This coming Sunday is the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 31 Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

It seems that the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you – at least the chief priests and elders are entering.  But then there is a question how much is implied here by proagō, “go before.” There are a couple of possibilities:

• At a minimum it means a reversal of priorities, with the chief priests and elders admitted but only after the sinners have been welcomed in. In that case they must endure the humiliation of being led, “shown the way” (a possible sense of proagō; cf. 2:9) by those they have regarded as beyond the pale.
• But in 8:11–12 the fate of the “sons of the kingdom” was not merely demotion but exclusion, and while proagō normally implies that the other person will follow (cf. 14:22; 26:32; 28:7), in the wider context of Matthean statements about the future for Israel’s leaders many interpreters conclude that it implies here “get there first” and so “take the place of.” In the parable of 25:1–12 those who go in first enjoy the feast, but the door is shut before the others get there. And in 7:21–23 the fate of those who do not “do the will of my Father” is to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.
• Exclusion is not explicit here, but it would be hazardous to argue from the choice of the verb proagō that here there is, unusually, hope for the ultimate salvation of those who have rejected God’s call—unless, of course, like the good son, they subsequently change their minds, and respond to the preaching of righteousness as the tax collectors and prostitutes have done.

32 When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him. 

One should not forget that this parable is preceded by Jesus’ question about John the Baptist and from where came his (authority) to baptize. It is a remarkable testimony to the high view of John the Baptist in this gospel that whereas previously Jesus had condemned those who refused to believe and respond to his own message (11:20–24; 12:41–42), he now places rejection of John’s ministry on the same level.

Those previous denunciations were of unbelief in Galilee, where Jesus had himself been active. Our narrative is located in Judea, where according to this gospel’s story-line he has not previously been heard, and so he speaks now of John as his southern predecessor and “colleague”, to whose call Jerusalem had responded before he himself took up the mission in the north (3:5).

The repentance and its appropriate “fruit” which John demanded according to 3:7–10 matches closely the Matthean sense of “righteousness.” John came to show people how to live according to God’s will, and those who “believed” him repented and were baptized. They included especially the less respectable members of Jewish society, for whom repentance was an obvious need, and perhaps for that reason the chief priests and elders saw themselves as not in need of such “righteousness” as it was something they assumed they already possessed. The obvious and enthusiastic response of the common people should have caused them to change their mind later.

If they refused John’s call because they are unable to discern that John was “of God,” then it is not likely that they will attribute heavenly authority to Jesus.

Image credit: Parable of the Two Sons, Andrei Monorov, 2012 | CC BY SA 4.0 |