Midweek Faith Lift
March 29, 2023
“The Parable of the Two Sons- The Law of Action”
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Daily Reflection
March 21, 2023
The Martin County High School boys’ basketball team was in a close game when they heard live music playing for them. But they knew it wasn’t their school’s band, which couldn’t make it to the game. It was music from the band of a rival school, Pike County Central. “We just wanted to encourage them in a time when they needed it,” said musician Abigail Ratliss.
“If there is any encouragement in the Divine, any sharing in the Spirit, any love and compassion, be in full accord and of one mind. Make your joy complete.” - Philippians 2:1
Affirmative prayer: Today, I treasure all the people in my life, offering love and encouragement to my partners and competitors alike. My truest self is revealed in expressions of Oneness. I know the love and peace of Spirit in these holy relationships. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
What a great story to help us explore our parable for today. Can you imagine the reactions of the players and the fans when the RIVAL band started playing for their opponent! Wow, that would be something to experience! This is a powerful example of taking action that our parable explores today. It is “The Parable of the Two Sons,- The Law of Action.” This one was not familiar to me but I really like it: short, to the point and powerful! It is found in Matthew 21:28-31 and it reads like this:
The Parable of the Two Sons
28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.
Once again, Jesus uses the vineyard as the setting for this story and in our previous parable, workers were being directed to go work in the vineyard throughout the day. In this story, the father is directing his sons to also go work in the vineyard. And the responses are really curious, aren’t they? One of them says he won’t go and work and later he changes his mind and does go. The other says he will go and then does not. Seems like children were just as frustrating in first century Palestine as they are today! Giving lip service to your intentions and not following through are clearly not an acceptable pattern to follow!
The essential message of Jesus, our teacher is that what you do speaks more loudly than what you say. Even when you are reluctant to take action and say that you will not, what you choose to do is of critical importance. It matters more than your words. That is a powerful message! Anyone who has had to constantly follow after someone to make sure they have done what they said they were going to do understands the essential trust that Jesus is illustrating here. Sayin’ and doin’ are two very different things, and doing what you said you would do is how we build trust in our relationships with each other and how we cultivate inner trust, self-respect and integrity.
It also speaks to the truth that our actions tell the truth about our intentions. I love the quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” When I claim to believe one thing and my behavior does not match that intention, then, what I do is the measure of my integrity. I can try to justify my actions that are not in alignment with what I claim to believe, but my actions carry the day, always! That is another dimension of this words and actions dynamic. And it is not easy, especially when things are not very clear and frequently ambiguous! We have all been there!
Balancing our words and actions and understanding the relationship between them is a challenge for our human selves to master. When we pause and remember that we are all the characters in the story, then we also own up to the reality that we, too, have said we would do something and then when the crunch came, we did not follow through. We did not act and that always leaves us with some kind of growth edge, doesn’t it? What kept us from speaking up, from taking action on our own behalf? What kept us from taking action to stand up for what we say we believe is right? Those are the hard questions we face in finding this balance between what we say and what we do. How is it then, when all is said and done, more gets said than done? Right??
Well, there are as many reasons for not taking action as there are humans alive to explain them! It is so interesting as always, that Jesus poses the question to his listeners, “which son did the will of his father?” He notes their answer but he did not tell them they were right. Instead he gave them more information to ponder and he asked them to think about it for themselves; truly the mark of a master teacher. When he said, “Truly the prostitutes and tax collectors are going into the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of you,” that poses quite a challenge. How is it that these women and men who are called “sinners” who are clearly doing the wrong thing going into the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of everyone else present? That is a mystery for sure!
There are 5 Unity Principles, which highlight the means whereby we cultivate and deepen our consciousness. These include prayer and meditation and using words of affirmation and denial. The 5th Unity Principle is to take action, to literally “put feet to our prayers.” The Universe can only do for you what it can do through you. This principle does not say that you are to only take the correct action or the best action. It does not require perfection, which can frequently get in the way of progress! We take the next steps in faith after being grounded in prayer, but it may turn out to be the wrong step.
There is no message that says stop now, give up and don’t to anything more because you did or said the wrong thing. There is no message that says “make no mistakes!” Sometimes we want to know for sure how something is going to turn out before we do anything at all and we forget about the energy of forgiveness that allows us to be fully human and learn from our missteps. That is the point of Jesus mentioning the prostitutes and tax collectors. It is in our very human doing that we can begin to learn about our true divine nature. It is in all our mistakes, our blunders, our mindless remarks and actions that we can actually learn what truly serves the highest and best good for all.
How many blunders are there…..how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! Asking a colleague if she was pregnant again when she had not yet lost the baby weight from her last pregnancy, now that was a good one! Assuming I would never be selected for a panel and not even bothering to check and then missing the whole event because I was sure I wouldn’t be asked….another good one! Not asking for help when I really needed to which resulted in burn out, exhaustion and a lot of emotional/physical stress for everyone…that was another good lesson in not taking action, or taking the wrong action of doing it all solo! Avoiding conflict by not making the difficult phone call and thereby letting the misunderstanding grow in magnitude and intensity…..another good lesson! There are at least a hundred ways I keep my good from coming to me! Kind of like the reverse of that song, right!?
The point of this parable is that we grow, change and enter the “Kingdom of Heaven” or God-Consciousness when we engage our resistance, our “stuckness” and take action. We may be afraid, we may be in a rut, we may be full of self-righteousness about where we are, but none of that matters! We only grow in consciousness when we allow the full expression of our humanity to show the way and light the path for our divinity to also find expression. There is no other way, no shortcut, no easy by-pass. Prayer and meditation sustain us through the growth opportunity opening our hearts and minds to what the next right step is. It is up to us to cultivate an open will to actually take that next right step.
This is for sure a journey of faith for there are so many things that we have no way of knowing about with certainty. Dr. Michael says on p. 264 of The Hidden Parables that in taking this journey we are “light workers” or “miracle workers” and as such we know that,
….the fabric of reality does respond to thought, that reality is permeated with a “substance” that causes it to expand in response to thought…that proceeding with action, taking the leap of faith and moving ahead proactively, with faith, and humility and persistence, is more powerful than any words and can literally alter physical reality.
We remember to always invite God into each situation, that there is no limit to what God can do through us and that the energy of forgiveness is what allows us to keep learning and growing! When we remember that, then we too can play with gusto for the opposing team in our most challenging basketball game and celebrate the outcome no matter what because Love always wins…..always!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb