A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The Lectionary readings for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost are here.
The stories we have of Jesus ministry aren’t just a random collection, but an intentionally crafted narrative designed to show us what it looks like to live on earth as in heaven. So, let me fill the gap between what we read last Sunday and today, Jesus has returned to Jerusalem in what we label as the Triumphal Entry: riding on a donkey with the crowds shouting Hosanna, which means “save us, we pray”. It’s a scene that is completely contrary to what the people of 1st century Roman occupied Jerusalem would call triumphant. I doubt we’d call anyone we hope to become our political leader ‘triumphant’ if they entered the scene this way. But, remember, Jesus is here to show us what life in God’s Kingdom on earth is all about and the Kingdom way and this good news that is intended to upset our proverbial apple carts.
Jesus goes straight to the Temple where he clears out those who were exchanging money and selling animals for sacrifice. It isn’t that Jesus is against making sacrifices or even that he’s against people making money, he’s against people cheating others, selling faith and religious acts to manipulate and control. The money exchangers and animal sellers were taking advantage of those coming to make their faithful sacrifices and Jesus was having none of it. He didn’t just proverbially upset the carts.
Jesus then leaves the Temple, has a dispute with a fig tree (we can talk about this offline if you want), and then returns to the Temple, where we enter the scene of today’s reading. The chief priests and elders ask him, “who do you think you are coming in here and disrupting our way of doing things?” They aren’t looking to get to know Jesus better, they are looking for a way to charge him with any crime they can to distract the crowds from seeing the things Jesus is calling them out for. Sounds a bit like our political atmosphere these days, doesn’t it? If I can make you look worse than me, maybe folks won’t realize how bad I am.
But we can’t prove how ‘good’ we are by making others look ‘bad’ and so Jesus turns the table on them and asks them a question he knows they won’t want to answer because they are too concerned with being right than living in God’s righteousness.
Jesus asks them a question that reveals their worldview: their relationship with God and their relationship with people are completely separate. This division is what enables the temple leaders to treat people so badly; they choose to not see the image of God in all people. It’s a heart question along the lines of Solomon wanting to cut the baby in two to settle the dispute between the two women knowing the one with the right heart would object.
The leaders get stuck in their own divisiveness – caught between what they claim to believe about God and the people they manipulate for their own power and control.
Jesus knows they will be just as dishonest and manipulative with him as they were with John and although they may demand unquestioning loyalty from the people, Jesus is making the point that our behavior with other people reveals what we believe about God. How we treat others, for our own personal gain or for the building up of God’s Kingdom, reveals our heart, how we see the world. And he tells them a story about changing our hearts and minds.
Two sons are asked to work in the vineyard – remember the workers and wages story of last week and all being given the same regardless of the time they started working in the vineyard? It’s all connected. One son says no and one says yes. The one who says yes was only telling his father what he thinks he wants to hear, trying to gain favor without actually having to do anything. The one who says no changes his mind and goes to work in the Kingdom, I mean vineyard despite his original objection.
So, who did do the will of the father? The chief priests answer ‘the first’ and instead of congratulating them Jesus makes yet another ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’ point. He tells them that the very people they disdain are already entering God’s Kingdom because they understand the difference between being right and living in God’s righteousness.
And let’s be clear here – Jesus is not telling the chief priests and elders they will never be able to enter God’s Kingdom, he says that others, those who already see the Way of Love as God’s way are ahead of them and yet, if they enter, they will receive the same – unconditional love and forgiveness.
A change of mind is always possible, the road into the Kingdom of God is always open. This is what is so radical about the Good News. And what is so difficult about it. It’s what Paul means when he says we must work out our salvation with fear-and-trembling – and idiom Paul uses ‘to describe the anxiety of one who distrusts their own ability completely to meet all requirements, but religiously does their best to do what is right’ (adapted from Strongs). Fear-and-Trembling is the acknowledgement that we are most fully human with God’s help, accepting the image of God in us and all people. Fear-and-trembling is about figuring out what it looks like in our day and time to be image bearers of God, revealing to the world the Kingdom on earth. This is how we have the mind of Christ, the worldview of Jesus because we let God’s love shape our hearts.
When we change our hearts and minds, when we let our worldview be shaped by God’s love, we are living into who and Whose we really are. We learn to see the image of God in other people and realize that the Kingdom of God and this world are not separate. How we move through this world is how we move through God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven. When we see the world as an extension of God’s Kingdom rather than the battle ground on which we must struggle and fight for our own kingdom, our hearts and minds are shaped by God’s love.
And, in light of what we’ve been talking about these past few weeks, I’m want to clear up what Paul says about humility here. The original meaning of Paul’s statement translated as “regard others as better than yourselves” is lost with our limited English pronouns. The word we translate as ‘others’ is a Greek ‘reciprocal plural pronoun’. What Paul is saying is to keep the greater good of all above our individual needs or wants. Paul isn’t telling us to intentionally place ourselves lower than others but to live in the equity of God’s Kingdom, as Jesus shows us over and over again. We are all loved equally by God; there is no ‘first and last” and no way to earn or deserve God’s love or God’s divine blessing. We are not lower than anyone anymore than we are above anyone.
This is what challenged the chief priests and elders the most – they had built their personal kingdoms by dominating and oppressing others, even as they were dominated and oppressed by the Roman authorities. They expected a messiah to come in physical and political power who would maintain their idea of power. Jesus upset their worldview cart. Jesus often upsets our worldview cart. Jesus shows us his heart and mind so that we can choose to let ours be shaped by his as we live into the answer to the prayer we pray: God’s kingdom come on earth as in heaven. Amen.
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