Sinners Beloved

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.

I’m very glad that you are here today because we have something very important to talk about and if you weren’t here it just wouldn’t be the same. What’s happening is that the world is coming apart. At least that’s how it seems. And what we need to say each other as we gather here on this very fine Sunday morning is that the fact that the world is coming apart…it’s not true. In fact, it’s downright wrong. In fact, it’s a pretty unchristian thing to say. Because the fact of the matter is…and this is really all I have to say to you today so if you want to get this down…the fact of the matter is that the world is not coming apart - it’s coming together and there is a related message: the universe does not run on fear - it runs on faith.

Is that a message you need to hear? It’s a message I need to hear. The world is not coming apart - it’s coming together and the universe doesn’t run on fear - it runs on faith - faith in a God whose name is love.

Now you know why I’m talking about this today. It’s because we watched the news, isn’t it? We turned on our TVs and there was Hurricane Rita blowing across the Gulf of Mexico and there were evacuees and flooding in the streets of New Orleans and suddenly we were right back to where we were three weeks ago. We had just finished packing up the relief kits to go help the victims of Katrina. We sent them out of here this weekend - stuff collected by United Methodists and other community members from all over the Shore. Then there it was all over again. Another massive storm. Another major blow. And it shook our confidence.

These days we don’t know where to turn for guidance. We’re not sure if the systems we’ve put into place to deal with disasters are up to the task. We’re not sure our leaders are up to it. Could anybody be up to it?

We found that as we looked around for things to be nervous about that there were a lot. It’s not only the war in Iraq but gas prices and heating oil prices and the national debt and health care and the environment and declining moral standards and crystal meth and out-of-touch politicians and crime and the economy - cats living with dogs - there are a lot of things for us to worry about and a lot of things that make us afraid. We wonder to ourselves, “Where are we going? And why are we in this hand basket?” Maybe you, like me, were feeling a little uncertain this week, a little uneasy, a little vulnerable.

But what I want to say today is that the world is not coming apart - it’s coming together and the universe does not run on fear, even though there is a lot of that to go around. The universe runs on faith.

How do I know this? Because the news is not all that I listened to this week. I know this because as compelling as the news is, with all of its drama and tragedies, we have another story to tell us how the world works and where it is headed. We have another story to remind us of what’s really going on. We have another message that revives our souls and confounds our expectations. When the bad news of Katrina and Rita and Iraq threatens to overwhelm us with fear, the good news of Jesus Christ calls us back time and again to a different way of seeing the world, a different way of understanding where it is headed, and a different way of interpreting who we are. I hope you didn’t come here today to hear the bad news, because it’s not here. We are here today to tell the good news and it is everywhere.

I know this because of Jesus. This week I’ve been listening to Jesus and he is just as cryptic and challenging as he ever is. Jesus is still there challenging me to see something new in a world that seems to be conquered by its fear.

You see, the text for this week is about a conversation Jesus had with some fearful people. It was late in the game and Jesus had finally come to Jerusalem - the city of his ancestor David - the place where God’s Temple was - the city of the prophets.

His followers had been waiting for this for some time. Jesus had been gathering crowds wherever he went and building up expectations. Every important movement had to get to Jerusalem eventually and Jesus had finally entered the city to cheering throngs and he was teaching in the temple each day, creating quite an uproar. Not everybody saw Jesus’ teachings as a good thing. He made some people very nervous.

Jesus was teaching in the temple and the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him. They had seen how he had captivated the crowds. They saw how excited people were around him and how little they seemed to be interested in what they had to say. The leaders of the people were losing the people. Worse than that, the leaders of the people were afraid of the people and fearful people do dangerous, dangerous things.

Jesus is teaching and the religious leaders come up to him and say, “Who gave you the authority to be here doing this?” It’s not an irrelevant question. If someone sets themselves up as a religious authority the people who have been designated as religious authorities should be a little curious about where the new guy came from.

But in the context it just shows how out of touch the leaders were. God has come to be among the people. People who are desperate, sick, hopeless and dying are finding healing, hope and life in Jesus. They know they live in a crisis and Jesus is bringing relief. For the chief priests and elders to stop Jesus on the authority question seems like all of those terrible stories we’ve heard of people bringing relief to New Orleans and being turned away because they didn’t have the right paperwork.

Of course, Jesus knows that it’s not just an innocent question they’re asking him. He knows they don’t like him and that they are plotting his demise. He knows how they operate. So he gives them a question that he knows will expose the chief priests and elders for the hollow leaders they really are. He asks them where John the Baptist got his authority. John was also seen as a powerful leader by the people. He was also a threat to the religious authorities and they had been secretly pleased when the ruler Herod had John beheaded. But they couldn’t say so.

So when Jesus asked them, “Was John’s baptism from heaven or only by human authority?” they don’t know what to say. It seems they can’t speak from conviction. They’re whole lives are bound up in political considerations. “If we say John operated by heavenly authority Jesus will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe?’ And if we say he only operated by human authority…well, we are afraid.” That’s what they say, “We are afraid of the people because they thought John was a prophet.” So rather than look fearful they look ignorant. They tell Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Which leads Jesus to a story: “How does this seem to you? A man had two sons. He went to the first one and said, ‘Son, go work in the vineyard today.’ Number One son says, ‘I don’t want to,’ but later changes his mind and then goes. The man does the same thing with his second son who tells him, ‘Yep, I’ll go. I’m on it.’ but then never goes. Who did what his father wanted?”

This time the chief priests and elders have an answer. It seems like a simple story. “The first son, of course.”

