So here we have the story of two sons.  One says, “Yes”  and one says, “No.”  One says, “I’m going”  and one says, “No way.”  One obeys his father, and one ignores his father.  One goes, but not the one who said he would.  One doesn’t, but not the one who said he wouldn’t. 

I think what this story really needs is a third son - or maybe a daughter - someone who will get it right, right from the start; someone who will stick with it to the end.  Someone who, when the father says, “Go to work,” says “Yes, sir.”  And someone who, even after the father’s back is turned, follows through on the commitment made.  If the story just had someone like that in it, then we’d have a real hero, a role model, someone to praise and to imitate.

 But instead, this is all we have - two sons, one of whom can’t talk the talk, and one of whom can’t walk the walk; one of whom insults the father with his words, and one of whom insults the father with his deeds.  Neither one exactly who you’d want your own children to grow up to be like.

 But when push comes to shove, we know which one we’d pick as the lesser of two evils.  “Talk is cheap,” we say.  “Actions speak louder than words,” we say.  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” we say.  And so we’d have to agree that the chief priests and the elders got the answer right, when Jesus asked them, “Which of the two did the will of the father?”  The one who went, despite his words.  The one who got his hands dirty.  The one who, in the end, got the work done. 

It’s the story of two sons, neither one quite perfect - which means that we can probably understand both of them pretty well.  Let’s take the second one first.  He’s the one who said “Yes” when he was asked to go to work, but never quite got there.  What is it, do you suppose, that got in the way of his good intentions?  I mean, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, to assume that he wasn’t just outright lying to his father’s face when he said he would go out and do the work he’d been asked to do.  But still, something interrupted him on the way to being obedient.  Who knows, maybe he was even on his way out into the vineyard and something happened - his cell phone rang, and it was a friend calling, inviting him to be involved in something that sounded more important at the time, or at least a lot more fun.  And so he had to make a choice.  “The vineyard will still be there tomorrow,” he might have said to himself.  “One more day isn’t going to make that big a difference.  My father will understand.”  Or maybe it wasn’t even that calculated.  Maybe he meant to go and work but he just got busy doing other things.  You know how that goes.  The “To-do” list just keeps getting longer and longer - all good things and important, too; but the end of the day comes and that one thing we had promised we’d get to is still waiting to be done.  Yes, we know we said we would, but it just keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list. 

Or maybe this son just plum forgot.  It would be a very human thing to do.  So much calling for our attention.  So many people asking for our help.  Who could blame him if his promise to tend to the vines got lost in the shuffle? 

And then there’s this first son, the one who had the nerve to look his father straight in the eye and say “No!”  “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.”  “No!” he says; “No!”  Well, it’s an honest answer - I guess we have to give him points for that.  But it’s not the answer the father had wanted to hear.  And, as it turns out, it’s not the answer the son wanted to give.  Why he said No, we don’t know.  Maybe he’s just having a bad day, and it comes out here.  But as the morning wears on, that blunt refusal to do what he’s been asked keeps ringing in his head.  He said No - to his father!  To his father, who had done so much for him.  To his father, who had given him so much.  To his father, who loved him.  He said No.  And the word keeps coming back at him, bothering him, until he can’t think of anything else.  And so finally his No becomes and a Yes, and he finds himself out in the vineyard, work boots on, hedge clippers in hand, doing the very thing he’s been asked to do. 

From the point of view of the father, it’s not a hard question to answer.  Which of the sons did right?  Which son is the one who made him happy today?  When the father looks up from his own labors, and sees the son who said he’d help disappearing down the driveway in a cloud of dust; and then he looks down the row of vines and sees the son who said No to his face, working hard, the answer is an easy one.   

It’s not hard to get ourselves into this parable.  These two sons probably look pretty familiar to most of us - the good intentions that never quite materialize; the reluctant obedience that would rather be somewhere else.  I think I’ve seen these guys in the mirror every once in a while.  How about you? 

But the parable is a simple encouragement to us, to get our words and our deeds to match; to get our words and our deeds lined up with the will of God and the call of the Kingdom.  “Go out and work today,” God says.  “Go out and see if you can’t make ‘the vineyard’ a better place.”  You can say Yes or you can say No.  You can go out or you can find something else to do.  But you know that the Father has work for you.  Good work.  Important work.   

For one thing, there’s the good work of faith.  It sounds kind of funny, from a Lutheran point of view, to refer to the “good work” of faith.  After all, we know that faith is a gift, and not a work at all.  But this is really the first thing that this parable is about - faith; trust.  Jesus tells this little story about the two sons, but it’s really about the Pharisees and the tax collectors.  The one group said Yes with their lips, but their hearts were in a completely different place; the others seemed far from God, but when Jesus called to them, they came.  The Pharisees, by their words, seemed to be OK, but their action of rejecting the authority of Jesus put them on the wrong side.  The tax collectors and other ones called “sinners” seemed disobedient, to say the least, but when they were invited into a relationship of faith, their responded.  “Believe me,” Jesus said, and the Pharisees said they’d put their trust in God, but they never got around to it; and the tax collectors and sinners hardly even knew the right prayers to pray, the right words to say, but they came to Jesus’ side, and trusted him. 

This is the first work we’re called to do - simply trust in the message of Jesus, in the proclamation of the gospel, in the forgiveness of sins.  Funny how we can say we believe it, but then never quite get around to living like we do.  God loves us!  But we go around some times like we haven’t got a friend in the world;  God forgives us!  But we hang on to our guilt and shame like some family treasure.  God has an abundant life for us!  But we seem like we’d just as soon muddle through on our own.  The parable is an encouragement - when God says you are loved and forgiven, say Yes!  Believe it, and then live like it. 

I think there’s something here about worship, too, and stewardship.  Our relationship with God is the most important thing in our life - at least, so we say.  And here are some places for us to show it’s true:  in our worship and in our stewardship.  Our faithfulness in our gathering together, to honor God with this hour of time; our faithfulness in our giving, to honor God with our talents and our treasure; these are ways we put our “Yes” of faith into action.  It’s easy to say God has first place in our lives.  But what do our actions reveal?

 How else do we put our words into actions?  Really, in everything we do:  In the way we relate to one another in this congregation, with love and respect; in the way we’re present in this community and world, serving the needs of others with compassion and generosity; in the way we treat family members, and friends, and strangers, with gentleness and care; in the way we receive every gift of God, with gratitude and joy.   

We can be those who talk a good talk, and that’s as far as it goes.  We probably all know people like that, who say all the right words, but when it’s time to act, they’ve somehow gone missing.  Or we could be like those reluctant workers, who would rather say No but are bothered by guilt and a joyless sense of obligation.  Or we could rewrite this little parable with a real hero, a true role model, a daughter to make her father proud; a son who is called into action and responds with an enthusiastic Yes! - children of the father who can’t hardly wait to get up and get going. 

There’s work in God’s vineyard to be done - faith to embrace, time and talents and treasure to give, love to share.  There’s work to be done.  What do you say? 

Say Yes!  With your lips, and with your lives. 

Amen.