The Two Sons

Jesus had come to Jerusalem the day before,
and following his triumphal entry into the city,
he went to the temple and threw out all the money changers
in that wonderful scene so well recorded in the Gospel of St. John.

And so, this day, our Lord returned to the temple to preach and teach,
as he had intended the day before.
And, while teaching there,
the Chief Priests of the temple and the elders of the people came up to him and asked:
“By what authority did you clear the temple yesterday,
Upon what authority do you base your teachings, and who gave you this authority.

Now, Jesus was a smart Rabbi.
After all, He is the son of God, remember?
He knew that they were out to get him for the ruckus he had caused the day before,
and for the truth he had been teaching throughout the land.
So, instead of answering them directly, he said:
"I'll answer your question if you'll answer one of mine.
From where did the baptism of John the Baptist come?
Did it come from heaven, or from men?"

Now, the Priests were not stupid.
They knew that, no matter how they answered
they would condemn themselves.

After all, if they said that John's baptism came from heaven,
then Jesus would ask them why they had rejected him.

And, if they said that John's baptism came from men,
then the people would attack and condemn them,
because the people believed that John the Baptist was a great prophet.

And so, they argued their possible responses among themselves for a few minutes before returning to Jesus with a Whimppy answer: "We don't know,"
they said.
"We don't know."

A few minutes ago I said that these religious leaders were sneaky, and I was right.
There are few things worse than a slippery preacher or professor.
or anyone who simply won't give you a straight answer on any question.

This criticism cannot be leveled at Jesus
because he did promise to answer them
if only they would answer him.
In reality, what our Lord was trying to do
was to get these religious leaders
to answer their own question.
If they had answered honestly,
if they had said "From heaven,"
not only would they have been correct,
but they would have also answered the question they had put to Jesus.
After all, John the Baptist had proclaimed Jesus as the Christ:

"There goes the lamb of God,"
he said,
“the one who taketh away the sins of the world!"
If they had answered him honestly,
and as their own spirits had dictated,
then they would have had their own answer.
And, it seems rather clear, that they knew this.

But, since they failed to respond,
but only whimped out with a lame answer like "We don't know,"
Jesus didn't feel obligated to answer them at alI.
"If you won't tell me, then I'll not answer your question."
But, Jesus wasn't going to let the priests get off the hook so easily.
Instead, he tells a parable.

"A Father had two sons. And, one day he went to his first son and told him to go and work in the vineyard. But the son said, "No. I will not."
However, this son later changed his mind and went to work in the vineyard anyway.

Meanwhile, the father went to the second son
and told him to go and work in the vineyard. This son replied, 'Yes Sir"' but,
after his father went away, he changed his mind and didn't go.

"Now," Jesus asks, "which of the two sons did the will of his father?"
And the priests replied, almost without hesitation,
“The first one. The one who saw his error, repented, and went."

In their response, they indict themselves.
In their response, they prove that their vision is clear, but their will is not.
And so, Jesus rebukes them.
He tells them that they are like the second son, who said "Yes Sir!" to his Father,
but then didn't do his Father's will.
"You have the eyes to see that John the Baptist is truly a prophet, and yet you
fail to repent and do your Father's will!"
Jesus says that sinners are like the first son, who at first rejects the Father's command,
but later repents and does His Will.
"IRS investigators, and even prostitutes, will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you"'

That's a pretty hard line for Jesus to take.
And, yet, he is consistent.
The tax collectors and prostitutes heard the words of John the Baptist,
repented,
and went forth to live as the Father would have them to live.

The Priests, the elders and the Pharisees, they heard the words of John too.
But, they didn't repent.
No, indeed, they rejected John the Baptist,
They rejected the prophet,
and they rejected the son of God.

Now, the temptation is great to look for a moral lesson here, and one does exist.
But a moral teaching is not the focus of this parable.
Rather, as the scriptures make plain,
Jesus uses the story to smoke out the religious leaders and pin them down
as to their true nature.
Their kind of self-serving attitude is visible in our world,
and even in the church today.

"Don't rock the boat"'
"Don't go against the will of the people!"

It is a blindness that, very often, affects people in all walks of life,
and in all denominations,
the world over.

