The Son Who Said “No” and Went: Ezek 18, Philippians 2, and the Parable of the Two Sons in Mt 21

By Prof. Dr. Daniel C. Afonso · Updated 20 October 2026

Semetipsum exinanivit, formam servi accipiens.
Phil 2:7

“The parable of the two sons” (Mt 21:28-32): the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A brings together three texts around the authenticity of our response to God: not the promise but the action, not the appearance but the reality. Ezek 18:25-28 teaches that what counts before God is each person’s present state: the wicked man who turns back shall live, the righteous man who turns away shall die.

Phil 2:1-11 presents the hymn of the kenosis: Christ did not cling to equality with God, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and humbled Himself unto death on a cross. Mt 21:28-32 tells the parable of the two sons: the one who said no and went, and the one who said yes and did not go. The three texts converge: the response to God is measured by deeds, and the supreme model of the authentic response is Christ Himself, who, being God, emptied Himself to do the will of the Father.

I. The First Reading: Ezek 18:25-28

The house of Israel complains: “The way of the Lord is not right” (Ezek 18:25). God turns the complaint around: “Hear now, house of Israel: is it my way that is not right, or is it your ways that are not right?” (v. 25). And the principle that unsettles them: God judges each one by his present state, not by his past. “If the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and dies because of it, he dies because of the iniquity he has committed” (v. 26).

“But if the wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has done and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life” (v. 27). A past of sin does not condemn if there is conversion. A past of virtue does not save if there is apostasy. God does not judge trajectories: He judges positions. What counts is where one is, not where one has been. This statement is at once demanding and liberating: demanding because it does not allow one to rest on past merit, liberating because it does not allow one to despair over past sin.

II. The Second Reading: Phil 2:1-11

Paul calls for unity in humility: “Do nothing out of rivalry or vanity. Rather, in humility, let each regard the others as superior to himself. Let each look not only to his own interests but also to those of others” (Phil 2:3-4). And the foundation: “Have in you the same mind that was in Christ Jesus” (v. 5). The hymn that follows is one of the densest texts of the New Testament: Christ “did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men” (vv. 6-7).

And He descended even further: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (v. 8). The kenosis is not an accidental diminishment: it is the supreme act of the love that keeps nothing for itself. And the inversion of Ezek 18 in a Trinitarian key: the exaltation that follows is the fruit of the humiliation: “Therefore God highly exalted him” (v. 9). The Son who emptied Himself is the Son who was exalted.

III. The Gospel: Mt 21:28-32

Jesus asks: “What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said: Son, go and work in the vineyard today. He answered: I will not. But afterward, having repented, he went. He went to the second and said the same. He answered: I go, sir. But he did not go. Which of the two did the will of the father?” (Mt 21:28-31). The answer is obvious: the first. And the surprising application: “Truly I say to you: the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going ahead of you into the Kingdom of God. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him. The tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him” (vv. 31-32).

The chief priests and the elders are the second son: they said yes (to the Law, to the temple, to tradition) but did not do it. The tax collectors and the prostitutes are the first son: they said no (through their lives far from God) but, on hearing John, they repented and went. Ezek 18 sheds light on the parable: what counts is not the past of sin but present conversion. The hymn of Phil 2 sheds even more light on it: the supreme model of the one who “went” is Christ, who emptied Himself of everything to do the will of the Father.

IV. Mary and the Kenosis of the Yes

The hymn of Phil 2 describes Christ as the one who “did not cling to” equality with God and emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. Mariology has seen in Mary the creature who came closest to this kenosis: the handmaid of the Lord who said “let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38) is the one who kept nothing of herself back in order to make room for the Son of God. The Annunciation is the moment when the form of a handmaid becomes the receptacle of the eternal: Mary’s self-emptying is what makes possible Christ’s self-emptying in history.

In the parable of the two sons, Mary is the child who said yes and went: not only at the Annunciation, but in Bethlehem, in Egypt, in the temple, at Cana, on Calvary, in the Upper Room. There was never any contradiction between word and deed, between promise and presence. And Ezek 18 confirms it: what counts is the present state.

Mary, who never turned away from the righteousness she received from the beginning, is the model of what God wants: not the perfect trajectory without failures (which only she knew fully), but the disposition to always begin again when we turn away, to always go when the Father calls.

To read the readings: Ezekiel 18, Philippians 2, and Matthew 21, in the Ave-Maria Bible.