In some ways, life is like running a race. What matters is not how you start, but rather how you finish.

 

A person can stumble when the starting gun is fired but recover his footing and concentration. With determination, that person can catch up with the other runners and even pass them as he races toward the finish line.

 

Another runner may get off to a wonderful start and sprint ahead of the competition. However, that runner’s energy may drain as the race continues, his muscles may cramp, or he may become distracted and lose focus. As that happens, he begins to see his competitors dash pass him.

 

The winner of that race will not be the runner who had the best start, but rather the runner who had the best finish.

 

What is true in racing is also true in our spiritual lives. What is of primary importance is the place where we are at the end of our lives.

 

In our First Reading (Ezekiel 18:25-28), the Lord tells us that if a virtuous person turns away from virtue to commit inequity, he will be punished. “It is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.”

 

However, if a wicked person changes his ways and turns away from the sins he has committed, “he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

 

A person’s fate is determined by how they are found at the end of their lives.

 

Jesus makes that same point in Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 21:28-32). There Jesus tells a parable about two sons who are told by their father to go and work in the family vineyard.

 

The first son refuses his father’s request. He defiantly replies, “I will not go.” The second son obediently says, “Yes sir.”

 

However, the first son, who certainly started off badly in the eyes of his father, changes his mind, and does what his father asked. He goes and works in the vineyard.

 

The second son who said the right thing at the start also has a change of mind, but in a negative way. He never shows up at the vineyard. He never acts on his good intentions.

 

At the end of the day, the first son who started off badly wins his father’s praise, while the second son, who said the right thing initially, ends up losing his father’s respect.

 

Jesus then applies that parable to the tax collectors and prostitutes who had disregarded God’s law, but at the preaching of John the Baptist, changed and repented. They were like the first son in the parable told by Jesus.

 

But the chief priests and elders were like the second son in the parable. They were saying the right things but not doing the right thing. Despite seeing how people were changing and believing in John’s message of repentance, they refused to listen, refused to change.

 

At the end, the tax collectors and prostitutes were the “winners.” For as Jesus told the chief priests and elders, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.”

 

In our relationship with God, what matters is not how we start, but rather how we finish. Until the end of the race, there is always the opportunity to change and move ahead!

 

© 2026 Rev. Thomas Iwanowski