We are all familiar with masquerade balls. An event where the participants and dancers wear a mask to disguise their identity. Masquerade balls were very popular in the Elizabethan era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England, Masquerades were a means for nobles to seek and secure royal favor. And for the Queen to show off the wealth and cultural power of England to foreign rivals such as Spain and France.
Masquerade balls are one example of where masks were worn but throughout history and in many regions of the world, masks have and continue to be used in dance, religious ceremonies, cultural performances, and so on.
We may not think of ourselves as wearing masks, but we do present ourselves in different ways in different contexts. We are most relaxed and possibly closest to our true selves when at home with family or friends, and we are most formal in a professional or similar setting where we put on our work mask. This is all well and good – nice professional work attire while at work, fuzzy slippers when at home. But in today’s gospel reading Jesus does point out a problem - when the mask we may be wearing gets in the way of salvation itself.
In hearing the words of the gospel today we quickly understand what is being presenting to us: ‘It is not what we say that counts, but what we do.’ For the first son initially said no to his father when asked to work in the vineyard but later would do as he was asked. The second son said yes to his father’s instruction but ultimately would not go and work in the vineyard. Jesus asks the chief priests and elders, which son did his father’s will and clearly, it was the first son who initially had said no. But now Jesus uses this story to confront the elders and chief priests telling them that it was the tax collectors and the prostitutes who heard the words of John the Baptist and took them to heart thereby winning entry into the Kingdom. And it was the leaders who refused and rejected them. What was it that the prostitutes and tax collectors had that the leaders did not? Pope Francis would describe that first son as a sincere sinner and the second son as being corrupt. Though having all the appearances of a good son, even saying the right things, he remained corrupt, unable to respond to the words of the father. And it is to this son that Jesus compares the chief priests and elders to. They had constructed for themselves a public mask that could not be taken off because it had all the pretense of righteousness – a self-constructed image held onto with a tight grip, unable to be relinquished. This is the challenge of the corrupt person – to them repentance is so difficult, since to truly repent, the sense of righteousness, the notion of being good of being better than the other, must be put down. The mask hiding the true face must be taken off to expose all the wrinkles, the creases, warts, and all. Only then can a sinner repent for he now sees clearly his fault and so is open to the work of God upon his heart. This is exactly what the prostitutes and tax collectors had done turning aside from a life of sin. On the other hand, the elders and chief priests were too attached to their public mask of righteousness.
This parable is a warning for all of us who are Jesus’s disciples for we read, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father" (Mt 7:21). Outward religious identity is not enough if the transformation began in us in baptism is not pursued and lived out each day.
We are to take off any false masks of righteousness we may have constructed for ourselves, and we are to look at our true face in the mirror of the Gospel. We are to be just like those Tax Collectors and Prostitutes and to set aside what makes us like the Chief Priests and elders. We do this by examining our conscience, receiving the sacraments, and becoming humble just as Jesus was. We listen to what the Father has to say to us, and then we simply do it.
Deacon Peter Bujwid
Agnes Church, Arlington, MA.
