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15. Sunday after Pentecost, 09/25/2011
Sermon on Matthew 21:23-32, by Hubert Beck
And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus answered them, "I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?" And they discussed it among themselves, saying, "If we say, ‘from heaven,' he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, ‘From man,' we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
"What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, ‘I will not.' but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,' but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him."
(English Standard Version)
ON KEEPING STRANGE COMPANYWe rarely think of ourselves as keeping company with prostitutes and tax collectors, some of the lowest levels of society in Jesus' day, but Jesus says that they are the ones with whom one must walk if one wants to enter the kingdom of God ahead of pious rascals who say one thing and do another. So we do well to accommodate ourselves to this kind of company if we take today's text seriously.
What has generated this whole tense exchange between Jesus and the religious authorities in the first place, though? A quick review:
The Scene of the Exchange
Place: Jerusalem.
Time: Jesus has just entered the city on the Sunday of the week of his crucifixion to the acclaim of the crowd. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke this is the first time he has appeared there as a mature man publicly, so everyone is very eager to see and hear him first hand, for his reputation had preceded him.
The Occasion: Almost immediately after entering the city Jesus entered the temple and created havoc. He "drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons." (21:12) He then rebuked them for making what should have been a "house of prayer" into a "den of robbers." (21:13) Tensions were raised still higher as he proceeded to heal a number of impaired people to the cry of children saying "Hosanna to the Son of David!" All this raised the indignation of the temple authorities to the highest level. Jesus reprimanded them for their disregard of the innocent praises coming from the mouths of the young - a high form of praise that even the psalmist had extolled. The next day as he re-entered the city he sought figs from a tree he was passing by and, finding none, he cursed it and it withered at his very words. The incident was not a mere act of pique. It was understood as a symbol of the fruitlessness of Israel in general and of the religious authorities in particular - and his words condemned that fruitlessness. These combined words and actions created a blistering atmosphere - the cursing of the fig tree producing a particularly fierce response for it was both a harsh judgment on those who opposed Christ, but also accented the authority and force of the very words and actions that they were rejecting.
When the religious authorities challenged who had sanctioned Jesus for saying and doing these inflammatory words and acts he turned the tables on them by placing his authority alongside that of John the Baptizer's - a man who had earlier disturbed the peace of Israel's landscape by calling people to repentance in anticipation of the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 3:1 ff.) He therefore asked why had they challenged John's authority when he first arrived on the scene? Did they not believe that God had been speaking and acting through him? That put the religious authorities into a tight bind, for they knew that John had been a "folk hero" to many people who did, indeed, believe that he was a prophet, a true spokesman for God - and if they affirmed that, they affirmed in the same breath that Jesus, to whom John pointed, was also a divine spokeman. Or, vice versa, if they denied John's status, thereby denying Jesus' status, they would hear loud outcries of indignation from the broad spectrum of people who had become followers of John. Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem on the day before had made it plain that the people associated Jesus with those anticipations of John. So the ones to whom Jesus had addressed the question pleaded no verdict on John, thus leaving their question concerning Jesus' authority hanging in the air.
The Scene is Set for the Entry Of The Prostitutes and Tax Collectors
"Listen up," Jesus may have said. "I've got a story to tell." His story is the last half of the text for today - a story about a father with two sons whom he asked to help out in his vineyard one day. One bluntly refused, but later changed his mind and went out anyway. The other said he would, but never followed through. A simple enough story in itself. "Which of the two did the will of his father?" Jesus asked in concluding his story.
The answer, of course, is a no-brainer. Apart from the surrounding circumstances mentioned above - or apart from the one who spoke it - the story could easily be interpreted as a simple moral instruction on keeping one's word. But because the story is part of a whole - and because of the one who told it - it is quite clear that there is more to it than first meets the eye.
It must be noted that parables have a point to them that, in general, is recognizably important. The form of the story, however, leaves one free to both look carefully at the way it is told and to question why it is told that way. Conjecture is possible, but it must not be imposed to distort the story beyond its intent.
So consider a few things about the parable that catch one's eye upon closer inspection.
