Proper 21 / Pentecost 19 / Ordinary Time 26
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Christ calls us to be faithful in deeds as well as words.
Old Testament Lesson
Exodus 17:1-7
Water From A Rock
The people of Israel, for whom daily rations of quail and manna have become commonplace, are again complaining. Quarreling with Moses, they accuse him of luring them out into the wilderness to kill them (v. 3). This is the third time the people have leveled such a charge against their leader (see 14:11 and 16:3). Moses cries out to the Lord, who instructs him to go to "the rock at Horeb," and take his staff with him. He is to strike the rock with the staff and water will come out. Moses follows the Lord's instructions and is rewarded with a spring of fresh water (verses 5-7). The location -- Horeb, the same place where he heard the Lord speaking out of the burning bush -- is significant. While in this account, the Lord seems to respond to the people's need readily enough, this incident will go down in history as an indictment of their lack of faith. Moses gives the place a double name -- Massah and Meribah -- which highlights the people's quarrelsome, contentious ways (v. 7). Later passages of scripture will refer to this dark day and others like it (Deuteronomy 6:16; Psalm 78:18; 81:7; 95:9; 106:32). At the time of Moses' death, he is forbidden from entering the promised land because he and the people tested the Lord at this place (Deuteronomy 32:51). In the story of Jesus' temptation, as he turns aside the devil's offer to permit him to leap from the pinnacle of the temple and be saved, he responds with the saying, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." This is probably a reference to the way the Israelites tested the Lord here in the wilderness.
New Testament Lesson
Philippians 2:1-13
Christ, Humbled And Exalted
This passage (a portion of which also occurs on Palm/Passion Sunday in all three cycles of the lectionary) is one of the most significant Christological passages in the Bible. Paul urges his friends at Philippi -- possibly his favorite church -- to "make my joy complete" by sharing a common mind and a common love (verses 1-2). He exhorts them to humility and mutual caring (verses 3-4). To aspire to this, he says, is to do nothing less than to share the mind of Christ (v. 5). In verses 6-11, Paul shares a poetic fragment that is likely a hymn or creed used in the first-generation church. It is all about Jesus' sacrificial descent from heaven to utter abandonment and shame on the cross, from which God ultimately exalted him, raising him up to heavenly glory once again. The key word here is kenosis, or emptying: Jesus "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness" (v. 7). Note that Jesus does not raise himself up. His self-emptying is so complete that God must do it for him (v. 9). He is restored to heavenly rule where "every knee shall bow... and every tongue confess" that he is Lord (verses 10-11). The lectionary selection concludes with Paul's encouragement to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (verses 12-13). Although the notion of working out one's own salvation has seemed problematic to some commentators, when that phrase is read in the context of verse 13, it is less so -- for it is, in fact, God who is the instigator of that work.
The Gospel
Matthew 21:23-32
Jesus Rebuffs The Chief Priests' Challenge
Jesus has just cleansed the temple and has heard the objections of the chief priests and scribes to the people's messianic acclamation, "Hosanna to the Son of David" (verses 12-17). Then, in a private setting, his disciples have looked on in awe as Jesus cursed the fig tree, causing it to wither (verses 1822). Now, the chief priests and elders are publicly questioning his authority (v. 23). To the reader -- who has just heard Matthew's account of the blasting of the fig tree -- there should be no question of his authority, but these temple authorities see things differently. Jesus' overturning of the moneychanger's tables was a direct challenge to the existing order. In a disputational gambit, Jesus responds to their question with another one: "Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" (verses 24-25). Matthew provides a glimpse into the thinking of Jesus' opponents as they pragmatically weigh their possible responses. John is still a popular and controversial figure -- much-beloved by the people -- although not by the religious authorities. The chief priests and scribes know that if they align themselves with John, they will be capitulating to the Jesus movement. Yet if they speak out in opposition to John, they will lose even more stock with the uneasy populace. Jesus' question is forcing them to show their hand. They evade the question, and so Jesus refuses to answer their demand that he display his spiritual credentials (v. 27). The standoff continues.
Preaching Possibilities
"Talk is cheap," so they say. We all know how easy it is to say "the check is in the mail" -- well, maybe not so easy anymore in these days of online banking -- but it's still true that it's easier to make a promise than fulfill one.
Jesus himself makes a similar point in a parable. It's not one of his better-known parables. It's a homey little story that's come to be called "The Parable of the Two Sons."
