20 th Sunday After Pentecost Matthew 21: 23-32 A friend of mine who is a campus minister at a large state university runs an ad in the school newspaper every family weekend, saying, Bring your parents by the campus ministry house. We will act like we know you. I actually consider the general hostility of most college students towards organized religion to be one of the blessings of this type of ministry. It is a mixed blessing, but a blessing all the same. You see, college students can be very blunt. I know that this is news to many of you parents, who have forgotten what it was like when they lived under your roof as seventeen year olds, in the interest of protecting your fragile psyche, you have blocked out those memories, but let me remind you that they have a gift for speaking their minds. And I assure you, this ability has not left them since they arrived on our campus. Frankly, they are so honest sometimes it borders on tacky. They show up to this place, sometimes not even knowing this is a church-related school, can you imagine? I try to explain to them, that I am ordained. The Methodist Church told me so. They don t seem to care. I show them the degrees on my wall, framed and prominent so everyone will know my qualifications, they don t even flinch. I have grand dreams some days in which I am pastoring a church, a place where people know how to treat someone with a robe and qualifications and a masters level understanding of apocalyptic eschatology. At least in a church, when they disagree with a pastor, they say it behind your back, over a potluck lunch. On a college campus, when someone disagrees with you, they usually have the audacity to say it right there to your face. It s very crude. Some of them have no church background, so they have no idea that you re supposed to respect a pastor, and not ask him or her questions like What s the point of religion? or What s the meaning of life? Those of you that are church folk know that we pastors are here to answer more important questions, like Where did the Hittites come from? After our seminary training, we know that these are the hard-hitting questions that people of faith are wrestling with. My father in law tells the story of his first church appointment, a tiny little Methodist congregation in rural Georgia, a group of well meaning folks who spent more time worrying about their crops than they did developing their Christology. So my father-in-law, a seminary student at the time, took it upon himself to open up all the riches of a masters level education for these hard working, simple minded folks. One of his first sermons was on Jesus parable of the Prodigal Son. 1
He gave a detailed account of all the hidden metaphorical significance in the parable, trying to reenact the lecture he had heard in his class just days before, outlining for his little congregation how the prodigal son s actions mirrored the historical faithlessness of Israel, how the paternal-child relationship paralleled the Mosaic covenant, and other very helpful theological insights. At the close of the service, as he stood at the back door greeting people, one of the men in his congregation walked up to him and offered a rough handshake. Let me get this straight, the man, who was not even wearing a tie, asked my father-in-law. So this story is about how if my son went off to Atlanta, and blew everything I worked for, and ruined my family s name, and knocked on my door drunk at midnight, I d still welcome him home cause he s my boy. Is that right? My father-in-law, his theological expertise feeling more like a concrete necklace than a badge of honor, mumbled back, Well, yes, that s exactly what the story is about. The blessing of spending most of my waking hours with college students is that they will not let organized religion get away with much. They are more interested in convictions than they are creeds, more concerned about hypocrisy than they are the Hittites. From their standpoint, most churches spend their time fighting over whether the guitar or the organ gets more stage time during a worship service, about who spilled coffee on the parlor carpet, and other significant ideological disputes. For those on the outside, the church seems completely oblivious to what might be going on beyond the sanctuary walls. The church is full of people saying all the right things: justice, peace, mercy, love, grace, but then they wander out of the sanctuary, make their way to their cars in the parking lot, and begin saying no with their actions. The church doesn t seem interested in keeping its word. We talk a good game, us religious folk, but when it comes to actually doing anything that might matter in the world, well, the jury of an average college student is still out. To be honest, I can sometimes see their point. Religious people are obsessed with words, but we are not always equally enthused about keeping our word. I grew up in Alabama, where we take everything religiously. Growing up, whenever it seemed like there was nothing else to do, there was always some church putting on a concert for middle school and high school students. Invariably, these all worked the same way. There was some tremendously moving presentation, ending with an infomercial-like plea for folks who were looking for God to come down to the front. Sometimes out of peer pressure, sometimes out of genuine hunger, I would sheepishly walk down the aisle and be paired with a counselor, who would then take me to a classroom in the church. He or she would explain that all I had to do to be a Christian was say a simple prayer, asking Jesus to come into my life. And over and over again during my adolescent years, I would pray their prayer, hoping this time it would take. 2
But come Monday, things were the same again. I was just me. No great change. I still made the same mistakes, I still disliked my enemies, I kept looking out for myself more than I did anyone else. I wanted those words to mean something, to be some magic spell that would change me from the inside out. I wanted it to be that easy, and frankly, I do believe that God accepts those prayers and readily forgives us our sins. But there is more to religious faith than just saying the right words. The words are the beginning, not the end, of our journey towards God. As a college Chaplain, I get to preside over a lot of weddings, and whenever I have that privilege, I remember the day my wife and I were married several years ago. The two people who said those vows to one another have changed and grown a lot in fact, while I didn t know it then, I m not sure either of us understood what we were saying in those promises to each other. But now, years later, those words have life behind them. While we had no wedding cake to celebrate it with, while there was no photographer to document it, somewhere down the line, long after we were technically married, we started to really understand what those words called us