It goes back more than forty five years now,
but the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer still merits telling in all of our churches, today.
Bonhoeffer was a great Lutheran Theologian.

His ethic is, perhaps, one of the most interesting for a student of history
because he held it under the sadistic reign of Adolf Hitler.
Bonhoeffer broke with the Lutheran church's blind,
accommodating acceptance of Hitler's Third Reich,
and came out against the satanic forces which were gripping his homeland
and driving it to war.
He stood against the prevailing winds of pacifism,
which he had lauded and applauded in the days prior to Hitler,
and called for a rebellion against the Fureur.
He even took an active role in an assassination attempt ... and failed.
Because he believed that Hitler was a greater evil than violence,
he was willing to use violence to stop him.
But, he failed.
And, because he failed, he paid the price;
he, and the German Generals and other officers who had also been involved
in the assassination attempt, were all executed not long before the end of the war.

Bonhoeffer didn't bury his head in the sand.
Bonhoeffer saw the truth, repented,
and then went and did the Father's as best he knew it.
Bonhoeffer was like the first son in Jesus' parable.

I think you will find that my ministry has, over the past few years,
developed four rather interesting themes which tend to dominate my thought,
my teaching, and my preaching.

Firstly, there is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Nothing is more important than the preaching of Christ's
life,
death,
and resurrection.
This belief leads to,

Secondly, the importance of the Church as the community of the faithful.
We are the Church, called out of the world to be God's light in and to the world.

Thirdly, I pull from the Gospel it's fundamental message of Forgiveness.
I find that few things are more important than stressing
that we, the Church, have been
forgiven by God, and that we are
to forgive ourselves, and others.

And, Forthly, there is our call to mission as the church.
We are called to proclaim this Gospel of Resurrection and forgiveness
of Life and love in Jesus Christ, our Lord,
to those who have not heard it, but have need of it.

These four themes have dominated my ministry,
my preaching and my teaching. You will hear them stressed,
time and again, over the coming months,
as you have heard them stressed,
time and again, today.
The Call to Mission.
The Call to proclaim Jesus Christ.
The Priests and the elders of the temple failed on their own terms,
and they knew it.
Their deliberations should make that perfectly clear.
"If we say that John"s baptism was from God, we will be hypocrites because
we will be admitting something that we had publicly refused to acknowledge.
But, if we say that John's baptism was from men,
the crowd will kill us."

And so, they whimped out.

As I've already said, Jesus was a brilliant Rabbi, smart teacher.
He could see through the vinear of self-righteousness
the religious leaders wore upon their faces.
He knew that they knew,
but that they weren't willing to commit themselves to God's will.

They had said yes to God's law, but they had not done His will.
And so, Jesus smoked them out with a parable so clear,
so full of common sense,
that the priests couldn't miss the correct answer.
And, they didn't,

By answering, rightly, they proved that they were the second son,
the one who said yes, but didn't go.

I can't help but imagine that the priests knew,
even as they responded,
that they were in trouble.
I can imagine the pit, which grew in their stomachs as Jesus told the parable.
And the lumps in their throats, as they choked out their response.

They knew that Jesus knew,
and yet there was nothing they could do.
They were caught.
They indicted themselves.
They were like the second son.
Bonhoeffer was like the first son.
He took the position we are all called to take.
He did the right thing,
repented and followed God's will.
We all, at one time or another,
have said no to the Father.
We all, at one time or another,
have failed to do His will when called.
And yet,
We all, at one time or another, have repented,
and have gone to work in the Father's vineyard.
Bonhoeffer died for his faith and for doing as he believed God called him.
And we have no guarantee, either,
Save the promise of the Father.,
that He will never leave us,
nor forsake us.

When we sin,
when we say no to God,
the way is open to repent
and do what God has called us to do.

Let us not be as the Priests and elders of the temple.

We know where Christ's authority lies.
We know the proclamation of John.
Let us not say "yes" to God,
and then fail to have faith.
Let us not know the truth,
and then fail to follow God.
Let us say "Yes!" to God,
and then work in God's Vineyard.
Let us know the truth,
and then do God's will.