Matthew 21:23-32
When 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?” Jesus 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.
Did 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?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid
of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So 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. “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the
first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will
not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and
said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which 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. For 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.
Jesus has just made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
hailed by the crowds as the Son of David, the fulfilment of their hopes and
prophecies and dreams, coming in the name of the Lord to usher in the new world
order. Then immediately after that, Jesus went into the Temple and overturned
the tables of the traders and claimed that space back for God. Then he
continued his healing ministry; showing that he had authority not just over the
crowds and the religious institutions but authority over nature itself.
Is it any wonder then, in the light of all this exhibition of
power, that we read the opening words of our passage today: “When 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?’”
Jesus was clearly a threat to the religious and social
leaders of the day. He was exhibiting enormous and miraculous powers, the
crowds were absolutely enthralled by him, his courage and boldness in
confronting the institutions of power was astounding. Of course they would want
to question his authority.
And the questioning comes out of the security they felt in
their own authority. They were the leaders. The Chief Priests were in a
spiritual lineage that went all the way back to Moses. The Scribes were the
most learned theologians in Jewish society. The Elders had years of experience
and had the unquestioning respect of the people.
We need to remember that although we invariably see the religious
authorities as blinkered, they were, to all intents and purposes, the good guys
of the day as they sought to teach and to give a moral lead to God’s people and
hold society together. In Jesus’ own terms they were close to the Kingdom of
God: what was hampering them was their inability to step outside of the longstanding
tradition of closely prescribed religious rules and regulations and show a
human face in implementing the spirit and not just the letter of the law.
These were the religious insiders. Although the parallel is not exact, these
people were in some senses the churchy people, and there’s a difference in
style between what he says to the outsiders and what he says to the insiders,
what he says to the poor and to the rich. The words to the poor lift them up.
The words to the rich challenge them and critique them. The poor and the sick
and the meek inherit the earth. The rich and arrogant will be the last to enter
the kingdom of heaven.
The first dialogue that Matthew shares has Jesus involved in
a bit of ding-dong with a rabbinical crowd. Jesus rarely used this approach
much to the surprise of listeners who said, “He doesn’t talk like the teachers
of the Law, but he speaks with authority.” It’s a rare moment when Jesus
participates in the traditional rabbinical style of argument. The rabbis say to
him “where do you get the right to say and do this stuff!” Jesus responds in
this debating style, “Where did John get the right to do what he did?” And
then, the rabbis begin to debate, amongst themselves, “If we say “from God,”
then he’ll say, “why didn’t you believe him?” And if we say, “from men,” the
crowd won’t like it and they’ll attack us.” So they couldn’t come up with an
answer. And Jesus tells them, “I won’t give you one either.” He understood his
audience: they were the religious in-crowd, so he met them on their terms and
debated with them as they were used to debating with each other, and when it
came to it, they were speechless and defenceless in the face of a very simple
question. They claimed authority and power and privilege over the people, but
their chief concern was to protect their standing in society and to protect
their reputations. They felt threatened by Jesus because his authority was of a
completely different kind to what they were used to: it was worked out in his
welcoming of sinners and prostitutes; it was worked out in his welcoming of children;
it was worked out in his welcoming of the outcasts and those on the margins and
ultimately, the authority of Jesus was worked out in a life of service, not
ruling; a life hallmarked by betrayal and personal sacrifice, rejection,
torture and a criminal’s death on the cross. That is where the authority of
Jesus lay: not in some sort of power game full of rules that brought with it
prestige and wealth and the respect of the people.
The religious leaders had never seen anything like that
before and had no idea how to respond to it.
In that encounter, we have a lesson for all politicians and
religious leaders and all those who hold positions of authority in society today.
The claims of the Gospel are intense and all of us in political and spiritual
leadership are called to moments of decision that will have profound impact for
our future. Are we prepared to stand up for what is true and right in the eyes
of God and to live out our ministries by the standards of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ? Or will we seek to deny the truth in order to protect our power and
position and status in the eyes of society, or our electorate, or our
congregation? Spiritual and political leadership demand courage to do what is
right - often at the expense of personal gain and popularity.
