There is a choice to be made

One could say that the overarching theme which runs through the whole of the New Testament is an answer to the question: Who do you say I am? We have it clearly enunciated by Jesus himself when he gathers his disciples together at Caesarea Phillipi and puts it quite bluntly to them. The rest of the gospels and the remaining books of the NT are in one sense a pathway directing our minds and hearts towards answering the question for ourselves. In other words, it all comes down to a choice. He is who he says he is, or he isn’t. The answer we give is the hinge on which our Christian life turns.

In the gospel today, the father in the story essentially asks his two sons that very same question. Will you go and work in my vineyard, is as we know very well, a euphemism to ask if we are prepared to live out the Christian life in the light of the teachings and deeds of Jesus Christ, our saviour and redeemer. To profess such a belief and to live it is not an easy thing to do, especially in our modern society where so much of the ambiance in which we live no longer appreciates or relates to the gospel message. Think of all the alternative lifestyle choices and wellbeing manuals that are on offer today and you realise how saturated the marketplace is with new age thinking. But that isn’t what the gospel is about. Jesus isn’t just one ethical teacher amongst so many others, and the followers of Jesus knew this. You only have to read that passage from today’s second reading to grasp the immensity of what is on offer. Those words were written down barley a decade and a half after the experience of the cross and Easter. They express a clear understanding of Jesus, of who he was, and of what he had achieved. This shows how, from the earliest years of the Church, Jesus was viewed as being vital and integral to what it means to be human. In our complex and diverse society, I believe his place in the heart of it remains central to its right ordering.

We all must ponder the question and make our choice and we will perhaps prevaricate and toss and turn over our answer, because that’s human nature at work. What we need to be able to articulate, is why we say “yes” to the question the father in today’s gospel asks, and why we continue to say “yes” even if life would be much easier if we said “no”. We say “yes” because deep down, in our hearts, we all recognise the truth of the gospel and find in that truth the very purpose of what we are to be; workers in the vineyard as disciples of Jesus Christ, true God and true man.