17th Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Rod Sprange

Matthew 21:23-32

I speak to you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I don’t often use that sermon preface, but when I do I use it, I say it with some trepidation and a very real sense of responsibility. You might well ask, “Who gives you the authority to speak in the name of the Holy Trinity?”. A very good question. In my case I am authorized by our Bishop and invited by our Rector to preach here. But anyone can proclaim the Gospel and we have to decide whether or not they are speaking with authenticity; are they truly proclaiming God’s word. It’s incumbent on us all to listen with discernment.

Authority and authenticity are at the heart of today’s Gospel reading. Jesus had entered Jerusalem with the crowd singing their Hosannas and proclaiming him to be the Son of David, a title reserved for the expected and longed for Messiah - or anointed one. He had entered the Temple and disrupted the daily activities, driving out the money changers and the sellers of doves. Who had given him the authority to do these things? That was the great question underlying these events and the questioning of the High Priests.

The High Priests were the authority in the Temple, only the Messiah would have higher authority. Was Jesus claiming the right of the Messiah? When Jesus went to the Temple the next day, he began teaching the people! Who had authorized him? None of the High Priests or elders had sanctioned him. They didn’t like the way the people were following him and what he was telling them. They wanted to get rid of him. They attempted to get him to convict himself of blasphemy by claiming he was the Messiah. So they asked him by whose authority he was doing these things. Jesus knew their game and wasn’t about to fall into their thinly veiled trap. So he said he would answer their question if they would first answer his.

He asked then where John’s baptism came from - was John following God’s will or his own. In other words was John’s baptism authentic, was he baptizing with authority from God. We will come back to this because it is a critical point underlying Jesus’s simple sounding question.

Now the priests recognized they had a problem. If they said John was doing God’s will, then Jesus could come back on them and demand to know why hadn’t they believed him and joined in being baptized. On the other hand, if they said they didn’t believe John was who he claimed to be, they were scared of the reaction of the people. John had developed a huge following of ordinary people. After he had ben martyred by Herod, many believed he was indeed one of God’s prophets. This confrontation between Jesus and the High Priests was public, so they had to be careful. After arguing amongst themselves about how to answer his question, they finally told Jesus they didn’t know.

Jesus, probably scornfully, told them, if you won’t answer my question I won’t answer yours. Then he told all those gathered there, including the High Priests and Elders the parable of the two sons. When their father told his two sons to go and work a day in the vineyard, one said “no thanks, Dad”. But later thought better of it, repented and went and did as his father had asked. The second Son, said he would go, but then didn’t bother. When Jesus asked the High Priests which son had obeyed his father, they all said the first.

Jesus then condemned the High Priests and told them the Prostitutes and tax collectors (sinners and outcasts) would come into God’s Kingdom before them. The sinners and outcasts heard John, and his call to repentance and changed their lives. The Priests heard John, and continued all their worship rituals, appearing to be God fearing and righteous, when in fact they were in need of repentance. They had authorized and benefitted from the cheating money lenders and got their cut of the exorbitant prices charged by the official dove sellers, just two examples of the corrupt systems they had developed.

Jesus’s question about John was critical. Remember, it was following Jesus’s baptism by John, that God had declared Jesus to be God’s Son, the beloved. That was the authority he had to do what he was doing in the Temple. Only Messiah would have authority greater than the Chief Priests.

Two questions seem to stand out for me:
First, what does Jesus mean by saying the prostitutes and tax collectors (those who had repented) would go into the kingdom of Heaven ahead of the High Priests?  Secondly, What does this interaction with the Temple authorities and the parable mean for us today?

With the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Kingdom of God had been initiated on earth. The Prostitutes and Tax Collectors, by submitting to the cleansing of John’s baptism and repentance, changing their lives, had started on their way to becoming Kingdom citizens. The Priests were still far away from that. Notice something important here. Jesus is continuing a pattern seen frequently in the Old Testament - God blesses the people, the people later turn away from God. There is judgement, but with the judgement there is always an element of grace. Jesus didn’t say “the prostitutes and tax collectors will enter God’s Kingdom, but you won’t”. He said they will enter the kingdom before you. Can you see the grace in this? He was not condemning them from ever entering the Kingdom of God. There was still hope.

But what a shock to these priests and elders who enjoyed all the privileges of rank. the Priests loved their status in society, and Jesus told them they would be taking a back seat to the reformed sinners and outcasts. Last week we heard the parable of the workers in the vineyard and how the least desirable workers had been chosen by the land-owner late in the day. Yet they received the same full day wage as the workers that had been working all day. And here is a significant point, those least desirable, late comers, were paid first. Everyone received the same wage, but the least among them received their wages ahead of those who had been in the field all day. Jesus followed the parable with the comment - “the last shall be first”. He was clearly foreseeing the coming confrontation with the High Priests.

What does this confrontation and the parable of the two sons have to say to us today? We have a blessing and a problem! Our blessing is that we have been given the gift of the Gospel. Our problem is we have been given the gift of the Gospel and can’t pretend we don’t know about it. We have to make a decision, like the High Priests, to believe in and follow Jesus or reject him as the Messiah. The Gospel is the greatest gift we can receive. Jesus once said something to the effect, to those who much has been given, much is expected. Much is expected of us.

Think about the Baptismal Covenant that we commit ourselves to several times a year? Are we like the second son in the parable and pay lip service to the those promises, making them without any real conviction or intention to follow through? Or the first son, where initially glide over the promises, but later repent and do our best to live up to the promises we have made. Consider just two of those promises we have made.

“Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? And we have replied, "I will, with God’s help". And we have been asked: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” And again we have replied, “I will with God’s help”.  Did you mean it?

Wouldn’t it be something, if we, as members of Christ’s church, were effectively and visibly challenging the corrupt and unjust systems in our country - including our part in identifying and eliminating systemic and inbred prejudice and racism. We have been given the authority and mission to proclaim the Gospel of Christ, by telling the stories of Jesus and by the actions in our lives. You might want to spend some time thinking about how you are fulfilling the promise to proclaim the good news, the Gospel? Not to be harsh with yourself, but to be open to the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. Remember, Jesus brought a message of forgiveness and hope.

Let us pray for the desire and strength to be guided by Christ’s wisdom to live lives as citizens of God’s Kingdom. Amen