“The Right Words Aren’t Enough” 2014
Isaiah 29:13-16 Matthew 21:23-32

Isaiah 29:13-16
The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote; so I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing. The wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden. Ha! You who hide a plan too deep for the Lord, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

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.

One time, it was almost like a light-switch being turned on,
as a young man come to Christ,
and became a deeply committed and energetic Christian.

He quickly got involved in everything the church was doing,
all our activities, Bible studies and service projects,
and was even asked to serve on the Session.

But as a young, idealistic and relatively immature Christian,
he was ill-equipped for the rigors of serving as an elder.

The messy workings of the church as a human institution,
the church politics of private agendas and willful egos
can be very disillusioning and destructive to faith.

It can be very difficult to reconcile our spiritual blessings,
and the wonderful and faithful ways that we can serve God,
with the fact that we are both saints and still sinners…
… for our life and relationships in the church can be tainted
with selfishness, ego and unworthy urgings for control.

I believe that the religious leaders who opposed Jesus,
probably started out motivated by the right reasons,
and a real desire and hunger to serve the Lord well.

But over time, they bought into the system for expediency sake,
then gradually, and maybe not even fully aware of it,
they sold out to the human religious institution…
… and so when John the Baptist came along, they rejected him,
because he did not fit into their system or expectations.

John was a disruption against their Temple-based religion…
… and how much more so they opposed and rejected Jesus,
for disrupting things, in addition to his teaching about
God’s grace and welcome to sinners and outcasts.

Imagine the authorities’ anger and frustration on Palm Sunday
when the crowds were shouting, “Hosanna in the highest”,
and their desire to be rid of the disruption,
yet afraid of how the people would react.

The next day was even more disturbing and threatening to them
when Jesus drove the animals out from the Temple courtyard
and overturned the moneychangers’ tables…

… so the next day when he came to the Temple grounds to teach,
they demanded that he explain what gave him the right
to interfere with the way they were running things.
vs. 23
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?”

Over the many years since the last prophet in Israel,
the religious teachers had taken over Judaism and the Temple
as religious institutions for them to control and defend.
So they never even considered the possibility
that Jesus might have been send by God.

But even the scribes and Pharisees had to have seen that
the ministry of John the Baptist changed people’s lives,
and was drawing many of the lost back to God.
Jesus challenges the religious authorities to consider,
was John just crazy man screaming in the wilderness,
or was he a prophet with a message from God?,
and were they, really on the side of God?
vs. 24-25a
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?”

I read this question as a sign of grace, a second chance
for the religious authorities to think and reconsider,
an opportunity to recommit and get on course with God.

Jesus was holding up a mirror so they could see themselves,
but they were so entangled in the human religious institution,
in their own sense of entitlement, control and their wisdom,
that they missed it,
just as Isaiah had warned centuries earlier, vs. 13-14
The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote; so I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing. The wisdom of their wise shall perish.

Though they knew what Isaiah and the prophets had written,
they still rejected and refused to see the truth.
Their stubborn self-interest ruled over their hearts,
yet sinners & outcasts were repenting & turning to the Lord,
which is the point and message of this Matthew passage.

Now let’s go a bit deeper in thinking about
the exchange between Jesus and the Temple leaders, vs. 25-27
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.”

The point of the question was to reconsider the ministry of John,
and was he not a messenger sent to them by God?
But they missed all that,
because their focus was on winning the argument
and how their answer would be heard by the crowd.

Obviously, they had no interest or desire for the truth,
or in even trying to connect with something of God …
… it was pure hypocrisy and how it appeared to other people.

Jesus must have been very disappointed by their cold rejection,
and that they calculated rather than reconsidered;
so he told them a parable about a father with two sons.

The first son who says, "I will not", but then changes his mind.
He represents the tax collectors and notorious sinners
whose lives had been a rejection of God's commandments;
yet who then repented and responded to Jesus,
who transformed their lives into faithful obedience.

The second son who says, "I will", but then does not obey,
represents the religious leaders and authorities
whose outward religion said, "yes",
but who rejected and opposed God's work in Christ,
and who wouldn’t work in the Father’s vineyard.

There was no mistaking the point of the parable.
Interestingly, the Greek word, "changed his mind",
is not the same word that is often translated, "repent";
but it’s a different word that specifically means,
"to change what you care about – or what matters to you"

What mattered to the first son, became obeying his father’s will
rather than whatever had earlier caused him to say, "no".

After their encounter with Jesus Christ,
outcasts and sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes
by God’s grace changed what mattered most to them,
for now they cared about obeying the will of the Father.

