Lord's Day Reflection: Actions speak louder than words

By Fr. Edmund Power, OSB

Who is Jesus addressing in today’s Gospel? It’s neither his disciples nor the general crowds: it’s those who are the experts, the chief priests and the elders of the people.

Over the course of the next several Sundays, Jesus is in Jerusalem; although he has entered the city to the cries of Hosanna, his sophisticated urban interlocutors are fundamentally hostile to him. He starts today by asking them a question: What do you think?

The parables he tells are always pointed: the application is thinly veiled, challenging and rarely diplomatic. Being told, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you is scarcely calculated to win friends among the ruling classes.

This indifference of the Lord towards social advantage, his radical lack of opportunism or of having an eye to the main chance are important elements of his integrity. How many of us, and not just politicians, act with such purity of motivation?

The parable itself is an elaboration of the old saying “actions speak louder than words”. We have three protagonists: a father who has property and his two sons.

The obvious meaning of the parable is that those who pay lip service to the law (the chief priests and the elders) but fail to observe its core are worse than those who can’t observe the law’s letter (the tax collectors and the harlots) but who somehow respect it better.

The question of Jesus, What do you think?, prompts me to reflect on the story in another way. What can we learn about this family of three persons, and how is it relevant to us today?

The father addresses the two sons in the same way, with a word meaning “child”, that expresses their relationship with some tenderness. The first son apparently has little fear of the father. He is honest, direct, even brusque, but in the context of the time of Jesus, such a direct refusal would be unusual. The other son is more diplomatic and seemingly cooperative in his speech. What we see in practice, however, is the respectful agreement of the first and the cunning refusal of the second.

Clearly, actions speak louder than words, and even the hostile listeners accept the fact. But their ability to view self-critically their own conduct is sadly lacking.

Hypocrisy can be cynically conscious or insensitively unaware. Whenever the opponents of Jesus appear, whether chief priests, elders, scribes or pharisees, we should ask ourselves, how far am I tinged with their colours?

Actions may speak louder than words and the first brother may be more impressive than the second, nevertheless there is a third option and indeed a fourth.

The third option is where the person says yes and does it, a coincidence of word and action. This is what God is like: perfect coherence – his Word is given and it brings about what it promises. This is what we strive for as followers of Jesus.

The fourth option is where you say no and mean it. Here you would at least have the somewhat paltry coherence of an ungenerous word allied to an ungenerous (in)action.

There may, of course, be good reasons for evincing this sort of coherence (tiredness, for example) but it is hardly an expression of the ardent charity and the dutiful respect which is part of the fabric of the Christian calling.

Today’s parable, from the Temple in Jerusalem, challenges us across the centuries to live with generosity and integrity and to have the courage to see ourselves with the eyes of truth.