Saying yes and saying no

Scripture Matthew 21:23-32

21:23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, 'Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.”  27 So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

28 "What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, 'I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, 'I go, sir'; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

32 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 after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

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Message Saying Yes and Saying No

Good morning, or afternoon, or maybe evening - depending on when you are joining us for worship.  Whenever it is where ever you are right now, it is a perfect time to worship.  

When I select the Scripture reading for each Sunday I determine a focus for the message.  Maybe a particular verse captures my attention, or maybe a proverb or truism pops into my mind when I read it.  The reading and the focus help me select a hymn that reiterates my point - and helps Jordan select all the other music for that Sunday.  This way when the time comes to preach on any particular passage I have a good idea of where I want to go.   More often than not I will have come back to it a few times and jotted down a story or a point I want to be sure to make.  I did all that with this one but somehow my usual plan went sideways.  Apparently I was jotting down ideas based on the title instead of the focus.  And I have no idea what I was thinking when I chose the hymn.  Luckily Jordan chose lots of good ones, and the Quarantine Qrew’s singing always makes everything ok. 

The title is Saying Yes and Saying No.  And with a Presidential Debate coming up this week it was hard to get the idea of debating out of my mind.  I mean, yes, Jesus was engaged in a running debate with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  At every encounter he confounded them with his knowledge and his eloquence.  But the thing about debates is that they rarely change the mind of any one whose mind is already made up.  They might sway a person who’s kind of undecided, but the true believers already know what they know, and no amount of logic or eloquence is going to change that.   

A story my mother used to love embarrassing me with is about the day she walked into the room where my sister and I were supposed to be napping only to find us standing up in our cribs, one yelling yes and the other yelling no. No idea what that was about. But I suspect I was the No, because I tend to say no quickly.  Sort of like the character Jim on the Vicar of Dibley, who begins every sentence with “No no no no no no.” 

Jesus was teaching in the Temple, so the chief priests and elders wanted his credentials.  He wasn’t from one of the priestly families.  He hadn’t spent his life at the feet of a teacher in the Temple learning the Law and the Prophets.  So they asked, where do you get your authority to teach the way you do? Because, it really is different to what we are used to teaching.  And we don’t know you.  Jesus took the opportunity to ask another “Who do you say that I am?” question - where do you all think John got his authority to baptize?  Because everyone knew by this time that John had been talking about Jesus, so where ever John got the authority had to be where Jesus got his.  They had to say “I dunno” because no matter what they said, they were going to get themselves into trouble.   If they thought John, and by extension Jesus, was authorized by heaven, then they were clearly on the wrong side of the conversation.  But the people thought John and Jesus, came from God, so if the priests and elders said they didn’t, the people would turn on them.

Jesus knew why they answered that way, of course and declined to let them off the hook - or to answer their original question. Instead,  he tells a story of two sons whose father wants them to go work in the vineyar.  One tells his father he will not go work in the vineyard but does.  The other says he will but doesn’t.  The priests and elders agreed that it was the first who did God’s will.  Actions speak louder than words.  

Sometimes God calls us to something that we really don’t want to do.  Maybe we are comfortable just the way we are.  Or we have a zillion reasons why we can’t do it - maybe finances or lack of self confidence.  My experience has been that if God wants me to do something and I choose not to - there will be pain.  I have learned that it is better to just do whatever it is, because none of my excuses will matter. If God called me to it, God will lead me through it.  God will make a way somehow.  Even if, like the first son, you don’t want to do the thing, and say you’re not going to do the thing,  for whatever reason, but you go ahead and do it anyway even though you really do not want to, you are still doing God’s will because actions speak louder than words.

If, on the other hand, you say Yes Lord! but don’t make any effort beyond that . . .

Well, Jesus said to his disciples “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21).   Even if that one says “No” before saying “yes”.

The chief priests and the elders held positions of importance among the Jewish people.  They were community leaders.  They had important jobs.  They upheld tradition. They had said yes to God, but they only did the things they had always done the way they had always done them. They believed they were doing right by God and the people.  They were used to things being a certain way, and being taught a certain way.   And Jesus was turning their world upside down.  They were teaching the way things had been taught for ever and Jesus shows up with the Common Core.  They were not ready for this, and they were not sure what to do about it.  They found themselves on the defensive.  And so, when asked where John’s authority derived, they had to say, “I don’t know.” 

And Jesus said to them, you may not want to believe, or to admit that you believe, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believe.  Even the people you won’t allow in the Temple to worship, people who aren’t good enough for you to sit down and eat with, those people whom you despise are being saved before you, because they are saying yes where you are saying no.  They aren’t letting preconceptions or antiquated traditions get in the way of hearing God’s call to change their hearts and lives.  They are not as afraid of change because the traditional ways of doing things aren’t doing them any good.  Doing things the way we have always done them only helps the folks already in positions of power.   And they will do anything to keep from losing that power.

The chief priests and the elders didn’t know Jesus because he was not one of them, he was not one of the people in power. Jesus came as an ordinary man, not a royal prince, not a member of the priestly families.  He walked among the poor, worked among them, he WAS one of them, he knew their lives as well as they did, because this was his lived experience.  He knew society from the bottom.  He knew what it was to be the object of prejudice, to hear people say, “Can anything good come out of Galilee?” Jesus preached from a position of solidarity with the people who most needed him, against oppression, against focusing on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the Law, against people in positions of power who chose not to help the people who needed their help the most.  Jesus spoke for the poor, the hungry, the helpless and the hopeless, the lost and the last.  He spoke for justice with mercy, for compassion, for love.  He told the story of a man who did not want to serve God when called, but went to work in the vineyard anyway.  And the one who talked a good game, but chose to do nothing.  

We are given the choice every day between saying yes, and saying no.  When you hear God’s call, which will you say?