First, a sidebar: it really shouldn't be called that. Although the English translation begins, "A man had two sons..." that's not what the Greek really says. It says, "A man had two children" -- not a word about whether they were boys or girls. It's the English translators who long ago assumed it had to be two sons.
Sons or daughters, there's no need to dwell on the distinction. The father turns to one of his two children (let's say it's a son), and says, "Son, mow the lawn today." Son says, "As if! No way, Parental Unit!"
Dad turns to offspring number two (let's say it's a daughter), and says, "Daughter..."
(No response.)
He says, "Daughter!" a little louder.
The girl takes off her stereo headphones. "Daughter, I'd like you to weed the garden today."
Daughter says, "Dear father, nothing would please me more than to do your bidding."
Well, Dad goes off for the afternoon and when he returns, what should he see but his smart-mouthed son putting away the lawnmower.
The flower beds, however, are another story. They look pretty weedy. On closer examination, he finds that not a single weed has been pulled. Dad goes back into the house and finds daughter sprawled out on the same couch where he first discovered her, bobbing her head to the music coming out of her iPod.
Which of the two, Jesus asks, did the will of the father?
We all know the answer. It's a no-brainer. It's the first one, the son: The one who first refused, but then went out and did what the father asked anyway. He's the only one who did the father's will.
One more piece of background before we see where this parable takes us: Jesus told the parable in the midst of a debate with the chief priests and elders. It's important to know that.
All through the gospels, we read of these scholarly debates: between Jesus and Pharisees, Jesus and scribes, Jesus and teachers of the law. It's a reminder for us that the Bible is a book belonging not to our own culture, but to the culture of the ancient Near East.
In the Near Eastern context, religious debates are very important. The only way to judge a teacher's credentials is not by the diploma on the wall -- they didn't have diplomas -- but by how many debates the teacher has won.
By all accounts, Jesus is one of the best: he nearly always wins (the only person in the scriptures who ever beat him was a poor woman, who got his attention by saying that even the dogs under the table deserve the crumbs -- but that's another story).
Anyway, just one day before this debate, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to glad Hosannas and triumphant, waving palms. He has overturned the tables of the moneychangers, then healed the sick -- right under the eyes of the chief priests and scribes (who could do nothing to oppose him before that surging crowd).
This very morning, on his way back to the city, Jesus has cursed a fig tree that had nothing on it but leaves and caused it to wither. There were some who claimed that tree was symbolic of the religious leaders and that Jesus did it in order to threaten them.
When he strides into the temple -- cheering, applauding multitude at his heels -- a group of the chief priests and elders blocks his path: "By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?"
Jesus says in reply, "Answer me one question, and I'll tell you: Did the baptism of John come from heaven or was it of human origin?"
Those chief priests and elders are quick on the uptake. They know a logical dilemma when they see it. "Time out!" they say. "Huddle!"
"Let's see now," they whisper to one another in the huddle, "if we say 'from heaven,' Jesus will remind us that John called him the Messiah; we'll have to concede that point. But if we say, 'of human origin,' that motley crew of John-the-Baptist fans out there will not be amused.... Uh, Jesus, we have our answer: We don't know."
"Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things," Jesus replies. Jesus, one; chief priests, zero.
Then he tells them this parable. It would be abundantly clear to anyone there who the two children represent. The first child (the one who says "No, I won't do it," but then does it anyway) is the tax collectors and prostitutes: the unruly, unconventional followers of Jesus -- people who've led pretty wild lives but who have recently come to God.
The second child -- the one who smiles and says, "But of course, Father," but never leaves the couch -- why, that can be none other than the super-religious chief priests and scribes. They spend all their time going to the temple but never lift a finger to help the poor. Jesus, two; chief priests, zero.
On and on it goes, in Matthew's gospel, with Jesus racking up all the points until they get so mad, they finally kill him.
So, where does this leave us?
It leaves us with a distinction between words and deeds. Child number one said the wrong words but did the right deed; child number two said the right words but did no deed at all. Neither one is right -- it would have been better to show faithfulness in both word and deed -- but, of the two, Jesus clearly prefers the one who did the right thing.
It's been said that, sometimes, the Bible is a window through which we see the world; at other times, it is a mirror in which we glimpse ourselves. This is one of those occasions when the Bible is more of a mirror than a window. Sunday after Sunday, many of us gather in church. We share a lot of words: words spoken, words sung, words imagined in response to the message. But what is it we do? What is it we do when we leave this place that's different than if we had never come at all? What is it about our lives that makes us different from our neighbors, the ones who are not practicing Christians? Or -- as some writer or another has asked -- if the authorities were to arrest any one of us and charge us with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict?
