"Jesus said to the
chief priests and elders of the people: ‘What is
your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the
first and said, "Son, go out and work in the
vineyard today." He said in reply, "I will not," but
afterward changed his mind and went. The man came to
the other son and gave the same order. He said in
reply, "Yes, sir," but did not go. Which of the two
did his father's will?' They answered, ‘The first.'"
The son who says "yes" and does "no" represents
those who knew God and followed his law to a certain
extent but did not accept Christ, who was "the
fulfillment of the law." The son who says "no" and
does "yes" represents those who once lived outside
the law and will of God, but then, with Christ,
thought again and welcomed the Gospel.
From this Jesus draws the following conclusion
before the chief priests and elders: "Truly, I say
to you, even the publicans and prostitutes will
enter the Kingdom of God before you."
No saying of Christ has been more manipulated than
this. Some have ended up creating a kind of
evangelical aura about prostitutes, idealizing them
and opposing them to those with good reputations,
who are all regarded without distinction as
hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. Literature is
full of "good" prostitutes. Just think of Verdi's
"La Traviata" or the meek Sonya of Dostoevsky's
"Crime and Punishment"!
But this is a terrible misunderstanding. Jesus is
talking about a limited case, as it were. "Even" the
prostitutes, he wants to say, are going to enter the
Kingdom of God before you. Prostitution is seen in
all its seriousness and taken as a term of
comparison to point out the gravity of the sin of
those who stubbornly reject the truth.
We do not see that, moreover, idealizing the
category of prostitute, we also idealize that of
publican, which is a category that always
accompanies it in the Gospel. The publicans, who
were employees of the Roman tax collection agencies,
participated in the unjust practices of these
agencies. If Jesus links prostitutes and publicans
together, he does not do this without a reason; they
have both made money the most important thing in
life.
It would be tragic if such passages from the Gospel
made Christians less attentive to combating the
degrading phenomenon of prostitution, which today
has assumed alarming proportions in our cities.
Jesus had too much respect for women to not suffer
beforehand for that which she will become when she
is reduced to this state. What he appreciates in the
prostitute is not her way of life, but her capacity
to change and to put her ability to love in the
service of the good. Mary Magdalene, who converted
and followed Jesus all the way to the cross, is an
example of this (supposing that she was a
prostitute).
What Jesus intends to teach with his words here he
clearly says at the end: The publicans and
prostitutes converted with John the Baptist's
preaching; the chief priests and the elders did not.
The Gospel, therefore, does not direct us to
moralistic campaigns against prostitutes, but
neither does it allow us to joke about it, as if it
were nothing.
In the new form under which prostitution presents
itself today, we see that it is now able to make a
person a significant amount of money and do so
without involving them in the terrible dangers to
which the poor women of previous times, who were
condemned to the streets, were subjected. This form
consists in selling one's body safely through
cameras. What a woman does when she loans herself to
pornography and certain excessive forms of
advertisement is to sell her body to the eyes if not
to contact. This is certainly prostitution, and it
is worse than traditional prostitution, because it
is publicly imposed and does not respect people's
freedom and sentiments.
But having denounced these things as we must, we
would betray the spirit of the Gospel if we did not
also speak of the hope that these words of Christ
offer to women, who, on account of various
circumstances (often out of desperation), have found
themselves on the street, for the most part victims
of unscrupulous exploitation. The Gospel is
"gospel," that is, "glad tidings," news of ransom,
of hope, even for prostitutes. Indeed, perhaps it is
for them first of all. This is how Jesus wanted it.