Neither son was truthful with the father - the one saying he would not go when he actually ended up going and the other saying he would go but not doing it anyway. At least the first one was honest enough to say he wouldn't go - or at least he didn't want to go - but his later actions exonerated any boorishness or disrespectfulness he had expressed in his initial refusal. The second was simply dishonest from the git-go - he said he would and then never showed up. Neither is exactly a model of reliability, however, in spite of the first one's change of mind.
The parable does not in any way speak of an attitude or motivation or sense of guilt for going or not going. No kind of "inner drive" is suggested. The action is the only thing mentioned. The "change of mind" simply represented a change of action. It does not say the boy was sorry or that he felt bad about refusing or that he had a change of heart. He just changed his course of action. It only speaks of "doing," but never why either one did or did not act. We are generally interested in incentives and drive and stimuli and reasons and rationale when we talk about what one does. None of that is present. The one just did and the other just did not. That was all there was to it.
The open-endedness of the parable is also interesting. It simply leaves one hanging. The father neither commends nor condemns anybody in all this. The parable, strictly speaking, accents only what happened, what was done or not done. Nor does Jesus, himself, ever speak a judgment on either son. He simply asks, "Which of the two did the will of his father?" The response is equally forthright. "The first." No attempt to condemn or vindicate either son. It is truly a bare-bones parable.
Enter the Prostitutes and Tax Collectors!
Jesus was quick to pounce on the answer that his hearers gave so quickly and glibly, however. His long response may have been something like this: "If doing is the essence of the story, then who among you is doing what the word of the Lord has called you to do? You profess not only to be interested in but actually leading the way into the kingdom of God, do you not? Yet both by your miserable expansion of and emphasis on the laws by which God's people are to live if they are to be truly God-fearing you are barring the way for rather than helping the very people who have heard and are hearing the word of the Lord and who desperately want to live by it. You who hold that law up so high - do you really live by what you profess or does it not trap you also?"
Well, admittedly that may be going beyond what Jesus said, but he was certainly pressing in that direction. His short response was this: "John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him."
A striking note is this - and this may, indeed, be going beyond the story although it is yet within the way the story is told - those who are taken to task are never told that they, themselves will have no access to the kingdom of God whatever. They are only told that they will bring up the rear of the company entering the kingdom of God!
Who will lead the way? "Truly, I say to you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." Why? Because they had responded so vigorously to John's call for repentance, to the word that the kingdom of God was breaking into their midst in a new and powerful way. That affected them greatly. "John came to you in the way of righteousness ... and the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him."
"But you?!?!?" he said, "You listened to him, but you never heard him. His words entered your ears, but they never entered your heart - so you just kept on in your old ways. They heard him and they acted in accord with his message. You are like the son who said he would go and work in the vineyard of his father, but, having said the right thing (even courteously addressing him as "Sir"), went about his business as though nothing had ever been said either by the father or by himself. You are living in your own little world - but it is not the world to which John was pointing - nor to which I am pointing."
Which was all a way of saying, "I am calling you out of the little box of a world that you have created for yourselves in the name of true religion. I am calling you to a new way of understanding and living. But you pay no attention to me. In fact, you do everything in your power to keep my word away from the people to whom I have been sent. You do everything you can to block the word of the Lord which I bring so that your religious piety is not endangered. Your challenge to my authority is your way of rejecting everything I am here for and stand for. We cannot live together in the house of the Lord which, as I have just recalled, is meant to be a ‘house of prayer.' Let's be clear about it. Those who hear me, as those who heard John, such as the tax-collectors and the prostitutes, will lead the way into the kingdom which I have come to claim for my own. They, who have said ‘no' to the Lord in the past have heard the word of life in the present and are responding to it." The Lord spoke after this fashion!
The Scene is Set for Jesus' Crucifixion
"When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet." (Matthew 21:45, 46)
What else could they do? The situation was getting out of their control - and control was a big thing with them. (Isn't it for all of us? Let's not be too quick to condemn them on that level! We all seek some form of life-control. Sin is simply the over-extension of that reach for control!) The population of Jerusalem was swelling daily as the day of Passover drew near. The crowds were edgy about a lot of things already, for the secular scene also was in turmoil. Pilate knew that and had brought in extra troops to control the situation. To have this religious turbulence stirring the city in addition was close to putting a match to a pile of straw. The temple area was the tinderbox and those in charge of that area were quite aware that making too big a deal out of Jesus at that time was tantamount to bringing the sword of Rome down on their necks.