One day, someone came up to a man who was leaving a church service and asked, "Is the sermon done?"
"No," he replied, "the sermon is preached, but it remains to be done."
That's your department. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!
Prayer For The Day
The Boldest Offertory Prayer Ever Written
Lord,
no matter what we say or do,
this is what we think of you. Amen.
To Illustrate
When students study physics in school, they learn how energy is converted from one form to another. A hydroelectric dam, for example, contains a type of machine called a "turbine" with an inner core that spins round and round in response to the rushing water, converting mechanical energy to electricity.
A Christian worship service is meant to be a sort of turbine. The words, spoken and sung, are meant to be transformed -- by the intervention of the Holy Spirit -- into deeds. Hearers are meant to become doers. The faith affirmed is meant to be lived out in the world.
***
The late Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate, once said: "The measure of a great church is not how many people are there on Sunday morning, but what is happening in the church when the buildings are empty." The most important measure, in other words, is the people -- where they are, what they're doing -- during the week.
***
Theologian Leonard Sweet quotes his grandmother, who grew up in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. (She was what they used to call a "holy roller.") "Children," she used to tell Len and his cousins, "it don't really matter how high you jump or how loud you shout. It's what you do when you come down that really matters."
***
Francis Makemie was among the first Presbyterian ministers in North America. He was also one of a very few Americans ever to be charged with "preaching without a license." Makemie came to the American colonies from Northern Ireland in 1683. With tremendous energy, he traveled long distances on horseback to start Presbyterian churches all throughout Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
In time, Makemie became one of the leading Presbyterian ministers in the colonies. When Scottish settlers on Long Island invited him to come be a guest preacher for them, he went. Long Island is where Makemie got in trouble with the law. The royal governor of New York -- Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury -- was a staunch Anglican. As far as he was concerned, because New York was an English colony, it had but one recognized church: the Church of England. Makemie had been warned about Cornbury. He'd been advised not to lead worship services on Long Island, but he went ahead and preached anyway.
Lord Cornbury had him arrested, along with an associate, John Hampton. The charge was "preaching without a license." The arrest warrant from the governor charged the two men with spreading "their Pernicious Doctrine and Principles" in Long Island without "having obtained My License for so doing, which is directly contrary to the known laws of England."
Makemie was hauled before the governor in January 1707. In his defense, he cited Parliament's Act of Toleration of 1689, by which King William and Queen Mary had established religious freedom. Cornbury was not impressed. He insisted that particular law applied to England only, not to England's colonies in the New World. He threatened to throw Makemie into jail if he didn't post bond for "good behavior" -- including, specifically, promising not to preach in New York without a license.
Makemie refused, invoking the name of the Queen -- who, he went on to say, had not limited his religious freedom so severely as the governor had. By implication, he was asking the governor if he thought himself wiser than the queen. The governor had no choice but to sign an order for the prisoners' release.
On his way out, Makemie asked the court clerk to show him the specific law that limited the Act of Toleration to England alone. The clerk held up a law book, but when Makemie offered to pay him to write out a copy of that paragraph, the clerk refused. There was no such paragraph, and Makemie knew it.
The governor called out to the Presbyterian minister as he was leaving, "You, sir, know Law." It was a grudging gesture of respect. Makemie and Hampton had been acquitted, establishing an important legal precedent for religious freedom in the colonies.
"By what authority are you saying these things?" the defenders of the status quo demand of the church, in every age. As Francis Makemie showed Lord Cornbury, the church of Jesus Christ already has all the authority, all the license to preach, it ever needs. What we need is the courage of our own Christian convictions so we may diligently seek out what God's saying to us in the scriptures, and apply those lessons to daily life.
***
Words are fleeting, fragile things: uttered one moment, discarded the next. Shakespeare has a classic example of this in his greatest tragedy, King Lear. The foolish, blustering king decides to retire and live off the good will and generosity of his children -- something a king should never do, for who wants to put up with a mendicant monarch? Two of Lear's daughters, Goneril and Regan, promise undying faithfulness -- as long as their father still wears the crown -- but promptly betray not only him but also each other, as soon as his power to rule is up for grabs. The kingdom descends into civil war and anarchy.
There's yet another daughter in the story: the gentle, naive Cordelia, who's long since been muscled out of the way by her two oldest sisters. For a time, Lear believes the lies he's been told: that Cordelia doesn't love him. Yet in his darkest hour, when he's wandering the moor in madness, a broken man, the one who comes at the risk of her life to seek him is Cordelia.
