The Thursday after the Sixth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 31, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 21:28-32 (NKJV)
21:28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to Him, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.”
Devotion
Good fathers love their sons and desire their sons to love them. This is why our heavenly Father begins the Commandments not with “Thou shalt fear the Lord Thy God,” but with “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God.” He desires us to love Him just as He loves us. But His children—His sons—are obstinate and unloving. We, His children, daily break and transgress His Commandments. We are like the two sons in the parable our Lord tells today. We either refuse to go at first, and then change our mind, or we say that we will go, and then do not.
Our Lord Jesus would have us be like the tax collectors and harlots who heard the preaching of St. John the Baptist, repented of their sins, and sought to live lives worthy of repentance. The scribes and Pharisees, with all their “righteousness”, refused to hear and believe the preaching of John. He was sent to them, to preach to them, to prepare the way of the Lord for them, and they would not hear him. They had hearts of stone and refused to repent, even after seeing others who were in a worse state repent and believe.
Let us love our heavenly Father, who loves us, by daily humbling ourselves and confessing our sins, so that we may turn from ourselves and cling in faith to the Lord Jesus, from whom all righteousness flows.
Collect: Lord of all power and might, Who art the Author and Giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
