Pentecost XIX, Proper 21, Year A

Ezekiel, 18:1-4, 25-32
Philippians, 2:1-13
Matthew, 21:28-32

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

ALL OF THIS YEAR, we've steadily been progressing through S. Matthew's gospel. Although you wouldn't know it from today's gospel, today we've arrived in Jerusalem. It's the beginning of Holy Week, and Jesus is causing problems. He has just entered the city on a donkey, sending the clear message that he is the Messiah, the true king of the Jews, the true authority in life. The crowds have hailed him, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" We know all about that in this parish. We have a magnificent Palm Sunday liturgy where we re-present it.

What we sometimes forget is that Matthew tells us as soon as Jesus entered Jerusalem, he went into the Temple and overturned the money-changers tables. He made a whip and drove out all of the animals used for the Temple sacrifices. As dramatic as it is, and as much fun as it would be, we don't re-enact that in our Holy Week liturgy. But it makes an essential point: Jesus disrupted the heart of the Jewish cult, attacked the authority of the Temple, and challenged the chief priests. He made a public spectacle, upsetting and denying the authority of the most important Jewish institution.

The next day Jesus returned to the Temple, and the chief priests and the leaders of the people accosted him. The chief priest and the elders were respectable, commendable people, people with whom we should identify, people who we would hold in high regard. They took their responsibility seriously. They earnestly wanted to be faithful to their religion and to their belief. They were devout. A presumptuous upstart had threatened their authority, the stability of the community, their way of life. They were annoyed.

Jesus had some following, who regarded him as a prophet. The religious authorities were shrewd and knew that it's best not to be heavy-handed unless they have no alternative. So they set a trap. They asked Jesus, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" If Jesus said, "I act and speak with human authority," then he is contradicting his teaching, his ministry, his behavior. His entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple would not have any religious meaning, but would suggest anarchy and nihilism. No one would follow him. If Jesus said, "I act and speak with divine authority," he would be making an explicit and public claim to be the Messiah, challenging not only the Jewish authorities, but also the Roman authorities. The Roman heavies would have to silence Jesus - exactly what the chief priests and elders want.

Jesus, of course, saw the trap and so answered the question carefully and cleverly. He knew that the ministry of John the Baptist had not impressed the chief priests and elders, that the crowds of people who had confessed and repented of their sins, the crowds of people who had renewed their lives, had not moved them. Jesus responded to them, "I'll tell you about my authority, if you answer one question about John the Baptist. Was his baptism from heaven or from man? Was it of God or of man?"

Now the religious authorities were stuck. If they said, "From man," they would alienate, even enrage, the crowds, who had held John to be a prophet. If they said, "From heaven," they would be forced to accept the legitimacy of Jesus and his claims because John had publicly recognized the holiness of Jesus. The religious authorities, who claimed to be obedient to God, who spent much of their lives in ritual and habits to please God, refused to recognize what God was doing in John's ministry, as well as in Jesus' ministry. They were blind to what God was doing in the world, unable or unwilling to learn and to discern the many ways God acts to renew his creation.

So with a few choice words that turned the attention away from him to his interrogators, Jesus had slipped out of a noose and put it around his interrogators. Lacking Jesus' debating skills, the religious authorities had to pled ignorance about John the Baptist and simply refused to answer Jesus' question. In effect, they ran away. Jesus responded to their cowardice by telling the parable we heard in today's gospel, a parable which further exposed the hypocrisy of the religious authorities, of the respectable religious people, and - alas - of people like you and me.

There were two sons. The first refused to work in the vineyard, but changed his mind and got to work. The second promised to work in the vineyard, but didn't. Which did the father's will? Obviously the first son did. Jesus implied that the chief priests and elders were like the second son - full of lip-service and hypocrisy. Jesus compared the first son to the tax collectors and prostitutes, those considered beyond the pale: dirty, immoral, traitorous. Tax collectors collaborated with the heathen, unrighteous Romans to oppress the Jews, and prostitutes made their living in the camps of the Roman soldiers. Jesus told the religious authorities, "The tax collectors and the prostitutes will go into the Kingdom of God before you. You didn't believe John. You paid him no attention, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did. You give God lip-service, but you aren't building up his vineyard."

The religious authorities, like devout religious people everywhere, presumed that their relationship with God was good enough, that they knew enough. They lacked humility. They didn't recognize that the religious life requires continual repentance, continual renewal, continual turning back to God, continual starting afresh. They didn't appreciate the perversity of the human heart. Every religious person is a hypocrite. None of us lives up to what we should be. But God still loves us, and one of the ways he shows his love for us is to help us grow and learn. God's always coming to us, challenging us, giving us new opportunities, helping us to change and to mature. Our job is to try to be open to him, to perceive the new things that he's doing, and to work with him.

The chief priests and elders weren't open to John the Baptist and to Jesus because they weren't open to renewal, to learning new things. We can never be complacent in our relationships - with God or with anyone. Christians are disciples of Christ. A disciple is not only a follower, but a learner. The word 'disciple' comes from the verb meaning 'to learn.' When we are not learning new things, we are not growing. We're not being faithful. We're dying.

How do we learn new things? How are we to keep ourselves open to Jesus and to the new things God is doing in the world? First and foremost, it requires prayer, not just talking to God - important as that is, but trying to listen to God, sitting in silence only allowing Jesus into your heart and mind. It's through reading the Bible, coming to mass, engaging with Church tradition, becoming acquainted with the saints and great Christians - in our day and through the ages. It's through our interest in science and the arts. It's through other people: family and friends and strangers and even those we don't like and don't meet with our approval.

We listen to all points of view, including critics, dissenters, and opponents, regardless of what we make of their intentions. We listen to all people: the fancy and the plain, the educated and the unschooled, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, the churched and the un-churched, the conservative and the liberal. One of the many virtues of this parish is our relative diversity, diversity of opinion, of experience, of identity, of ability, of personality - not a club of the like-minded, but a catholic gathering. It's enlarged my vision and enriched my life enormously. Listening to people and respecting humanity in all its diversity helps us learn, makes us grow, strengthens our character.

We have to ask ourselves continually, "Who is the ultimate authority in my life?' We want Jesus to be our authority, but that means we have to be careful that we are not fooling ourselves. The chief priests and the elders thought that they were being faithful to God, that they knew his ways, but their hearts were hardened. They didn't look beyond their expectations. They were not open to new things. They did allow themselves to be challenged. They thought that they had arrived and knew it all. We need to allow God to surprise us. After all, our God revealed his glory in agony, his power in suffering, his exaltation in humiliation, his majesty in service, his love in dying.

When we recognize Jesus as the true authority, it does not mean that we no longer need growth or change; it does not mean that we never sin again; it does not mean that we will always adequately live as we are called to do. Rather, when we allow Jesus to be the ultimate authority in our life, then there may be real growth: growth as Jesus begins to rule our hearts with his compassion, his mercy, his trust, his courage; growth as our minds learn to perceive the new things God is doing in the world; growth as we work in his vineyard; growth as we find our purpose and fulfilment in his service and love.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.