Proper 21 :: Ezekiel 18: 1–4, 25–32 / Psalm 25: 1–8 / Philippians 2: 1–13 / Matthew 21: 23–32
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, September 27, 2020.
“GOD’S TRUTH, FOUND IN UNEXPECTED PLACES”
(Homily text: Matthew 21:
23-32)
God’s truth
and God’s acting in human affairs often surprise us. Perhaps the reason that
God seems to take delight in reminding us that His truth isn’t always found in
the places we expect it to be found is to remind us that – for all the gifts we
human beings possess, for all of our mental abilities and our capacity to
imagine and create – for all of that, we are, in God’s estimation at least, in
need of reminding that we don’t know it all.
Put another
way, we could say that there’s a downside to being created in the image and
likeness of God. There’s a downside to being endowed with God’s gifts of
reason, memory and skill, for we human beings can begin to think that, because
we know a thing or two, we think we know it all.
Put yet
another way, we could say that God seems to take delight in turning our normal
expectations upside down.
With that
description of the human condition, we are ready to take a look at today’s
appointed Gospel text.
Jesus has
come into the temple precincts in Jerusalem. He has made His triumphal entry
into the city at the beginning of Holy Week. Among the challenges He will pose
to those in power in the city during this week is in His overturning of the
moneychangers’ tables. A bit later on, He is approached by the chief priests
and the elders of the people, who ask Him, “By what authority are you doing
these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Implicit in
their question is a subtext, it seems to me. Perhaps the thinking of the chief
priests and the elders might go something like this: “You’re a part of the
working class, and you are from the town of Nazareth. (Remember the comment
that we find in John’s Gospel account about Nazareth: “Can anything good come
out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46) Moreover, we haven’t seen you here in Jerusalem
studying with our most well-known rabbis. So where did you get your training
from? You’re obviously not qualified to be a teacher, a rabbi, and you don’t
belong to the ruling class (like we are) here in Jerusalem.”
Jesus’
response is masterful. The first response takes the form of a question about
the origin (the authority) of John the Baptist’s work: Jesus asks if John’s
work was from heaven (God), or from human origin. The chief priests and the
elders are trapped, for if they say that John’s work came from heaven (God),
then the question naturally arises: Why didn’t they believe in (and follow)
John’s ministry? On the other hand, due to their fear of the crowd, who held
that John was a prophet, they can’t say that John’s ministry was of human
origin, for that would denigrate John’s authority and work.
The Lord’s
second response takes the form of the Parable of the Two Sons, which digs at
the heart of the chief priests and elders’ pride and their exaggerated sense of
their own importance in God’s scheme of things.
The
question posed by the Lord at the conclusion of the parable has only one
answer: The son who initially refused to go and work in the vineyard, but then
changed his mind and went, is the one who did the father’s will.
There
follows the Lord’s “zinger”: The tax collectors and the prostitutes will enter
the kingdom of God before you chief priests and you elders. The reason is
simple: The tax collectors and those other sinners have nothing to offer God
but themselves, unclean and sinful as they are. They’re willing to admit their
shortcomings and their failures. To the chief priests and the elders’ way of
thinking, there’s no way that the tax collectors and the notorious sinners will
ever enter the kingdom at all, much less ahead of them. After all – by their
own estimation – they are the holy ones, the ones who have been keeping all the
requirements of the Law of Moses. They are the ones who are the exemplars of
upright and proper living.
But they
are proud of their self-made righteousness. They are proud of their training,
their status, and their authority in all matters religious.
That’s the
problem, exactly: Pride.
The chief
priests and the elders’ pride prevents them from admitting that they, too, are
sinners, and they are notorious ones, at that. From God’s perspectives, they
are prevented from entering the kingdom precisely because they are giving God
lip service, but little else, just like the son in the parable who told his
father he’d go work in the vineyard, but didn’t.
In
contrast, the tax collectors and those other notorious sinners have nothing to
offer God but themselves. They have no platform of their own making upon which
to make any claim on God’s mercy and God’s favor.
But, in
reality, that’s the beginning point for each one of us: We come to God,
empty-handed, offering only ourselves to Him. That, however, is the richest gift
we can offer, and the one that God prizes the most: Ourselves.
So we come,
admitting we fall short of God’s holiness, and seeking God’s forgiveness and
mercy. In so doing, we enter the door that our Lord has opened for us, entering
into an intense, personal relationship with God.
AMEN.
