The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Greeneville, TN
Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32
Psalm 25:1-8
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
We are pretty good at telling ourselves a story about who we are. We know ourselves pretty well. We know our intentions. We know the things we’ve done right. And we’ve become pretty good at explaining away the things we’ve done wrong. We like to think we know who the good people are and who the difficult people are. We know who belongs and who doesn’t. We know who’s respectable. And we know who needs to straighten up. And then Jesus comes along and messes up all of our neatly arranged categories.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the chief priests and elders come to Jesus and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things?” To me, that sounds like a pretty reasonable question. I was always taught to respect authority… but also to question it. But Jesus knows there is something underneath it. The chief priests and elders aren’t really interested in discovering the truth. They’re more interested in protecting their position.
In his preaching and teaching, Jesus has been challenging the religious and social order. He has been welcoming people they have rejected. He has been touching the untouchable, eating with sinners (tax collectors and prostitutes). He’s been healing people on the margins, and proclaiming that the kingdom of God is closer than they imagined.
And now these religious leaders want to know, so they ask Jesus, “Who gave you permission to do this?” So instead of directly answering them, knowing that any response could be used as a trap, Jesus answers their question with a question and asks them about John the Baptist.
He asked them, “Was John’s baptism from heaven, or was it merely of human origin?” And suddenly these religious leaders are caught in a trap of their own. They know the answer. But they are afraid of how the answer will end up. If they say John’s authority came from heaven, Jesus will ask why they didn’t believe him. If they say it was merely human, they are afraid of the crowd. So they give the safest possible answer... “We don’t know.”
They aren’t confused. They’re protecting themselves (their power, position, and authority). Then Jesus tells them a story about two sons. A father tells the first son to go work in the vineyard. The son says, “I will not.” But later he changes his mind and goes. The father asks the second son to do the same. He says, “Yes, sir.” But he doesn’t go. And Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of his father?”
The answer is obvious. The one who actually went. And then Jesus says something that must have sounded outrageous to these religious leaders. “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
Jesus isn’t saying that sin doesn’t matter. He’s saying that repentance matters more than appearances. The person who says the right things but refuses to do the right things is not closer to God than the person who has gotten it wrong but turns around and does the right thing.
And that brings us to Ezekiel. The people of Israel had a proverb, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” They were essentially saying, “We are suffering because of what our parents did.” But Ezekiel pushes back and tells them, “You are not simply trapped by the past... You have a choice... You can turn around... You can repent... You can choose new life.”
And Ezekiel makes the important point that what we do has consequences beyond ourselves. The choices we make become part of the world that other people have to live in. Our selfishness can easily become somebody else’s hardship. Our resentment can become somebody else’s hurt. Our failure to act can leave problems for the people who come after us.
But, thank God the opposite is true. Our generosity can bless people we may never meet. Our forgiveness can change a family. Our compassion can change a community. Our faithfulness can leave something better for the generations that come after us. Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew the world was ending tomorrow... He said that he would still plant the apple tree. Meaning, the faith is that we plant things we may never live long enough to see fully grown.
I read a great short story by Flannery O’Connor this past week. If you haven’t read O’Connor’s story “Revelation,” it is definitely worth reading. It’s a bit challenging and uncomfortable. But it’s supposed to be. For those of you who haven’t read it, I’m going to flesh it out a bit.
The central character in the story is a woman named Ruby Turpin. Ruby is a respectable woman. She is religious. She goes to church. She believes in good manners and proper behavior. She has a pretty good understanding of where she belongs in the social pecking order, and where everybody else belongs.
She is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, people-watching, quietly sorting the people around her into categories. There are the respectable people, the poor people, the educated people, and the uneducated people. And some people have their lives together. And there are people who, in Ruby’s mind, clearly do not. And Ruby is not presented in the story as some notorious evil protagonist.
That’s what makes the story so powerful. She genuinely believes she is a good person. She is grateful for what she has. She thinks she is decent and fair. She believes she has a proper place in the world. In other words, Ruby’s problem isn’t that she thinks she’s evil. Her problem is that she is so certain she is good that she doesn’t see what’s wrong with her.
To me, that sounds a lot like the chief priests and elders in Matthew. They are religious leaders. They have the credentials. They know the Torah (the law) and the traditions. They know how things are supposed to work. But, even though Jesus is standing right in front of them, they cannot seem to recognize what God is doing. They are so concerned with protecting their understanding of God that they cannot receive the incarnation of God who is right there before them.