The challenge to us in this passage is the extent to which we
are prepared to develop our gifts and position in this community to love and to
serve those in need rather than to seek prestige and honour and respect from
others. That’s the ultimate value that underpins the work of God’s mission, as
Jesus goes on to outline in the second part of this passage with the parable he
now goes on to give his hearers.
Here’s it’s a story about two bad boys. Boys don’t change
much, so the story stands the test of time. The father asks the boys to work in
the vineyard. One says—he will, but he doesn’t. The other says he won’t, but he
changes his mind and does. “Which one, “Jesus asks, “did what the father asks?”
But, there’s a catch to this parable
that is easy to miss: Jesus wants his hearers to make a choice between the
sons; which one has done the right thing and which one has done the wrong
thing. The choice is simple: a son who disobeys his father by saying ‘No’ to him,
but then changes his mind and a son who says ‘Yes’ to his father, but then
doesn’t go on to do what he said. Which is the better son?
To us, the choice is obvious: the better son is the first
one, who first says ‘No’ but goes on to do the right thing. But that wasn’t the
obvious choice for his first hearers because the first son who said ‘No’ would
have brought real shame and embarrassment on his father by disobeying him. Yes,
he went on to do the right thing in the end but in terms of undermining the social
standing of his father in the eyes of the community, the damage had been done
in his initial refusal to obey. So, in reality, the behaviour of the first son
was no better than the second son: they were both equally guilty in the eyes of
their father.
But Jesus wants the religious people to choose between them;
they are both equally sinful – but which one is more likely to be redeemed in
the eyes of the father? In the light of that, there is only one choice to make:
redemption and forgiveness is available to the son who at first disobeys and
embarrasses his father but is not available to the son who mocks his
father, and continues to mock him, by
his refusal to do what is asked of him.
So this isn’t a parable about the choices we make so much as
a parable about the need to honour the Father and to give him his due.
And the key word in this passage comes in verse 29: “But
later he changed his mind and went…” The phrase ‘changed his mind’ is not a
particularly good translation of the Greek. A more literal translation would be
to say: “Later he changed what he cared about and went…”
And that is the key idea here. When this son said ‘No’ to his
father, all he really cared about was his own comfort, his own way of living.
But later, he changed what he cared about and chose instead to care for the
honour of his father and then went out into the vineyard to work for him.
At the heart of this passage is a simple question: What do
you care about? What do I care about? Are we like the religious leaders to whom
Jesus is talking, whose primary care is for social standing and personal
reputation and the comforts that come with a lifestyle of relative privilege?
Or is our primary concern going to be for the honour of our Father God who asks
us to go out and work for him in the vineyard of his Kingdom? If our primary
concern is for the honour of God, we’ll be called out of our comfort zone and
we’ll need to undertake some work for him. But that’s what he asks of us.
And the message of this parable is that, if we respond to the
call of the Father and change our concern from us to him, then we will be
acceptable to him, regardless of what we have done in the past. All of us have
said ‘No’ to God in the past. But as soon as we say ‘Yes’ to him, the past is
washed away and no longer counts against us in his sight. It doesn’t matter
what our past contains: all that matters is the ‘Yes’. And that’s why Jesus is
then able to say what he does in verse 31: “Truly I tell you, the
tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of
you.”
The religious leaders to whom Jesus was speaking were still
locked into their ‘No’ to God and so, until they changed their concern, there
was no hope of them entering the kingdom of God. But the sinners and those on
the margins of society had changed their concern and turned their ‘No’ into a
‘Yes’ and so they were perfectly acceptable to God
What about us? Are we too fearful of saying Yes to God? Do we
think the secrets of our past or the shame of our present life is too much for
him? That’s not the message in this passage and that’s not the message of the
Christian Gospel.
The past is gone – the present can be healed. All God wants
is a ‘Yes’, so we can let him yet further into our lives so we can experience
his love and his healing power.
No comments:
Post a Comment