So they backed off. For a little while.
But Jesus wouldn't back off. He kept the smoldering cauldron so alive that by the end of the week the same ones who wanted to delay action felt pressed to put Jesus out of the scene.
Here, then, we see in this opening parable of a salvo of parables and exchanges between Jesus and those trying to silence him while delaying action against him a true "pressure point" of this week. The challenge to the chief priests and Pharisees was direct and head-on. The prostitutes and tax-collectors who would eventually lead the way into the kingdom of God became the by-standers who had to watch the fearful unfolding of God's way of salvation through this one who told the parable. He was the one "behind" the parable - this time not "in" the parable, as he often was, but the one who was "behind" it, pressing, driving, goading, prodding toward the climactic Friday that lay before him, before Jerusalem, before the world. He was on the road to salvation - and nobody knew what was happening other than Jesus himself and his Father who had sent him through the implantation of his humanity in the body of the virgin by the Holy Spirit. They alone knew the full import of the cross toward which he was journeying. And he would not delay it!
Here was the Son who not only said "yes" but then went into the vineyard to do the Father's will. His feet were now planted firmly on the Way of the Cross - and the world would never be the same again.
Two Sons in One Body - No, Three Sons, Really!
Where or how do we find ourselves in that parable, though?
Do we stand among the chief priests and the Pharisees whom Jesus addressed in such harsh tones? "John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him." Do we hold far too tightly to our own little "boxes of power," our own self-made types of "being religious" - whether they be in the forms of personal pieties, of self-righteous judgments of others without truly seeing ourselves as their brothers and sisters, of rigid "laws to live by" that are, in fact, loveless to say the least? Would Jesus address us as a son who said "yes" to his father, but went about his own business as usual?
Or would he see us standing in the midst of the tax-collectors and prostitutes, having said our "noes" too quickly before realizing that a word of life had come into the "dead world" that we had made for ourselves? Would he see us there without a word to say because we are "all ears," waiting for, eager for, the word of invitation to go into the vineyard of the world - a world that needs the word of grace that was made flesh in the one who told this parable, Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, the Risen One, the Ascended One, the Savior of the world. Would he see us there, not only "all ears," but "all hands and feet, all voice and life," ready and acting as his hands and feet, his voice and life in the world where dying keeps drowning out living, where ears are tuned to voices other than those of John or Jesus?
I suspect that all of you, as do I, sense both of those brothers residing within us.
There are ever so many fine and wonderful deeds that we promise our Lord - and our brothers and sisters - we will do - but they are very frequently pushed off to "a more convenient time" - which, in turn, commonly turns out to be never. But there is that recalcitrant brother in us also, the one who rebels at all that the father wants him to do - is he not already overburdened with all that life demands of him just to keep afloat on a daily basis? - but, in the end, ever so reluctantly - and yet ever so certainly - and even, once he gets going, even gladly - does that to which he is called.
Yes, both brothers reside in us - two sons in one body. Fortunately, though, a third one stands alongside us two brothers - our Brother Jesus Christ. He joined himself to us in our baptism, so we are never alone, us two, for he is always there also, forgiving that brother who does not do what he should while, in the process, also giving new possibilities for another day. He is there with the other brother, too, with grace and a strange compelling word to go - to go even in spite of ourselves, but because he goes with us - doing that to which the Father has called us as he went to do that to which the Father had called him. He feeds us on his body and blood, giving us strength for the journey. The two brothers alone would be lost and forlorn, for neither is a model of reliability in himself. But with the third Brother alongside us we move steadfastly forward toward the final revelation of the kingdom of God.
We go together, the three of us, two brothers and the Crucified One, toward the kingdom of God in the midst of a strange company, though. Tax-collectors and prostitutes are leading the way and they are glad to have us join them! That is not the company which we church-goers generally think of as our fellow-travelers. Sometimes we are, in fact, quite uncomfortable in that company. But it just happens to be where Jesus, himself, walks hand in hand with all of us. And that is where we surely want to walk also!