kind of life they lived, but later they repen­ted and believed the truth. Jesus reminded the priests and the eld­ers that des­pite their pre­sumed sanc­tity, the pros­ti­tutes and tax col­lect­ors find their way to the king­dom of God because they repen­ted when they heard the mes­sage of John the Baptist. Unfor­tu­nately, the priests and eld­ers who claimed to be one with God nev­er cared to listen to such a mes­sage, much less repent (cf. Matt 21:32).

Righteousness and Obedience

Jesus said John the Baptist came to show the way of right­eous­ness, but priests and eld­ers refused to believe him. The tax col­lect­ors and pros­ti­tutes heard the mes­sage on right­eous­ness and believed. Obed­i­ence and right­eous­ness can­not be sep­ar­ated. You can­not claim to be right­eous, yet you dis­obey the call to be right­eous. You can­not also claim to be obed­i­ent, yet you are involved in injustice.

John the Baptist preached the way of right­eous­ness. He did not preach suc­cess, break­through, mater­i­al prosper­ity, favour, total heal­ing, wealth without effort, and defeat of the dev­il. In Mat­thew 6:33, Jesus invited his dis­ciples to seek first the king­dom and right­eous­ness of God, and oth­er things will be giv­en to them (Matt 6:25–32).

Right­eous­ness (Greek: dikaiosunē) refers to that which God has approved. It is being mor­ally cor­rect, just, and vir­tu­ous accord­ing to divine/moral law. Whatever God has examined and deemed right is right­eous and should be prac­ticed. Priests and eld­ers of the Church, then and now, tend to sub­sti­tute God’s right­eous­ness with their selfish desires. In 1John 4:1, the author advises believ­ers not to trust any­one who claims to be God’s mes­sen­ger. He admon­ishes them to exam­ine thor­oughly every spir­it to ensure it is from God. Such watch­ful­ness is due to false proph­ets roam­ing around like a roar­ing lion look­ing for someone to devour.

Avoid Hasty Conclusions

We should avoid hasty con­clu­sions about people. First impres­sions and people’s appear­ance should not be the only cri­ter­ia for eval­u­at­ing them. These must be veri­fied. If the mas­ter had based his judg­ment on impres­sion, he would have con­demned the first son and praised the second. God is not impressed by our lip ser­vice (cf. Jas 1:22). Mat­thew 21:28–32 is a big les­son to those people who claim to be God’s mes­sen­gers, proph­ets, proph­et­esses, and holy and even close to God. Such people (hypo­crites) have the defect of see­ing oth­ers and those who are not with­in their circle as sin­ners. Our false impres­sions and deceiv­ing appear­ance do not move God. If God were to choose between fake and late obed­i­ence, God would choose the lat­ter. God val­ues obed­i­ence over empty words and empty praises. These should be avoided.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 26^th Sunday of the year (A) is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 464–469. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author at this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
Or email me at postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or send an SMS to 08116100926, and I will get back to you. Thanks.