In contrast, the religious leaders who appeared very religious
would not change their hearts hardened into hypocrisy,
and would not submit to obeying the will of the Father.

They allowed no room for God to operate in their lives
which lead to their spiritual stagnation and malaise;
which is a risk that we all share.

That is the point of this passage and parable,
that we too can fall into the same trap and snare,
so sure that we understand and have the truth just right…
… that we can become complacent, set in our ways and stagnant…
… unwilling to consider that we might have a piece wrong,
or that God might be up to something different or new,
something other than our experiences of the past.

A young man was hired as an engineer for a car company,
and all through the first year he was wide-eyed and excited.
During his second year he noticed
that the same cycle of test requests were coming back around.
The old-pros said that it was the same every year, nothing new;
and so this young engineer began looking for a new job.

As he explained it, "I could see that if I were there five years,
I wouldn't have had five years’ experience,
but would have had one year of experience five times…
… so I moved on.

The question and challenge is this,
is our faith fresh & moving, are we growing along our journey,
or are we just repeating religious ritual and experiences
cycling through the same old thing again and again?

** Do we live as those who walk with God in freshness and wonder?

There is great danger in being a regular-religious-insider
going with too-easy, comfortable, self-assured pat answers,
that can lead to religious hypocrisy & spiritual stagnation.

God is supposed to be unchanging from age to age, not us.
So what is different about my faith this year from last year?

Has my faith grown, has my walk improved these past months?
Do we talk a better Christian game then we are willing to live,
is there is too much space between
the words we say and the words we actually do?

So how can we avoid spiritual stagnation, hypocrisy and malaise?
How can we keep our faith fresh, moving, growing and joyful?
Sometimes the problem is that we have ignored God ---
and the Holy Spirit is nudging us, but we won't deal with it.

Spiritually, we may silence the Spirit by separating from Christ
-if stubborn, we’ll go no further on our spiritual journey
until we are willing to listen with integrity and obey.
Spiritually speaking, we'll stagnate and stop growing
until we deal with whatever God is placing before us.

We can go through the motions of religion easily enough,
and we may even fool ourselves for a while,
but we're not going to really hear anything more from God
until we obey God's will that we already know,
until we are willing to do what we can.
It’s pointless to seek God's will if we are not going to follow.

Spiritual stagnation and cool complacency can also set in
if we stop growing deeper in our relationship with God,
if we’re not allowing that God isn’t done with us yet.

So perhaps we need to risk even a failure or making a mistake
by doing something new, something difficult or demanding,
and jumping into something unusual and strange to us…
… that puts our faith into something exciting and active;
and even if we fail, even if we fail miserably;
it’s far better to wear out, than to rust out doing nothing.

So for us today,
our call is to put some work-shoes on our faith, and get busy,
for our faith to be real, and more than just empty talk.
So where does my faith make a tangible difference?

* when I am offended, under attack, frustrated or angry,
how does having Jesus in my life affect my response?
* when I suffer a tragic loss, a disappointment or I get hurt,
how does having Jesus in my life affect my response?

* when I plan my budget, or I'm deciding if I can afford something,
how does having Jesus in my life affect my spending decisions?

* when I am asked to do something, or when I am aware of a need
how does having Jesus in my life affect what I decide to do?
* when I want something, when I face an obstacle, or I hear "no, not now"
how does having Jesus in my life affect my response,
and how does that guide what I decide to say or to do?

It’s not that any of these things save as in eternal salvation,
but if I have accepted Jesus in my life as my Lord and Savior;
how is my faith and my relationship with Jesus changing me,
and how is that truth affecting what I do and what I say?

Spiritual stagnation and cynical hypocrisy can set in
if we let ourselves become complacent, comfortable & content;
if we reduce our Christian life to a one time decision,
something to be resolved, a finite goal we've achieved
rather than a life-long adventure that's meant to be enjoyed,
as we do grow deeper in our love-relationship with God

When I had a small business and not a lot of money for bonuses,
I wrote one of my store managers a very warm letter of appreciation.
I thought it was a good idea and that it would encourage him.

But instead,
Bill told me that he'd tried to cash my letter at the bank,
and that they told him that it wasn't worth anything…
… it seems that he thought my appreciation for his hard work ought
to be something more substantial than just my kind words.

So too we may need to express our faith with more than just words,
perhaps even taking on a new challenge,
which puts our words into action by breaking the old mold.

The parable in Matthew challenges us.
Are we just talking about the Christian life of faith,
or are we willing to get off the bench & really play the game?

Once there was a father with two sons.
He called them to go, and work in his vineyard.
One said, “No, I will not, but then he did.
The other said he would go, but then he didn’t.
May the grace we live, our faith, be more than just empty words.