Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
In today's Gospel taken from Matthew 21, Jesus is in the temple speaking to the chief priests and the elders who just denied knowing whether John the Baptist's ministry was from God or not. In their refusal to answer a direct question about John, Jesus approaches them indirectly with a parable.
He speaks of two sons of a vineyard owner. The owner is God Himself. The vineyard is an allegory for doing works of righteousness. It stands for being faithful to God and sharing in His saving work.
Remember, Jesus calls Himself the vine of the vineyard. “I am the true vine,” He says, “and My Father is the vine dresser” John 15:1. “I am the vine, you are the branches,” as He says a little later on in John 15:5.
In antiquity, vineyards were considered a sign of divine blessing, and their absence was a metaphor for divine judgment. We see that, for example, in Jeremiah 35.
So if Jesus is the vine of the vineyard, then He’s saying that divine blessing comes from only one source. It comes from Him. And from Him, the vine, it comes to us, the branches, and through us comes the fruit of the vine, which is the wine which gladdens men's hearts, as the psalmist says in Psalm 104:15.
The wine is a symbol of all the spiritual blessings that come to the world through the Church. So we are an integral part of Jesus’s redeeming work.
The owner of the vineyard in today's parable, the Father, tells both sons, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today” (Matthew 21:28). Every waking day, the Lord invites us to work in His vineyard. He calls us to unite our will to His will. He calls us to be faithful to the commandments, to practice virtue instead of falling into vice. He calls us to repentance and sorrow for our sins. He calls us, as Jesus says, to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him (Luke 9:23). Every morning and every day He says, “Son, daughter, go and work in My vineyard today.”  The first son in the parable initially refuses the request. “I will not go,” he says. He refuses the blessing of working in the vineyard. But then some time passes, and he has a change of mind and a change of heart, and he does what the Father asks him to do.
This son refers to sinners who at first say no to God, who reject Him, reject His authority, but who later on in the day—meaning later on in life—they repent. And Jesus is specifically here talking about the Jews who repented of their sins because of the preaching of John the Baptist. For example, tax collectors and prostitutes whom the religious leaders thought were the worst of the worst kind of people.
The second son in the parable symbolizes the chief priests and the elders who honor God with their lips, but their heart is far from Him, as the prophet says in Isaiah 29:13. Their actions don't line up with their words, and they rejected the preaching of the Baptist, unlike the tax collectors and prostitutes who actually welcomed John's admonitions.
Notice how the second son is even respectful in what he says to his father. He calls him sir, which is kurios in Greek, word for Lord. He says, “I go, sir.” But he doesn't go. He doesn't do what the Father asks of him.
Jesus says in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I tell you?” Good question, tough question.
To put it in contemporary terms, the second son represents those consecrated to God who give lip service to the faith, but who really don't believe what the Church believes or really don't put into practice what Christ tells us to do. We can say that the second son also represents those who superficially call themselves believers, but their hearts are not truly with the Lord. They don't have repentant hearts. They basically think and act according to the standards of the world, not according to God's standards.
The irony of the parable is that serious sinners—so those who are symbolized in the first son—they were open to the message of repentance. They actually welcomed the fiery preaching of John the Baptist and the no-nonsense preaching of Jesus as well. But those who you would expect to respond to God's call—in this case the religious leaders, those who were seemingly closest to God—they actually turned away from Him. They rejected the precursor to the Messiah, John the Baptist, and then they rejected the Messiah Himself.
Two things to carry away from this parable. One is to not be afraid to share the Gospel with big sinners. With big sinners sometimes come big surprises and big conversions too. Don't assume that they don't want to hear it. Your words are what may spark a conversion for them.
Second thing, let's take up the Lord's call every morning to work in His vineyard. The vineyard’s not just the world out there. It's first of all in here. It's in my soul where the Lord wants us to work with Him to put in order our internal disorder, to be patient with ourselves, with others, to practice virtue, to humble our hearts instead of being proud, to be charitable and merciful in how we think, speak, and act and respond, and to not be self-righteous, not be accusatory, attacking.
And then the vineyard is our interaction with others each day, and our daily activities in the world and about the world. Our Lord wants us to offer up ourselves and our actions to Him each day, and He wants us also to learn to interact with others in a way that brings honor to His name, an honor to the name of being Christian, honor to the name of being Catholic.
So try to keep that verse in mind today: “Son or daughter, go and work in My vineyard today” (Matthew 21:28). And may Our Lady help us to be faithful branches on the vine that is her Son, and may she also help us to take to heart God's call to repentance for us and His call to continual conversion in this Advent season.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.