Stories about two sons abound in the Hebrew Bible. Cain and Abel; Ishmael and Isaac; Esau and Jacob. I can imagine Jesus’s original audience thinking of these pairs when he told the parable of the Two Sons. The Gospel of Matthew used this parable to address the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time (about 60 years after Jesus's ministry). For Matthew's Jesus, the tax collectors and the prostitutes were the older son. The members of the powerful religious elite were the younger.
The late Rev. Alberto Palma Velunta Jr., Tatay, has two sons, my older brother and I. Thus, the parable of the two sons is quite a personal one for me.
The father asks both his sons to help out in the vineyard. The older said no but afterward changed his mind and went. The younger said yes but afterward changed his mind and did not go.
During Jesus’s time, the family--the basic unit of Roman society--was run and owned by the father. Augustus, Roman Emperor, was Father of All Fathers. Fathers had the power of life and death over everyone in his family. Everyone was the father's property.
The two sons in the parable both disobey their father: the older by word, the younger by deed. We know that fathers, back then, killed children who disobeyed them. Tragically, there are still fathers today who kill their children for disobeying them; fathers who treat their children as property.
But not the father in the parable. No one is thrown into places where there is darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. No one is banished. No one is punished. No one is treated as property.
The father is probably like Joseph, Jesus's father. Like Tatay. Like your father. I don't remember the number of times my brother and I have disobeyed Tatay. Growing up, I'm sure Jesus and his siblings did too. I don't remember how many times my own two sons have disobeyed me and their mother.
And, for me, that's the point of the parable. Parents do not remember their children's disobedience because they do not count them. Children are people, not property. And people change. I'm sure there were more times the sons disobeyed their father if we continued the story. But I want to believe that eventually they got to the point where they did not have to be told what to do. Because in our family, there did come a time that Tatay or Nanay did not need to tell us what to do. Or what not to do.
I'm sure this is true in your own families too.
P.S. Do note that in Matthew's interpretation of Jesus's parable, everyone--yes, everyone will be going to the Kingdom of God. Tax collectors and prostitutes will just go ahead of everyone else. After all, the sons in the parable share the same father. Created in the image of God, we all share the same parent too.