"O my dear father!" she exclaims, when at last she sees him:
"Restoration hang
thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
repair those violent harms that my two sisters
have in thy reverence made!"
The befuddled old king, his mind clouded by madness, still has enough sense to kneel before his youngest daughter (the last thing she expects him to do). Something in him understands that he is right so to honor her for she alone was faithful not only in word, but in deed.
"Pray you now," begs the departing Lear, "forget and forgive; I am old and foolish."
-- Act IV, Scene VII
***
How it must pain God to witness some of the things we do, or fail to do, in our Christian lives! We pledge undying faithfulness with our lips but only rarely with our hearts, our hands, our to-do lists or our checkbooks. "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," admonishes the letter of James (1:22).
We Protestants are especially prone to this sort of imbalance in our spiritual lives. Many of us have grown up hearing the immortal words of Luther that Christians are "justified by grace through faith," not by good works. We've all heard the TV evangelists promise, too, that all anyone needs to be saved is a personal relationship with Christ, and that even a dying criminal can pray the sinner's prayer and receive God's grace. Truly, that grace is sufficient to wipe out even a lifetime of error.
Yet Luther, Calvin, and all the rest are also unanimous in saying that a Christian's relationship with Christ must lead to transformation of the heart. It's not enough merely to play-act, to mouth the words. Repentance has got to be sincere. Maybe good works aren't an absolute prerequisite for salvation -- yes, a dying person can be saved without doing anything other than confessing Christ -- but the heart must be changed in such a way that good works would have resulted, were the person to have lived. As the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, in a memorable line, "Jesus wants followers, not admirers." When we Christians do manage to truly integrate our faith and our lives, when we actually get up and follow where Christ leads, there's no telling what we can accomplish!
***
You'd hardly know it from reading most recent history books, but most of the great social-reform movements have begun with a religious impulse: prophetic words inspiring people to good deeds. Take the abolitionist movement. When the thirteen colonies adopted the US Constitution, everyone knew the young nation had been constructed on an earthquake fault, and that fault's name was "slavery." The Declaration of Independence had said we're all created equal. Yet, our nation's founders, weary of revolution, weren't ready to go the distance and apply those high-minded words to those of darker complexion in their midst.
Beginning with the birth of our nation and continuing for nearly a hundred years after, sermons were preached, books were written, religious newspapers published -- all with the single-minded goal of changing Americans' hearts and minds on the subject of slavery. In the end, a terrible war had to be waged, the bloodiest in all our history, before the tide finally turned and swept away the South's "peculiar institution."
Abolitionism would never have succeeded were it not for the quiet, behind-the-scenes work of countless committed Christians, some of whom gave their lives in the struggle. From reading most school history texts, you'd never know it. From those books you could get the impression that a bunch of civic-minded do-gooders got together one day and went through a values-clarification exercise. They decided freeing America's slaves was the ethical thing to do, so they started a movement. Ten thousand coffee klatches and bake sales later, Lincoln was elected president, the Civil War began, and slavery was finally abolished.
It never would have happened were it not for the churches! Yet, our memory is sometimes short. An example: on the wall of the Campus Center at Princeton Theological Seminary is a bronze plaque honoring a distinguished graduate, a man by the name of Elijah Parish Lovejoy. Lovejoy was an abolitionist in the mid-1800s. He published an anti-slavery newspaper in Missouri. Time and again, his newspaper office was attacked by pro-slavery mobs, until finally the mobs caught up with him. They murdered Lovejoy and burned the building containing his printing presses.
From the plaque at Princeton Seminary, you'd never know it. That plaque says Lovejoy died "defending freedom of the press." Yes, on a certain level that's true, but if you could somehow travel back in time and ask him why he did the things he did, Lovejoy would probably not describe himself as a crusader for freedom of the press. "I am an abolitionist," he would have told you. "My Christian faith tells me every human is created in God's image, and the keeping of even one person in bondage by another is an offense to the Creator." Lovejoy was murdered not for an abstract principle of constitutional law, but because every time he closed his eyes he could see the suffering faces of African slaves he had known, and he knew their sufferings grieved his Lord.
The simple truth is that slavery would never have been abolished in this land were it not for Christians who deeply believed their faith calls them to deeds, not only to words. Plenty of preachers in Lovejoy's day, as in ours, were all too willing to proclaim that faith is a private, personal matter... that Christianity and politics don't mix... that preachers ought to concentrate on saving souls, and let the politicians try to reform society.