to. We started to live those vows, we learned to keep our word. One of my favorite preachers said once, Anyone can pull off a beautiful wedding, with enough money and time. But show me a beautiful marriage, and I will show you a genuine miracle. Our Gospel lesson finds us in the last week of Jesus life. Those of you who have heard this story before know that Jesus last few days on Earth started in very promising fashion. On Sunday, he marched into town in a parade given his honor, surrounded by cheering crowds. But by Friday, those same crowds were cheering for his execution. You may wonder how someone s fortunes can change so quickly, and the simplest answer is, Jesus upsets everyone. Today s Gospel lesson from Matthew is the beginning of a long series of parables and criticisms that Jesus lays at the feet of the religious leaders. While Jesus never attended this university as far as I know, he seems to harbor the same frustrations with organized religion that many college students do. So this morning, he marches right into the Jerusalem Temple, faces the Pharisees (aka the masters of organized religion), and they try and get into a theological discussion with him. They were all religion majors, they can wax eloquently on matters of ecclesiology, soteriology, and other multi-syllabled concepts. They have many framed degrees on their office walls, and have appeared in numerous Pharisaical publications. 3
So they try and trick Jesus into having a theological debate with them. But you know what he does? Get ready, because this really upsets them: He tells them a story. I know, that doesn t sound so bad. You expected him maybe to set the Temple curtains on fire, to throw a punch at one of the head Pharisees, but all he does is tell a story. That doesn t seem like enough motivation to want to kill him, until you hear the story. It s Family Weekend there in Jerusalem, so Jesus tells a story about a family. A man had two sons. After breakfast one morning, he asks one of his sons to go work in the vineyard. Dad, you know how busy I am. I can t go work in the vineyard today. Sorry, but no. But a few hours later, that first son, the one who said no, goes out into the vineyard anyway, quietly doing what his father asked him to. Even though he said no when his father asked, he does it anyway. Meanwhile, thinking that the first son wasn t going to work in the vineyard, the father goes and finds his second son, and asks him to go work in the vineyard. Sure thing, Dad. I ll be right out there. But as the hours go by, the second son, the one who said yes, keeps finding other things to do, and never makes it to the vineyard. That s the story. Still seem a little silly for the Pharisees to get so upset about it? Like maybe they re overreacting a bit to get their theological feathers all ruffled over a simple story? Well, following the story, Jesus turns to them and asks, Which son carried out the will of their father? Easy answer. Maybe we will get to have a theological discussion after all. The one who initially said no, but went out into the vineyard anyway. Jesus looks at the Pharisees, there in the middle of the Temple, those who claimed to know God better than anyone else, and says, Exactly. And the prostitutes, and the tax collectors, and all the rest who listen to me are entering the kingdom of God before you do. Because while you said yes, you never went out into the vineyard. You didn t keep your word. Now you see why the Pharisees might be a little bit upset. They have built their lives on theological discussions, arguments over beliefs and practices, they have built their lives on words alone. Jesus, though, consistently and constantly makes faith more than a matter of words, more than a matter of professed beliefs. 4
Later in this Gospel, in the 25 th chapter, in one of the few times Jesus talks about who gets into heaven and who does not, Jesus divides the sheep (aka the ones who made it) from the goats (aka all the others) not by talking about which ones of them went to church, or which ones of them had Jesus stickers on their lunchboxes, or which ones of them said the right things or prayed enough. He divides them by what they did, and how they cared for their neighbors in need. Whenever you showed kindness to the least of these, you showed it to me, and whenever you failed to show kindness to these, you failed to show it to me. Let me be clear. The words matter. The words matter very much, no matter how much society has fostered within us a mistrust of everything we hear. These hymns we sing, these prayers we pray, even those multi-syllabled religious words that seem so irrelevant most of the time, they all matter. We gather in this place to proclaim those words, believing that they are transformative. That in saying them, we shape our hearts, our minds, our world. Don t walk out of this place thinking that I said the words don t matter. What God desires most of all is children whose words and actions say yes. But the words alone are not enough. The second son says, I will go to the vineyard, but his empty promise does not get the work done. Our words, our promises, our vows and our prayers must be backed up with our actions, our lives. This is why Paul writes to the Philippian Church and asks that they take on the very mind of Jesus Christ. Think like Jesus. Act like Jesus. Love like Jesus, who chose to give his life in obedience to something greater than himself. I spent some time in college working in Calcutta, with Mother Teresa s Missionaries of Charity. We spent every day there feeding, bathing, tending to the most basic needs of the dying. And in a sea of beautiful Indian faces, there was a tall German man named Andy who helped us get started every morning with the work that needed to be done. Every morning when we showed up, Andy was already there. When we left in the evening, Andy was still there. One afternoon, I got curious and asked him how long he was going to be staying in Calcutta. Oh, I m only here on vacation. I live in Munich. I m an investment banker, actually, and I really should be getting home. I asked him, So how long have you been here? 10 years, he said. I came down here for just a week, I didn t mean to stay this long, frankly, I m not exactly sure what happened. 5
There is just something about waking up every day, and believing in what you re doing, that changes everything. So every week, I decide to stay one more week. And I have been doing that for 10 years now, I guess, one week at a time. Let that same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus. Who chose weakness over power, grace instead of judgment, humility in place of greatness. Who defined himself not only by his words, but by his feet. By his actions. By those he kept company with. Let our religion, let our vows, let our promises so shape us, that when it comes time to do the work of God, we too will have the courage and the foolishness to keep our word. 6