Sermon for Pentecost 18

In today’s reading from Ezekiel this message comes through loud and clear: the most important thing is not how our ancestors behaved, nor even how we ourselves have lived in the past. What is of most importance to God is how we live our lives today. ‘Turn,’ says Ezekiel, ‘and live’. 

It is this theme that Jesus speaks about in today’s Gospel passage. But first, it’s worth paying attention (as it usually is) to where this passage sits in Matthew’s Gospel. The Chapter begins with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The crowds welcome him, they proclaim the truth of Jesus’ authority and messiahship that is dawning on society beyond his immediate followers. It is, it seems, a triumphant moment; and we celebrate it every Palm Sunday. This chapter in Matthew is, in fact, the marker of a significant turning point in Jesus’ mission that leads into the Passion.

But I’m jumping beyond today’s Gospel.

Jesus goes straight to the Temple, where, seeing the moneychangers and sellers inside, he becomes angry that this house of prayer has become a house of politics and economics. Having expelled the traders from the Temple, he turns to those in need. It’s not surprising that these events anger the chief priests and scribes. Jesus, who has been preaching an inflammatory gospel is now a disrupter in the holy Temple, disturbing their power base, from which their authority and power over the people spreads out across communities.

Their anger feeds their compulsion to challenge Jesus’ authority. Jesus has returned to the Temple, and is teaching the people. But the chief priests and the scribes, who are not prepared to see him disrupting things again, approach and pose two questions: ‘By what authority are you acting?’ and ‘Who gave you this authority?’ 

Rather than answer their question, Jesus instead asks them about the authority and origin of John the Baptist’s ministry. In this move he refuses to acknowledge their authority or right to question him, so the very question they are asking him becomes a question against themselves. They flounder, tripping over one another as they wrangle with his question, and reveal the relationship they actually have with those they purportedly lead; ‘We are afraid of the crowd,’ they say, and in their fear they say, ‘We do not know.’

And so, through Jesus’  clever redirecting of their question the true character  of the chief priests  is revealed: they are people driven by fear (rather than faith); and rather than answer courageously and with integrity, they pretend ignorance. 

Imagine the moment. I see them huddled together trying to work out how to answer Jesus’ challenging question. Their fear of the people will not allow them to answer honestly, and their inner shame is exposed as they hang their heads, mumbling ‘Don’t know’. 

Jesus then tells a short parable about two sons, told to go and work in their father’s vineyard, one who says ‘No’ but changes his mind and later goes, and the second who says he will go, but does not. The parable’s meaning seems obvious, and the chief priests are immediately able to answer which of the two did the will of the father – the one who went and did the work. Did they perhaps lift their heads again, feeling their power and authority being restored because they know the answer to Jesus’s question? But it seems they didn’t detect  a deeper truth – that Jesus told this parable to shine a light on them.

The chief priests were not timid in proclaiming their confident ‘Yes’ to God’s laws, and telling others how to live according to them. But they themselves did not live in the spirit of God’s laws – of justice, and righteousness, of love and care for all. They lived in ways that led to division, judgement, exclusion and hatred. They said ‘Yes,’ to the letter of God’s laws, but didn’t take the actions nor make the changes that this yes required. Their actions did not match their words.

By contrast, says Jesus, tax collectors and prostitutes (and all who live lives driven by values entirely at odds with God’s laws) on hearing John the Baptist were moved. They repented and, changed by the Holy Spirit, they were transformed. They are like the first son. They had been living lives that said ‘No,’ to God’s invitation and laws, but repented, were changed, and became new.

So what does this say for us? I hear a clear message in this section of Matthew’s gospel; whilst our words are important, they are worth nothing if they are not in accord with how we live. Doing the will of God: living in ways that heal divisions; creating community; protecting, caring for and loving all who are in need; seeking justice for those who are victims of injustice; and always, through prayer, seeking to know the will of God. 

In her book , ‘Out of Africa’,  Isak Dinesen tells a striking story of a young Kikuyu boy named Kitau who appeared at her door in Nairobi one day to ask if he might work for her. She said yes and he turned out to be a fine servant, but after just three months he came to her again to ask for a letter of recommendation to Sheik Ali bin Salim, a Muslim in Mombasa. Upset at the thought of losing him, she offered to raise his pay, but he was firm about leaving. He explained how he had decided to become either a Christian or a Muslim, and his purpose in coming to live with her had been to see the ways and habits of Christians up close. Next he would go and live for three months with Sheikh Ali to see how Muslims lived, and then he would make up his mind. Aghast, Dinesen responded ‘Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came here.’ 

What might someone see if they looked at our lives, up close? Would they choose Christ, based on what they saw in us?

At vestry recently we talked about becoming a Fair Trade church. What does that mean? Well in the first instance it means ensuring that all products we buy come from sources where people are paid a fair price for their labour and their goods. This act is a recognition of those who produce our food as our neighbours no matter where they live in the world. 

Much as we may want it not to be true, people are exploited across the world. God calls us not to turn away, but to respond as though to our son or daughter, our sister or brother, who was enduring that suffering and injustice. As with the parable of the two sons, it’s not what we say that matters, but what we do and how we live. It can be as simple as paying that bit extra (which for most of us we can certainly afford) to buy Fairtrade coffee, flowers, fruit, and so on. Loving our neighbour might mean at least sometimes asking if someone, somewhere, might be paying the price for me to enjoy a bargain? So let’s take a close look at our own lives this week, and reflect on whether the way we live, and the choices we make are in line with being bearers of the Gospel of Christ and bringers of the Kingdom of God.