Christ calls us to be faithful in deeds as well as words.
Old Testament Lesson
Exodus 17:1-7
Water From A Rock
The people of Israel, for whom daily rations of quail and manna have become commonplace, are again complaining. Quarreling with Moses, they accuse him of luring them out into the wilderness to kill them (v. 3). This is the third time the people have leveled such a charge against their leader (see 14:11 and 16:3). Moses cries out to the Lord, who instructs him to go to "the rock at Horeb," and take his staff with him. He is to strike the rock with the staff and water will come out. Moses follows the Lord's instructions and is rewarded with a spring of fresh water (verses 5-7). The location -- Horeb, the same place where he heard the Lord speaking out of the burning bush -- is significant. While in this account, the Lord seems to respond to the people's need readily enough, this incident will go down in history as an indictment of their lack of faith. Moses gives the place a double name -- Massah and Meribah -- which highlights the people's quarrelsome, contentious ways (v. 7). Later passages of scripture will refer to this dark day and others like it (Deuteronomy 6:16; Psalm 78:18; 81:7; 95:9; 106:32). At the time of Moses' death, he is forbidden from entering the promised land because he and the people tested the Lord at this place (Deuteronomy 32:51). In the story of Jesus' temptation, as he turns aside the devil's offer to permit him to leap from the pinnacle of the temple and be saved, he responds with the saying, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." This is probably a reference to the way the Israelites tested the Lord here in the wilderness.
New Testament Lesson
Philippians 2:1-13
Christ, Humbled And Exalted
This passage (a portion of which also occurs on Palm/Passion Sunday in all three cycles of the lectionary) is one of the most significant Christological passages in the Bible. Paul urges his friends at Philippi -- possibly his favorite church -- to "make my joy complete" by sharing a common mind and a common love (verses 1-2). He exhorts them to humility and mutual caring (verses 3-4). To aspire to this, he says, is to do nothing less than to share the mind of Christ (v. 5). In verses 6-11, Paul shares a poetic fragment that is likely a hymn or creed used in the first-generation church. It is all about Jesus' sacrificial descent from heaven to utter abandonment and shame on the cross, from which God ultimately exalted him, raising him up to heavenly glory once again. The key word here is kenosis, or emptying: Jesus "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness" (v. 7). Note that Jesus does not raise himself up. His self-emptying is so complete that God must do it for him (v. 9). He is restored to heavenly rule where "every knee shall bow... and every tongue confess" that he is Lord (verses 10-11). The lectionary selection concludes with Paul's encouragement to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (verses 12-13). Although the notion of working out one's own salvation has seemed problematic to some commentators, when that phrase is read in the context of verse 13, it is less so -- for it is, in fact, God who is the instigator of that work.
The Gospel
Matthew 21:23-32
Jesus Rebuffs The Chief Priests' Challenge
Jesus has just cleansed the temple and has heard the objections of the chief priests and scribes to the people's messianic acclamation, "Hosanna to the Son of David" (verses 12-17). Then, in a private setting, his disciples have looked on in awe as Jesus cursed the fig tree, causing it to wither (verses 1822). Now, the chief priests and elders are publicly questioning his authority (v. 23). To the reader -- who has just heard Matthew's account of the blasting of the fig tree -- there should be no question of his authority, but these temple authorities see things differently. Jesus' overturning of the moneychanger's tables was a direct challenge to the existing order. In a disputational gambit, Jesus responds to their question with another one: "Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" (verses 24-25). Matthew provides a glimpse into the thinking of Jesus' opponents as they pragmatically weigh their possible responses. John is still a popular and controversial figure -- much-beloved by the people -- although not by the religious authorities. The chief priests and scribes know that if they align themselves with John, they will be capitulating to the Jesus movement. Yet if they speak out in opposition to John, they will lose even more stock with the uneasy populace. Jesus' question is forcing them to show their hand. They evade the question, and so Jesus refuses to answer their demand that he display his spiritual credentials (v. 27). The standoff continues.
Preaching Possibilities
"Talk is cheap," so they say. We all know how easy it is to say "the check is in the mail" -- well, maybe not so easy anymore in these days of online banking -- but it's still true that it's easier to make a promise than fulfill one.
Jesus himself makes a similar point in a parable. It's not one of his better-known parables. It's a homey little story that's come to be called "The Parable of the Two Sons."
First, a sidebar: it really shouldn't be called that. Although the English translation begins, "A man had two sons..." that's not what the Greek really says. It says, "A man had two children" -- not a word about whether they were boys or girls. It's the English translators who long ago assumed it had to be two sons.
