Once upon a
time a drunk man got on a bus and sat down next to a priest. The man's tie was
stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half-empty bottle of
gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began
reading.
After a few
minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, 'Say Father, what causes
arthritis?'
The priest sniffs
and replies, 'My Son, it's caused by loose living, too much alcohol, contempt
for your fellow man, consorting with prostitutes, and lack of a bath.'
The drunk
muttered in response, 'Well, I'll be darned,' Then returned to his paper.
The priest,
thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. 'I'm very
sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?'
The drunk
answered, 'I don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope
does.'
Are you
shocked and surprised by sin? I must admit that sometimes I am. But if you think
about it, we shouldn’t be. You would think that, really, Christians should the
last ones to be shocked or scandalized by sin. I think that we should take in
stride the fact that sin happens. After all, the whole fellowship of the Church
is made up of people who either said “yes” to God but struggle with going their
own way, or who went their own way but came to their senses and come back to
God.
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus tells a story about two sons who are asked by their father to go
out into vineyards to work. The first son says, "I will not!" but
later changes his mind and goes. The second son is the one who says he will go
but does not. Jesus then turns to his critics and asks which one of the two
does the will of the father? They, of course, say that it is the first son, in
the end, who does the will of the father. In their answer, the super-religious
show that what is really important is what a faithful person does, not just what
they say.
A bishop and
teacher of the early church named Chrysostom wrote that the Christian is like
the son who at any hour turns and chooses to do the will of the father; to go out
into the vineyard and work. The Christian is the son who is the missionary.
But I think
there is a deeper message that Jesus is offering. While it is certainly true
that God wants us to go out into the world—the vineyard—and do God’s work, there
is something else going on here.
The Good
News is that it is never too late to follow Jesus and to do God’s work in the
vineyard. God will embrace the son who turns and chooses in the end, no matter
what they have been doing, to become a member of the community of faith.
Today’s
Gospel story only appears in Matthew, but it reminds me of another one of Jesus’
stories, the one about the prodigal son that appears only in the Gospel of
Luke. In Luke’s Gospel, that son squandered everything and came home expecting
to grovel and scrape as a slave but instead is welcomed with open arms. Today, in
Matthew’s Gospel we hear of a son who at first says “no” but then turns around
choosing to do “yes.” He is a
prodigal, too. And he also comes to his senses. He decides to do the work he
was asked to do.
In both Gospels,
a son turns around. In both cases, repentance—turning around—shows that the
life of faith is as much an act of the will as is act of the heart. Living
faithfully is depends on the deliberate choice to live in concert with God—especially
when we don’t “feel like it.” To live faithfully is not just believing—or
saying we believe—the right things, it is choosing to act faithfully.
Faith it
turns out is not just an act of the heart, it is an act of the will. And that
means that we choose not only to believe but we choose how to act on those
beliefs. In fact, we soon learn that our faith is not faith until we choose to
act faithfully.
But
sometimes we get nervous when someone who said “no” eventually says “yes” to
God and tries to walk a new way. We are not sure if we can believe it and we
have a hard time forgetting that original “no.”
Have you
ever noticed all the buildings we have scattered about St. John’s? There is the
Christian Education building where our classrooms and offices are, and which
also houses our Thrift Store. Then there is the Parish Hall where we have
coffee hour, suppers, and our weekly Bible Studies. Then there is Good
Neighbors, where food is gathered from donors and sent out to food pantries and
feeding programs. And then there is “Thelma’s Place” where several 12-Step
Groups, in our case Narcotics Anonymous, meets almost every day. It's
remarkable to me how many people come and go from our church even though they
may never set foot in this sanctuary or crack open a Book of Common Prayer.
These are
people, especially in the NA groups, who are attempting one step at a time to
turn their lives around. Who are attempting after a lifetime of saying “no” are
finally say “yes” to God. When we say “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” this
is what we mean!
Sooner or
later, we all have to come to terms with the fact that all of us in word or
deed have said “no” to God somewhere along the way, and all of us have had to
come to our senses and choose to follow him anyway. When you get right down to
it, our stories are not so different after all.
Don’t be
shocked by this: everyone sins. We are human. We know we promise that we will
strive to live faithfully, and we know that we will fail. In fact, in our
baptismal covenant we promise that "when" we sin we will "repent and return to the Lord." Christians know we are not perfect. At the same time, we Christians rejoice
when the sons and daughters of God who have led life unconscious of God, or who
have led lives saying "no" turn and join the other workers in the vineyard.
We, the church, exist for those who do not yet belong. We exist so that the
vineyard is there ready for the latecomer and for the newcomer who, at whatever
time of day, chooses to join in on God’s gracious harvest.
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