O’Connor’s story takes an even more dramatic turn. Ruby encounters a young woman who has been watching her. The encounter is disturbing and violent. The young woman confronts Ruby with words that break through the carefully constructed world that Ruby created for herself. And later, when Ruby is alone, something happens to Ruby that O’Connor calls Ruby’s Revelation.
Ruby looks up and sees what appears to be a procession moving across the sky up toward heaven. And this is where O’Connor turns everything upside down. Ruby sees people who look like the people she has spent her life looking down upon. The poor, the broken, the outsiders... Those who don’t fit neatly into the categories Ruby has constructed. And they’re all moving toward God.
Ruby’s carefully ordered world then begins to unravel. She begins to see that perhaps she has misunderstood not only other people, but herself. The revelation isn’t simply that other people are better than she thought. The revelation is that she needs grace, too. She needs the same mercy she’s failed to extend to others.
And I think that is exactly where O’Connor parallels Jesus in our Matthew reading. To me, the question isn’t simply, “Are those people good enough for the kingdom of God?” Instead, Jesus turns the question back toward us, and says, “What about you?” Are you willing to change? Are you willing to repent? Are you willing to discover that God may be at work in someone you’ve already dismissed? Are you willing to admit that your first answer may not have been the final answer?
The first son in Jesus’ parable said no. But then he changed his mind. That is repentance. That’s metanoia... He turned around. And Jesus seems to be saying there is something holy in admitting, “I was wrong. Let me try again.” That may be one of the hardest sentences for any of us to say. Especially when we have spent a lifetime building up those respectable stories about ourselves.
But the Gospel is not about maintaining a respectable story. The Gospel is about being transformed. That’s what our baptism is about. We sometimes think of baptism as something that happened once. But our baptism is really a way of life.
Every time we renew our baptismal promises, we say: “I am willing to turn toward Christ again.” I am willing to be changed. I am willing to seek and serve Christ in all people. I am willing to respect the dignity of every human being. I am willing to persevere in resisting evil, and whenever I fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord.
“Whenever I fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord.” That’s probably the most important phrase... We don’t say if I fall. We say, whenever I fall. Our faith doesn’t guarantee that we will always get everything right just because we believe. But it does promise that God’s grace will keep calling us back, even when we fall short or miss the mark.
And so the question for us is not simply. “What do I believe?” It is also, “What am I willing to do with what I believe?” Because our faith will, hopefully, become visible. As it shows up in the way we treat people. And in the way we speak about people who are different from us. It shows up where we make room for the stranger... It shows up when we listen before we judge. It shows up in whether we can admit that we were wrong. It shows up whenever we recognize the image of God in someone we may already have put into a category. And it shows up in what we leave behind.
Remember Ezekiel’s sour grapes. That proverb insinuates that someone else may taste what we plant. The question for us is, What are we planting? What are we planting in our daily lives?... Are we planting fear and resentment? Are we planting division and judgment? Or are we planting mercy? Generosity? Reconciliation? And Love? Because somebody is going to live in the world we are creating.
Our children will. Our grandchildren will. Our neighbors will. And people that we will never meet will. The Christian life is not about getting all the answers right. It is about remaining open to the possibility that God still has something to teach us. It is about being willing to repent and turn around. It is about entering the vineyard. It is about trusting that God’s grace is bigger than any categories we create.
And perhaps, like Ruby Turpin, sometimes we need a revelation. Not necessarily a dramatic vision. But a simple revelation... Sometimes the revelation for us is that simple moment when we finally see another person differently. Sometimes it’s the moment when we realize that the person we thought needed God’s grace is not the only one who needs it. We need it, too.
That’s good news. Because God is not finished with us. So, the invitation remains. To come into the vineyard. Jesus invites us into the vineyard of his life... to come with our certainty, our questions, and our mistakes. We come with our imperfect faith. And we come with the parts of our heart that still need changing.
And we go and let God do what only God can do. Turn us around. Open our eyes. Soften our hearts. And make us new. Then, when those who come after us taste the fruit of our lives... they will NOT taste the sourness of fear, selfishness, and judgment. But taste the sweetness of God’s grace, mercy, reconciliation, and love.
I wish to thank the Rev. Sarah Varnell of Trinity United Methodist Church for inspiring our study group to read Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation.” I am forever grateful for my ecumenical pastor’s study group and the inspirations they bring to my preaching.
No comments:
Post a Comment