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Why Work to Change the World?

By Matt Skinner
"God might be there, out among the vines." Photo via mythja/Shutterstock.
Sep 22, 2014
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It’s hard to follow through on our commitments. It’s hard to do what we know to be right.

We don’t need Jesus to remind us of all that. Most of us figured it out easily enough on our own.

What, then, does Jesus contribute to our understanding of what a well-lived life looks like? Can he help people of faith be agents of change, people who look at our fouled-up world and make differences that will benefit other people and will give voice to God’s desire for human flourishing?

A Parable and Its Surrounding Story

When we read about a parable Jesus tells concerning two sons -- one who verbally refuses his father’s command to work in a vineyard but later changes his mind and obeys, and another who agrees to toil in the vineyard but does not keep his promise -- we might be tempted to moralize it. We may assume its message is simply “Actions speak louder than words!” or “Don’t be such a hypocrite!” or “Obey your father!”

How boring.

How ineffective.

More serious: how inattentive to what’s going on at this point in the Gospel according to Matthew.

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"God might be there, out among the vines." Photo via mythja/Shutterstock.
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