I sometimes wonder how many people have been kept at a distance from Jesus because of the people who claim to follow Him.
Maybe they’ve known someone who talked a good Christian game but lived very differently, or they’ve watched hypocrisy in a church. Maybe Christianity has simply felt like a place filled with people who have their lives together, while theirs doesn’t look anything like that.
I understand why those things can create some distance. But there’s something about the Parable of the Two Sons that I think is worth noticing.
Jesus sees through appearances too.
The Parable of the Two Sons
Jesus told a simple story about a father who had two sons. He went to the first and told him to work in the vineyard. The son refused, but later he changed his mind and went.
The father gave the same instruction to the second son. His answer sounded much better. He said he would go, but he didn’t.
Jesus then asked a straightforward question: Which son actually did what the father wanted?
The answer was the first.
Jesus was speaking to the chief priests and elders, and what He said next had to be difficult for them to hear:
“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
— Matthew 21:31 (NIV)
These were people who knew the religious language and knew Scripture. From the outside, they were the people you might expect to recognize what God was doing.
But Jesus saw something deeper, and that’s one of the things I find so compelling about Him.
Jesus Wasn’t Fooled by Religious Appearances
I’ve heard people point to hypocrisy as one reason they want nothing to do with church or Christianity. I can’t really argue that hypocrisy doesn’t exist. It does. Christians are human beings, and sometimes there’s a pretty big gap between what we say and how we live.
But I think there’s something important that can get lost in that conversation: Jesus wasn’t fooled by it either.
He didn’t look at the second son and give him credit because he knew the right answer. He didn’t confuse religious words with a heart turned toward God. Jesus saw right through it.
That matters to me because Christianity isn’t supposed to be a performance. I’ve never wanted my prayers to sound impressive or my faith to become a collection of Christian phrases that I’m supposed to say. I just want it to be real.
And the longer I follow Jesus, the more convinced I am that He’s interested in what’s real too.
His First Answer Was No
Maybe that’s why the first son gets my attention.
If we stopped the story after his first answer, it would be easy to decide who he was. He was the rebellious son, the one who rejected his father. The other son certainly sounded better.
Except Jesus didn’t stop the story there. The first son changed his mind, and that leaves a lot of room for hope.
I’ve known people who want nothing to do with Christianity. Some have had bad experiences with churches or Christians. Others simply don’t believe. Some may have spent most of their lives saying no to God.
I’m grateful to belong to Christ, but I’ve never understood that as something that puts me above the person who doesn’t know Him. If anything, I feel the opposite. When someone wants nothing to do with Jesus, I don’t look at him and think, I have something you don’t. I find myself hoping his story isn’t finished.
Jesus didn’t pretend the first son’s no didn’t matter. But He also didn’t tell the story as though that answer had to define the rest of his life.
He changed his mind.
And that makes me wonder how many people I’ve encountered whose story with God is still being written.
What Jesus Saw That Others Didn’t
There’s something Jesus does over and over again that still makes me stop and think. He flips the script.
We tend to notice who looks religious and who doesn’t, who seems to have his life together and who obviously doesn’t, who belongs in church and who might feel uncomfortable just walking through the door.
Jesus keeps looking deeper than that.
In this story, the son who sounded obedient wasn’t. The son who openly refused his father was ultimately the one who responded. That doesn’t make his original refusal good, and Jesus isn’t saying that it didn’t matter.
But the second son’s respectful words didn’t mean very much when there was nothing behind them either.
That’s a distinction I think is easy to miss. Jesus isn’t asking us to become better at looking religious. He’s pointing to something real happening in the heart.
If Church Has Made You Wary of Jesus
I can understand someone looking at Christians and thinking, If that’s Christianity, I’m not interested.
Sometimes Christians have given people legitimate reasons to be skeptical of what they see. But I also think there’s another side to this that’s worth being honest about.
Sometimes hypocrisy can become an excuse.
It’s easier to point to the Christian who doesn’t live what he claims to believe than it is to seriously consider Jesus for ourselves. If I really look at Jesus and take His words seriously, I may have to confront some things in my own life that I’d rather leave alone.
I can’t know another person’s heart, so I’m careful about making that judgment for someone else. But I think it’s a fair question for each of us to ask ourselves:
Is someone else’s hypocrisy really what’s keeping me from Jesus—or has it become a reason not to look too closely at Him?
Dont Put Your Faith In People
There’s something else I’ve learned along the way: don’t put your faith in people.
That includes me.
We’re going to get things wrong and disappoint each other. Christians will sometimes fail badly at representing the One we claim to follow. Becoming a Christian didn’t mean I suddenly became perfect. Far from it.
For me, it meant understanding that I could never make myself right with God in the first place. I’m made right because of what Christ did for me and the grace He gives freely.
I still get things wrong. The difference is that I can recognize those things for what they are, bring them before God, and turn from them rather than pretending they aren’t there.
That’s another reason I don’t want someone building his opinion of Jesus around me—or around any other Christian.
A Christian isn’t Christ.
So if another person’s hypocrisy has made Jesus difficult to see, maybe it’s worth separating the two. Look at Jesus Himself. Look at what He actually said, how He treated people, what He exposed, what He forgave, and ultimately what He did on the cross.
People will fail. Jesus is the One I’m putting my faith in.
I’ve written before about why I believe our faith has to rest in Jesus Christ rather than in people or anything else that can change. If you’d like to go a little deeper into that thought, you can read Don’t Put Your Faith in Something That Can Change Tomorrow.
The Person Standing Outside
There’s another person I think about when I read this story: the person standing outside.
Maybe church feels uncomfortable. Maybe he thinks everyone inside has something figured out that he doesn’t. Maybe there are things in his past that make him wonder what he’d even be doing there. Or maybe he’s simply spent a long time saying no.
I don’t know what’s happening inside another person’s heart, and I’ve lived long enough to know that I shouldn’t pretend I do. That’s part of what I find hopeful about this little story.
The first son had already given his answer: no.
And then something changed.
Jesus doesn’t give us a long explanation of everything that happened inside him. We’re simply told that he changed his mind and went. I like that Jesus leaves it that simple.
Sometimes we decide what another person’s relationship with God is going to be based on where that person stands today. Jesus’ story reminds me not to do that.
His No Wasn’t the End
I believe our response to Jesus matters. I also believe there are real consequences to rejecting Him. That’s precisely why I hope someone who doesn’t know Christ eventually does.
Because I want him to know Christ and the grace that’s available to him too.
And the Parable of the Two Sons gives me a simple reason not to assume someone’s present answer will always be his answer.
For a while, the first son’s answer really was no.
But it wasn’t his final answer.
Maybe there are people around us right now whose answer is still no. I don’t know how their stories will end.
But I know this much from the story Jesus told:
A no doesn’t have to be the final answer.
More Straight Talk on Faith
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