Two brothers

Luckily I’m not a priest. If I were, I’d be obliged to preach on the gospel and the epistle of the day. The first Sunday of the Triodion, the Holy Church reads the gospel of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14), and the epistle is from holy apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy (3:10-15), which really spoke to me, strengthening me for the battle that lies ahead. Since I’m not a priest, just an ordinary Christian, and I don’t preach, but blog, I can write on whatever topic I like. I read somewhere that ‘Christian blogs are not catechisms,’ which is good to keep in mind, both for the writer and the reader. They’re just open journals that some people like to keep. Writing often helps you see your thoughts and experiences ‘from the outside.’ That’s probably one reason why I started writing as a teenager and why I still blog.

What’s always on my mind is the mystery of obedience, as Christ speaks about it in his parable of the two sons, one obedient in word but not in deed, the other disobedient in word but not in deed.

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
Matthew 21:28-32

We’ve heard this parable so many times, and we think we know what it means, that we’ve almost stopped thinking about it at all. ‘Right, tax collectors and prostitutes get into the kingdom of God before religious hypocrites. Sure, of course they do. We know that!’ Then we forget the parable as quickly as we heard it. Why? Because it simply doesn’t have anything to do with us. We’re not tax collectors or prostitutes, and we’re not religious hypocrites. We’re just ordinary folks, whatever that means, and so obviously since we’ve listened to the story at all, it must mean we’re Christians, and nice people, so we’ve got nothing to worry about.

This reading ourselves always in the favorable position and somebody else in the unfavorable, well, what can I say? It’s natural and we all do it, but being a follower of Jesus is supposed to be, by definition, supernatural. We begin to suspect that the two groups of people may not always coincide.

Think of it in modern terms, in personal terms even. Forget the tax collector and prostitute. Think about the son who has dropped out of church. He thinks it’s just too dumb for words. He finds ordinary life more exciting. You’ve tried your hardest to show him by teaching and by example that life in Christ is worth living, that it too can be exciting, not mere religious drudgery. He sees through your explanations and even your examples when you’re putting them on for show. He keeps you honest, but he still doesn’t ‘accept the Lord.’ Instead, he seems indifferent, yet you notice strange things about him as he is growing up.

He has a ‘religious brother’ who wears a cross and involves himself in churchly activities, with great gusto even, but who taunts him and makes him feel like he’s the dumb one, the reject, the retard, the one who’s too dumb to know how cool it is to be an ‘Orthodox youth.’ As they’re growing up together (and he’s the younger), they fight as brothers often do. The ‘good’ brother fights to kill and even breaks the arm of this ‘bad’ brother, because the ‘bad’ brother knows when to stop, he instinctively knows right from wrong, and without making a big deal of it, he chooses the right. (The ‘good’ brother, however, doesn’t.)

Gradually a split develops between them and grows worse year by year. The ‘good’ brother has kept up his church attendance and activities while the ‘bad’ brother has gone off and found new friends. He only shows up on Christmas and Pascha to please his parents, but he has a quiet respect for the religion that he outwardly rejects. He won’t speak against the Church even though he won’t be caught dead there anymore. The animosity between the two brothers persists. The ‘bad’ brother wants to be friends, but the ‘good’ brother continues to put him down, insult and mock him… and goes to church.

We haven’t seen the end of this story, because it’s still happening, but it’s a good example in real life of what Christ was talking about in the parable. You don’t have to be a tax collector or a prostitute to be considered bad. All you have to do is stay away from church, for whatever reasons. The irony is exactly the irony of the two brothers in the parable. The ‘good’ brother pretends to be obedient, but he doesn’t do what the father asks him to; the ‘bad’ brother, though he is disobedient to his father, goes and does his bidding on his own. This truly is a great mystery.

How is this possible? Why is it possible? Yet we see this again and again. Christ knows we would, and so He tells us all about it, and asks us to stand up for what’s right, not just for appearances. Does this mean that the ‘bad’ brother isn’t wrong to have abandoned church and religion, even though he is led by reason and perhaps by a hidden seeking for righteousness to choose the right as he does? No, it doesn’t mean that at all, but Christ’s own words have removed him forever from our competence to judge him, for when we presume to do so, we fall into the role of the ‘good’ brother who appears obedient but actually is not.

It is impossible to trick the living God! He knows our every move and motive, and yet we continue to say ‘Yes’ to Him formally, and then, when we think He’s not looking, we do what we want, not what He wants. As the psalmist declares,

To Yahweh you say, ‘My Lord,
You are my fortune, nothing else but You,’
yet to those pagan deities in the land,
‘My princes, all my pleasure is in you.’
Psalm 16

Lord, have mercy on us, since we do not know ourselves, we do not know whether or not we are obedient or only pretending, since sin blinds us to its presence in us, and we are often mistaken and led astray, judging our brother when in fact, it is we who have lost our way. Grant us to meekly bow down before You in Your Holy Church, side by side with sinners just as bad as ourselves, and not to presume to cast out by our unthinking words and actions those for whom Your Son has given His life; and bring us all, the good and the bad, to repentance, so that we may be found worthy of Your eternal Kingdom. Glory to You, O Lord! Glory to You!