Matthew 21:23-32
I
am going to admit something to you all today. This is perhaps my least favorite
parable in all of scripture. I think it’s because it was my mom’s favorite one
to quote at my brother and me. Any time she would ask us to do something and we
would say “Sure, not a problem Mom” and not immediately get up and start doing
it, she would quote this parable to/at us. Instead of being a vehicle of grace,
this parable for me has been a dump truck load of guilt.
Isn’t
it sad that the word of God, something live giving, transformative, healing and
hopeful can be twisted so that it become
a weight around our necks that pulls us down rather than setting us free? I
don’t think Jesus told this parable to make the Pharisees feel guilty or
shamed, but rather to open their eyes to a new way of living, one that looked
at the opportunities of love, rather than the obligations of law.
Our
text this morning invites us to open our eyes and really see what God is doing
in the world instead of being blinded to God’s activities. Church can easily
disintegrate into little more than simply maintaining the institution, with no
excitement concerning what God’s active grace is doing and so there is little
energy to look toward evangelism and renewal. We may say that we are going to
work in the vineyard, but too often we get caught up in rearranging the stones
on the pathway and never really set foot into the bountiful harvest.
Jesus is in the final
days of his life here on earth and he is at odds with the Pharisees, which was
nothing new. He is in Jerusalem and as
he approached the temple on the first day of the week, he noticed a beautiful
fig tree, but upon further examination, the tree had produced no fruit. And so it was he said with the religious
lives of the Pharisees; they looked religious, their lives looked alive, but
upon closer examination, they didn’t produce any fruit. Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died, and so
it was with the Pharisees; they looked spiritually alive but they were really
dead. Their hearts were dead inside and
so were their actions of compassion for the people around them.
On
Monday morning Jesus is sitting in the temple teaching people about the grace
and mercy of God, when he is confronted by the Pharisees and asked about
authority. What are your credentials Jesus? Where did you go to seminary? Who
was your mentor? Or perhaps more to the point, what right do you have to come
into our place of worship and mess up the natural order of things?
To the Pharisees faith was a series
of rules and regulations of which they were able to keep. To them there was not room for this new
message of love and compassion that Jesus was preaching, and so instead of
trying to learn, instead of opening themselves up to change, they question
Jesus on authority. They want an excuse, any excuse at this point, to shut
Jesus down for good.
But Jesus, good old Jesus, refuses
to play by their rules even in this simple conversation. He asks them a
question about John and the baptism John offered. John had become quite the
rock star legend of the day with people enamored with his wild hair, odd diet
and radical ways. After his horrible death, he had become something of a folk
story a tall tale. The Pharisees knew that if they bad mouthed John, the crowd
would turn against them, but if they praised him then they would be guilty of
hypocrisy so they give that most honest of all human answers, “We don’t know.”
They
were so worried about giving the “right” answer that they don’t really answer
at all. We too can get bogged down in the idea of doing things the “right,
proper” way and in so doing we often close ourselves off from the working of
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspires us all differently, and when someone
shares something about their faith, when the spirit moves outside of our box we
get bogged down in the details unable to open up and enjoy the work of the
spirit. We get comfortable just moving
rocks in the garden instead pulling the weeds and planting the seeds.
Our scripture continues with Jesus
saying there was a man who had two sons. He said to the first son, “Will
you go and work in the vineyard today? The vineyard is a mess, and there
is so much work to be done. Will you do
the work in the vineyard today?” And the
first son said, No of course not, let someone else do it. So the father went to the second son and
asked will you do the work in the vineyard today? The second son said yes, got up, went
outside, and decided not to work in the vineyard.
After some
thought the first son heard his father’s call and decided to go and work after
all in the vineyard.
Jesus looked the Pharisees in the eyes and
asked the penetrating question: “And which of the two sons was faithful
to the father’s will?” And the answer was so obvious.
Jesus continued: “And so the tax
collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God before you Pharisees,
even though you look so religious and smell so religious.”
So what does
this story have to do with you and me?
The vineyard, the world, is in a mess.
There are earthquakes. There are wars. There are divorces and
families falling apart. There are people dying because of drugs. There are children anguishing in abuse. There are poor families living down the
street, with not enough money and emotional resources to make it. There are people everywhere aching for
someone to love them.
What is the reaction of the church to this
pain and devastation in the world around us, far and near? Too often, we
merely hold our worship services in the middle of the vineyard. We have
our Bible studies and small group studies in the middle of the wine estate and
close our eyes to the need around us. We
say we are working in the garden, but all we do is move some rocks along the
path.
God, in the parable for today, in
disgust for our unwillingness to do
the needed work in the vineyard says, “I will go and find somebody else who
will do the work in this world of mine.”
In other words, this parable is an invitation
for us not to be like the
Pharisees. It is a challenge to us to go into our messed up world and do the
necessary work.
In Jesus’ parables, the focus is always on
the last figure, on the last personality of the story. The second set of
people in Jesus’ parable, the tax collectors and prostitutes, who actually had
a change of heart and went and did the work.
You see, Jesus’ problem was with the
Pharisees who didn’t think that they needed a change of heart; that they were
just fine the way they were; that they were appropriately religious and they
knew it. And that’s the way it has always been: in the Old Testament, the
time of Christ and throughout all of church history. God’s people have
consistently been blind to our own need to have a change of heart about doing
God’s work in the messed up world around us.
Jesus is inviting us to have a change of
heart. We need a change of heart, about
the messed up world around us. We need a change of heart about the
painful needs of hurting people around us.
We need a change of heart about actually doing God’s work of love in a
messed up world. We all need this change of heart, a change inside.
It saddens me to read about the religious
leaders in the Bible. Their hearts were
closed to the work that God was doing in the world. I wonder if we are. Yes the world is a hard place to live. There are wars, and rumors of wars, we are
faced with troubles on every side, there are many evil things happening in the
world. But this is God’s vineyard, and
we are the workers.
I ask this morning, are we admirers or
followers? (repeat) One son said,
"No, I won't go," and he later went. Another son said, "Yes, of
course I will go." But he didn't
go. Are we admirers or followers? You know this story hurts me. It gets under
my skin. It challenges me. It challenges us. It would seem to be, maybe, a
story that had no redemptive word—just challenge, just confrontation. Yet at
the end, there is a word of grace. Jesus in explaining the story to his
listeners, the religious leaders, said, "The tax collectors and the
prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you." (Repeat) Do you
hear it? Ahead of you. Not instead of you. Ahead of you. They, saying
"No" initially, heard the teaching of John the Baptist and believed.
Then there is the brother who is like us who say "Yes" to God all the
time. "Yes, Lord. Yes, I come to church. I'm pious." But we don't
always love our neighbor or feed the hungry. There is this hope for us that we
will yet go to the vineyard. For the great grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
continues to call all the children over and over and over again to go to the
vineyard, to follow him. Will we?
I believe that God is doing something great
before our very eyes. We can become
blind to what God is doing in the world around us. Church work can easily slip into little more
than simply maintaining the institution, with no excitement concerning what
God’s active grace is doing and so consequently there is no enthusiasm for
evangelism and renewal! We say we are
going to work in the vineyard, but instead of harvesting grapes we spend our
time rearranging the stones in the garden!
My friends grab your tools; there is work to be done.