Sons or daughters, there's no need to dwell on the distinction. The father turns to one of his two children (let's say it's a son), and says, "Son, mow the lawn today." Son says, "As if! No way, Parental Unit!"
Dad turns to offspring number two (let's say it's a daughter), and says, "Daughter..."
(No response.)
He says, "Daughter!" a little louder.
The girl takes off her stereo headphones. "Daughter, I'd like you to weed the garden today."
Daughter says, "Dear father, nothing would please me more than to do your bidding."
Well, Dad goes off for the afternoon and when he returns, what should he see but his smart-mouthed son putting away the lawnmower.
The flower beds, however, are another story. They look pretty weedy. On closer examination, he finds that not a single weed has been pulled. Dad goes back into the house and finds daughter sprawled out on the same couch where he first discovered her, bobbing her head to the music coming out of her iPod.
Which of the two, Jesus asks, did the will of the father?
We all know the answer. It's a no-brainer. It's the first one, the son: The one who first refused, but then went out and did what the father asked anyway. He's the only one who did the father's will.
One more piece of background before we see where this parable takes us: Jesus told the parable in the midst of a debate with the chief priests and elders. It's important to know that.
All through the gospels, we read of these scholarly debates: between Jesus and Pharisees, Jesus and scribes, Jesus and teachers of the law. It's a reminder for us that the Bible is a book belonging not to our own culture, but to the culture of the ancient Near East.
In the Near Eastern context, religious debates are very important. The only way to judge a teacher's credentials is not by the diploma on the wall -- they didn't have diplomas -- but by how many debates the teacher has won.
By all accounts, Jesus is one of the best: he nearly always wins (the only person in the scriptures who ever beat him was a poor woman, who got his attention by saying that even the dogs under the table deserve the crumbs -- but that's another story).
Anyway, just one day before this debate, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to glad Hosannas and triumphant, waving palms. He has overturned the tables of the moneychangers, then healed the sick -- right under the eyes of the chief priests and scribes (who could do nothing to oppose him before that surging crowd).
This very morning, on his way back to the city, Jesus has cursed a fig tree that had nothing on it but leaves and caused it to wither. There were some who claimed that tree was symbolic of the religious leaders and that Jesus did it in order to threaten them.
When he strides into the temple -- cheering, applauding multitude at his heels -- a group of the chief priests and elders blocks his path: "By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?"
Jesus says in reply, "Answer me one question, and I'll tell you: Did the baptism of John come from heaven or was it of human origin?"
Those chief priests and elders are quick on the uptake. They know a logical dilemma when they see it. "Time out!" they say. "Huddle!"
"Let's see now," they whisper to one another in the huddle, "if we say 'from heaven,' Jesus will remind us that John called him the Messiah; we'll have to concede that point. But if we say, 'of human origin,' that motley crew of John-the-Baptist fans out there will not be amused.... Uh, Jesus, we have our answer: We don't know."
"Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things," Jesus replies. Jesus, one; chief priests, zero.
Then he tells them this parable. It would be abundantly clear to anyone there who the two children represent. The first child (the one who says "No, I won't do it," but then does it anyway) is the tax collectors and prostitutes: the unruly, unconventional followers of Jesus -- people who've led pretty wild lives but who have recently come to God.
The second child -- the one who smiles and says, "But of course, Father," but never leaves the couch -- why, that can be none other than the super-religious chief priests and scribes. They spend all their time going to the temple but never lift a finger to help the poor. Jesus, two; chief priests, zero.
On and on it goes, in Matthew's gospel, with Jesus racking up all the points until they get so mad, they finally kill him.
So, where does this leave us?
It leaves us with a distinction between words and deeds. Child number one said the wrong words but did the right deed; child number two said the right words but did no deed at all. Neither one is right -- it would have been better to show faithfulness in both word and deed -- but, of the two, Jesus clearly prefers the one who did the right thing.
It's been said that, sometimes, the Bible is a window through which we see the world; at other times, it is a mirror in which we glimpse ourselves. This is one of those occasions when the Bible is more of a mirror than a window. Sunday after Sunday, many of us gather in church. We share a lot of words: words spoken, words sung, words imagined in response to the message. But what is it we do? What is it we do when we leave this place that's different than if we had never come at all? What is it about our lives that makes us different from our neighbors, the ones who are not practicing Christians? Or -- as some writer or another has asked -- if the authorities were to arrest any one of us and charge us with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict?
