Matthew 21:23-32
23When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.25Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
28“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
What does it mean to be a Christian? Does it mean that one believes in Jesus Christ, or is there more to it? Does it only require saying a certain prayer or professing a certain creed, or is it much more?
The religious leaders and the elites of Jesus’ time felt that they had it all figured out, that they were professing the right things and doing the right things. After all, they had been gifted with so much during their lives and they had excelled to the upper echelons of society, so they of course they had to have been righteous, they must have been making God happy. Yet they were being told that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going before them into the kingdom of God, because they were not obeying God or believing the right things. Instead, they were placing their own wants and desires for power ahead of Gods, much like the son who said he would work in the vineyard and then decided not to, since there were more fun things to do.
Now to put things into perspective, let us consider the tax collectors and the prostitutes. I think we can all understand why the prostitutes are considered at the bottom, since they have been for generations upon generations viewed as the bottom of the barrel, as lowest a person could sink in civilized society, unless of course they are played by Julia Roberts, then they get Richard Gere and get covered in diamonds. As for the tax collectors, while we may not enjoy audits there was a different issue revolving around them. The Tax collectors were Jews who worked for the Romans, taking money from their fellow Jews to give to their overlords. And if this betrayal wasn’t enough, the way one kept their job as a tax collector, since it was a political appointee, was to create more profits for the ones who gave you the job, so they would often overtax their fellow Jews to the extreme, to the point that they could not feed themselves, just to make their Roman rulers more profitable and the tax collector could maintain the lifestyle that he desired. So they were traitors to the people, basically a whole class of Benedict Arnolds, or for the more Disney-acclimated, Scar from the Lion King. Yet they were all going to enter into the kingdom of God before the religious leaders and elites of the day.
Why? Because they got it when John spoke. Back in the third chapter of Matthew, John says “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” Yet the leaders kept telling themselves that they were on the right path, that they had no need of repentance and that they were secure, they had Abraham as an ancestor and they were doing pretty well for themselves. Yet they were not to experience the kingdom of God before the prostitutes and the tax collectors, because they had not repented and they had not borne fruit worthy of repentance.
And to John, there was more to repentance then just saying “I’m Sorry, my bad.” It was more than accepting guilt and asking for forgiveness. It was to radically re-orient one’s life towards God, instead of towards one’s self. It is in emulating God’s character that we radically reorient our lives. If we look back at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we can also see what this re-orientation looks like, although it doesn’t completely flow within our Lutheran Heritage. Of course, this is because Matthew was not a Lutheran, he wrote quite a bit before our beloved, brilliant, drunk German monk Martin Luther. While Luther would divide Law from Gospel, Matthew’s theology keeps them intertwined, because the Law does not carry the killing power that Luther describes, but instead offers life and a new way of living that flows from the Gospel.
So in the Sermon on the Mount, starting in Chapter 5, Christ tells us to go beyond the letter of the Law and to live within its spirit, as well as to live rightly with others, to live out God’s calling with each moment. Therefore, it is not just “Do not murder” but also “do insult your brother or sister” and “if someone has something against you, first be reconciled to them, and then come offer your gift at the table.” Why is this? Because God is relational and if our relationships are broken with one another, how is it that we can possibly have a right relationship with God?
Acting righteously, which is acting with forgiveness and compassion for all people, is what makes us who we are as Christians. If we do not do good works, and make our lives completely about living out God’s mission on earth, we cannot rightfully call ourselves Christians and say that we are in the kingdom of God. When salt loses its flavor or if Superman lost all his superpowers, they lose their purpose and identity and when we as Christians foreswear our Christianity and cease doing good works and living our lives for the sole purpose of bring about God’s kingdom, of serving all of our brothers and sisters, regardless of who they are, we lose our identity as Christians. I remember a song by the Christian band DC Talk from my childhood that proclaimed "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
Now are we perfect? No, we are not at all. There will be times when we stumble and we fall flat on our faces, and we shall be forgiven. However, it is truly Sin when we willfully say “Yes, I believe this, but my life will be easier if I ignore that belief so I’m not going to live according to my beliefs.” It is in that moment that we become the religious leaders of Jesus’ day and we begin to put comfort and our desires above God and we are also blocked from the kingdom of God.
You see, the kingdom of God here does not necessarily refer to heaven or the afterlife, instead it is the in-breaking of God’s will and God’s reign here on earth. After all, we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” within the Lord’s prayer, so it can’t truly equal heaven if it is coming here as it is there. Instead, it is a new way of living that defies our culture and uplifts all those who are in pain and are in need to a point of equality with all people. It is saying that it is not shocking for the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering in before us, because they are equals and not some lower caste that needs to be ignored or persecuted. It is saying that the poor and the disabled and the ill are not those labels, but instead of our fellow children of God who, much like us are in need and need to be respected for who they are, even though they may seem different. It is seeing the world through God’s eyes instead of seeing it through the eyes of our culture. As Martin Marty, which is an amazing name for a Martin Luther scholar, puts it in his book Lutheran Questions, Lutheran Answers, “Where Jesus was proclaiming good news, healing, calling for repentance, effecting justice, doing the words of love – there was the activity he called the kingdom.” We are not talking about a place when we speak about the kingdom, we are speaking of a reality, we are talking about action, and we are talking about motive. For our Christianity is not only belief in Christ being our Savior, and it is not just acting correctly, but it is also a heart condition. When we act we have to do so with pure motives, not ones that may bring us glory and honor, whether from our brothers and sisters or from God, but we must do them out of love and compassion and to give glory to our loving Creator. This was also an error of the religious leaders, since they did what they had to do in order to look good in front of the people. The way that they talk amongst each other after Jesus’ question points to their desire to keep power and respect. Instead of looking for truth, they debate which answer would do less damage, and seeing neither answer escaping damage they choose not to answer, choosing inactivity over possible failure. Their motives are not pure, so the end result, no matter what it was, remains tainted.
So in order to produce the good fruit that is worth of repentance, that which indicates our radical re-orientation towards God, we must believe and act accordingly with pure motives. And like I said before we will fumble at times with this. We will have doubts in our lives and we will sometimes act against our beliefs, and we will sometimes fall into seeking glory. But when we do stumble, when we do fall, we pick ourselves back up and we seek to be better. All of us at some point says “no” to God’s calling, yet that is not the end of the story, because we have the opportunity to change that “no” and to go out into the vineyard of the world and do the good work that our Savior has called us to do. Instead of seeking honor and glory, we can align ourselves with the tax collectors and the prostitutes, who may not seem like much in our world but are those who see God for who God is and act accordingly and are as valued as any other in the eyes of God.
As for trusting in being an ancestor of Abraham, do we not also fall into this trap as well at times? Do we not tell ourselves that we come from long lines of Lutherans or Christians, and therefore are secure and are worthy of respect because of our heritage. Whether someone’s family has been here since Jerusalem was a German speaking congregation or not, or whether someone is a pastor’s kid or not, or whether someone’s great ancestor is Luther or not doesn’t really matter. Instead it is who we are and what we do as individuals that matters. It is our hands and our hearts and our minds that define who we are as Christians, not the blood that flows in our veins.
Our lives as Christians are not all that enticing nor are they are filled with physical rewards. Instead they are lives with a purpose and a direction that defy culture and bring honor and glory to our Lord and Savior. It may be dirty work at times, but our service brings aid and comfort to those who are weary and distraught and ignored, and that service is its own reward and is the very definition of our faith, for it brings about the kingdom of God, in which all are loved and respected and cherished.
Amen.
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