THE PARABLE OF THE TWO SONS AND THEIR FATHER

Stories about two sons abound in the Hebrew Bible: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. When Jesus told this parable, his listeners probably thought of these familiar pairs. Matthew, writing decades after Jesus, used the story to challenge the hypocrisy of the religious elite. For Matthew’s Jesus, the tax collectors and prostitutes were the older son. The religious leaders were the younger.

The late Rev. Alberto Palma Velunta Jr., Tatay, had two sons: my older brother and me. So this parable is personal.

The father asks both sons to work in the vineyard. One says no but eventually goes. The other says yes but does not.

In Jesus’s world, the father owned the household. His authority was absolute. But the father in the parable does not punish either son. No banishment. No darkness, weeping, or gnashing of teeth. No one is treated as property.

Maybe this parable is not really about obedience. Maybe this parable is about parents who do not give up on their children.  Like Tatay Bert. Like Nanay Cely. Like your fathers and mothers.

Parents do not keep a ledger of their children’s disobedience. They know that children are people, not property. People change. Eventually, we learn to do what is right without being told.

And perhaps that is the point: the Kin-dom of God is not a reward for perfect obedience. It is a home where all of us belong.

The tax collectors and prostitutes will enter ahead of us. Not because they are more deserving, but because they have learned to say yes to grace.

After all, the sons in the parable shared the same father. All will enter the Kin-dom of God. You and I, we all share the same Creator. We will eventually all learn to say yes to grace.

*Photo: Rev. Alberto P. Velunta at 28 with his two sons.

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