One day, someone came up to a man who was leaving a church service and asked, "Is the sermon done?"
"No," he replied, "the sermon is preached, but it remains to be done."
That's your department. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!
Prayer For The Day
The Boldest Offertory Prayer Ever Written
Lord,
no matter what we say or do,
this is what we think of you. Amen.
To Illustrate
When students study physics in school, they learn how energy is converted from one form to another. A hydroelectric dam, for example, contains a type of machine called a "turbine" with an inner core that spins round and round in response to the rushing water, converting mechanical energy to electricity.
A Christian worship service is meant to be a sort of turbine. The words, spoken and sung, are meant to be transformed -- by the intervention of the Holy Spirit -- into deeds. Hearers are meant to become doers. The faith affirmed is meant to be lived out in the world.
***
The late Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate, once said: "The measure of a great church is not how many people are there on Sunday morning, but what is happening in the church when the buildings are empty." The most important measure, in other words, is the people -- where they are, what they're doing -- during the week.
***
Theologian Leonard Sweet quotes his grandmother, who grew up in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. (She was what they used to call a "holy roller.") "Children," she used to tell Len and his cousins, "it don't really matter how high you jump or how loud you shout. It's what you do when you come down that really matters."
***
Francis Makemie was among the first Presbyterian ministers in North America. He was also one of a very few Americans ever to be charged with "preaching without a license." Makemie came to the American colonies from Northern Ireland in 1683. With tremendous energy, he traveled long distances on horseback to start Presbyterian churches all throughout Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
In time, Makemie became one of the leading Presbyterian ministers in the colonies. When Scottish settlers on Long Island invited him to come be a guest preacher for them, he went. Long Island is where Makemie got in trouble with the law. The royal governor of New York -- Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury -- was a staunch Anglican. As far as he was concerned, because New York was an English colony, it had but one recognized church: the Church of England. Makemie had been warned about Cornbury. He'd been advised not to lead worship services on Long Island, but he went ahead and preached anyway.
Lord Cornbury had him arrested, along with an associate, John Hampton. The charge was "preaching without a license." The arrest warrant from the governor charged the two men with spreading "their Pernicious Doctrine and Principles" in Long Island without "having obtained My License for so doing, which is directly contrary to the known laws of England."
Makemie was hauled before the governor in January 1707. In his defense, he cited Parliament's Act of Toleration of 1689, by which King William and Queen Mary had established religious freedom. Cornbury was not impressed. He insisted that particular law applied to England only, not to England's colonies in the New World. He threatened to throw Makemie into jail if he didn't post bond for "good behavior" -- including, specifically, promising not to preach in New York without a license.
Makemie refused, invoking the name of the Queen -- who, he went on to say, had not limited his religious freedom so severely as the governor had. By implication, he was asking the governor if he thought himself wiser than the queen. The governor had no choice but to sign an order for the prisoners' release.
On his way out, Makemie asked the court clerk to show him the specific law that limited the Act of Toleration to England alone. The clerk held up a law book, but when Makemie offered to pay him to write out a copy of that paragraph, the clerk refused. There was no such paragraph, and Makemie knew it.
The governor called out to the Presbyterian minister as he was leaving, "You, sir, know Law." It was a grudging gesture of respect. Makemie and Hampton had been acquitted, establishing an important legal precedent for religious freedom in the colonies.
"By what authority are you saying these things?" the defenders of the status quo demand of the church, in every age. As Francis Makemie showed Lord Cornbury, the church of Jesus Christ already has all the authority, all the license to preach, it ever needs. What we need is the courage of our own Christian convictions so we may diligently seek out what God's saying to us in the scriptures, and apply those lessons to daily life.
***
Words are fleeting, fragile things: uttered one moment, discarded the next. Shakespeare has a classic example of this in his greatest tragedy, King Lear. The foolish, blustering king decides to retire and live off the good will and generosity of his children -- something a king should never do, for who wants to put up with a mendicant monarch? Two of Lear's daughters, Goneril and Regan, promise undying faithfulness -- as long as their father still wears the crown -- but promptly betray not only him but also each other, as soon as his power to rule is up for grabs. The kingdom descends into civil war and anarchy.
There's yet another daughter in the story: the gentle, naive Cordelia, who's long since been muscled out of the way by her two oldest sisters. For a time, Lear believes the lies he's been told: that Cordelia doesn't love him. Yet in his darkest hour, when he's wandering the moor in madness, a broken man, the one who comes at the risk of her life to seek him is Cordelia.