So Jesus jumps to his point: “It’s a sure thing I tell you. Tax collectors and prostitutes…” In Jesus’ day this was the equivalent of saying ‘the dregs of society.’ Nobody wanted to associate with tax collectors and prostitutes, but Jesus says these are the very people who are walking ahead of the religious leaders into the kingdom of God. Why? Because when somebody came to tell them the good news they believed and when the religious leaders saw that these folks who should never have had a place at the table of respectability were walking in ahead of them, they didn’t “change their mind later,” like the first son in the story, and believe.

In Jesus’ story the prompt that got the first son to repent, to turn around, to change his mind about going to work in the vineyard was his father’s command. The prompt for the religious leaders was how the people responded. When they saw the people they considered sinners responding to God and finding new life and turning over a new leaf, they should have believed.
The leaders of the people should have taken their cue from the people. But they couldn’t believe. They were too fearful and afraid.

Fearful people do dangerous, dangerous things. In this case it led ultimately to Jesus’ crucifixion. But there’s another thing fearful people can’t do - they can’t act on their convictions and can’t be their true selves. It is all too easy to say, “I would act in a different way, but I am afraid of the consequences of living that way and so I’ll behave this way even though it’s not really me.” I would love my enemies, but… I would turn the other cheek, but… I would do many things that Jesus says I ought to do, but…I’m afraid.

We do so much out of fear. Politicians do it when they propose new programs because they are afraid of what people would say if they didn’t rather than proposing new programs that offer real leadership out of a problem. Nations have started innumerable wars out of fear. Churches operate out of fear when they see their future only in terms of declining resources and the struggle to keep the doors open.

But when I look around Franktown Church the things that captivates me…the thing that convinces me that this is a holy and wonderful place is that we have seen the future and it is good. I mean, I had heard the stories before I came. What you should know is that you have a string of former pastors who believe that they discovered God’s kingdom in Franktown Church. You have converted pastors. That’s not an easy thing to do. You have convinced them that this is the most exciting place to be in the Virginia Conference. And now you’re converting me. You know the sun really does shine first in Virginia on the Eastern Shore.

Now it’s not that we don’t have things that need to change. We’re still on a journey here. But the operating system has changed. We seem to have figured out that the universe does not run on fear it runs on faith and I have seen that faith in a future determined by God.

When I see the response of people here to the hurricane relief needs, I see a movement based on faith. When I see the outpouring of support for Habitat for Humanity and Harvest of Hope and Children’s Hope Chest and Relay for Life and school supplies for social services, I don’t see fear, I see faith. When I see the families in this church that have opened their homes and their lives to adopted children…when I see Amanda Jones heading off to spend months as a Red Cross volunteer…when I see Carmen Colona giving so much of herself to the Hispanic Ministry…when I see Brenda Laws, who is an ordained deacon on the Horntown Charge AND a leader in Accomac social services working with children and their parents…when I see the investment this church has made in the community through this facility and through its programming…when I see the energy of our youth program and what Karen is doing with it…when I see the groups gathered on Wednesday night for Wonderful Wednesday…when I see all these things I know that this church doesn’t believe that the universe runs on fear, it runs on faith in a God who is making all things new. And to stop any one of these people and ask by what authority they do these things is an irrelevant question. What people who follow Jesus have discovered is that God is moving and they don’t want to miss out!

If you asked any of these folks why they do what they do, why they go out of their way to take bold action following Jesus, they would probably say that it is not out of their way at all. It seems entirely consistent with their vision that God is at work in the world. Franktown Church is a place where extraordinary things seem ordinary. That’s what converts me. This is a place where we can live out our calling as people who believe that God’s kingdom is not just something we say we believe in -- we believe that we are already living in God’s kingdom…it’s here…and you can find it on the Eastern Shore.

So what’s holding us back? What’s keeping us from belief? Are we held back by what we have done? Are we held captive to old wounds, old pains, old sins? Do we not feel worthy of the task to which God is calling us?

As Jesus’ story reminds us - that is no excuse. The sinners are the first in the line. The least likely people to be leading a religious movement are the very ones at the front of the line. God is at work at the world and the Holy Spirit will bring about the will of God which is to reconcile all things to God’s own self. The only question is: Will we be the agents? Will we allow the Spirit to move through us? Will we live out our calling as God’s people?

In the movie Braveheart, Mel Gibson plays William Wallace, the leader of a Scottish army in the 1300s that resisted the invading British. Gibson plays Wallace as a charismatic and visionary leader who attracts others to the cause by the depth of his belief and conviction that what he is about is the right thing to do. He has no social standing. He isn’t a king or a member of the nobility. But he has the one thing Scotland needed at the time in order to be free - he believes despite all the odds.

At one point in the movie Robert the Bruce, who is the legitimate leader of Scotland, talks about Wallace, whom he has betrayed into the hands of the English. As he talks with his father, the king, he says, “Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk fought for William Wallace. He fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart.”

His father says to him, to excuse his actions, “All men betray. All lose heart.” But Robert the Bruce says, “I don't want to lose heart. I want to believe as he does.” I want to believe as he does.

That’s the desire of a person bound by fear who longs to be moved by faith. That’s the desire of each one of us because we know, don’t we?, that living out of fear takes a terrible toll on our body and soul. Our breathing is restricted, our movements distorted. We know that we are not being who we truly are when fear directs our actions.

God knows that we need to believe. God knows that a world that operates out of faith rather than fear is a world that has caught on to what God is doing. It is not true that the world is coming apart - the world is coming together and somebody needs to tell that story.

There are a lot of things to fear out there. There are a lot of reasons we could believe that things are coming apart at the seams. But we don’t just listen to CNN or Fox News. We listen to a more important story - we listen to the story of Jesus Christ, who calls every one of us to let go of our fears and embrace the “better angels of our nature.” There is plenty of labor to do in the vineyard of God’s kingdom. Let’s go work together.

Thanks be to God.