"O my dear father!" she exclaims, when at last she sees him:
"Restoration hang
thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
repair those violent harms that my two sisters
have in thy reverence made!"
The befuddled old king, his mind clouded by madness, still has enough sense to kneel before his youngest daughter (the last thing she expects him to do). Something in him understands that he is right so to honor her for she alone was faithful not only in word, but in deed.
"Pray you now," begs the departing Lear, "forget and forgive; I am old and foolish."
-- Act IV, Scene VII
***
How it must pain God to witness some of the things we do, or fail to do, in our Christian lives! We pledge undying faithfulness with our lips but only rarely with our hearts, our hands, our to-do lists or our checkbooks. "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," admonishes the letter of James (1:22).
We Protestants are especially prone to this sort of imbalance in our spiritual lives. Many of us have grown up hearing the immortal words of Luther that Christians are "justified by grace through faith," not by good works. We've all heard the TV evangelists promise, too, that all anyone needs to be saved is a personal relationship with Christ, and that even a dying criminal can pray the sinner's prayer and receive God's grace. Truly, that grace is sufficient to wipe out even a lifetime of error.
Yet Luther, Calvin, and all the rest are also unanimous in saying that a Christian's relationship with Christ must lead to transformation of the heart. It's not enough merely to play-act, to mouth the words. Repentance has got to be sincere. Maybe good works aren't an absolute prerequisite for salvation -- yes, a dying person can be saved without doing anything other than confessing Christ -- but the heart must be changed in such a way that good works would have resulted, were the person to have lived. As the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, in a memorable line, "Jesus wants followers, not admirers." When we Christians do manage to truly integrate our faith and our lives, when we actually get up and follow where Christ leads, there's no telling what we can accomplish!
***
You'd hardly know it from reading most recent history books, but most of the great social-reform movements have begun with a religious impulse: prophetic words inspiring people to good deeds. Take the abolitionist movement. When the thirteen colonies adopted the US Constitution, everyone knew the young nation had been constructed on an earthquake fault, and that fault's name was "slavery." The Declaration of Independence had said we're all created equal. Yet, our nation's founders, weary of revolution, weren't ready to go the distance and apply those high-minded words to those of darker complexion in their midst.
Beginning with the birth of our nation and continuing for nearly a hundred years after, sermons were preached, books were written, religious newspapers published -- all with the single-minded goal of changing Americans' hearts and minds on the subject of slavery. In the end, a terrible war had to be waged, the bloodiest in all our history, before the tide finally turned and swept away the South's "peculiar institution."
Abolitionism would never have succeeded were it not for the quiet, behind-the-scenes work of countless committed Christians, some of whom gave their lives in the struggle. From reading most school history texts, you'd never know it. From those books you could get the impression that a bunch of civic-minded do-gooders got together one day and went through a values-clarification exercise. They decided freeing America's slaves was the ethical thing to do, so they started a movement. Ten thousand coffee klatches and bake sales later, Lincoln was elected president, the Civil War began, and slavery was finally abolished.
It never would have happened were it not for the churches! Yet, our memory is sometimes short. An example: on the wall of the Campus Center at Princeton Theological Seminary is a bronze plaque honoring a distinguished graduate, a man by the name of Elijah Parish Lovejoy. Lovejoy was an abolitionist in the mid-1800s. He published an anti-slavery newspaper in Missouri. Time and again, his newspaper office was attacked by pro-slavery mobs, until finally the mobs caught up with him. They murdered Lovejoy and burned the building containing his printing presses.
From the plaque at Princeton Seminary, you'd never know it. That plaque says Lovejoy died "defending freedom of the press." Yes, on a certain level that's true, but if you could somehow travel back in time and ask him why he did the things he did, Lovejoy would probably not describe himself as a crusader for freedom of the press. "I am an abolitionist," he would have told you. "My Christian faith tells me every human is created in God's image, and the keeping of even one person in bondage by another is an offense to the Creator." Lovejoy was murdered not for an abstract principle of constitutional law, but because every time he closed his eyes he could see the suffering faces of African slaves he had known, and he knew their sufferings grieved his Lord.
The simple truth is that slavery would never have been abolished in this land were it not for Christians who deeply believed their faith calls them to deeds, not only to words. Plenty of preachers in Lovejoy's day, as in ours, were all too willing to proclaim that faith is a private, personal matter... that Christianity and politics don't mix... that preachers ought to concentrate on saving souls, and let the politicians try to reform society.
