Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
September 28, 2008
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
Have you ever changed your mind about anything? I have. In fact, if you are like me, you have changed your mind many times in your life, and most of the time that was a good thing. I don’t know about you, but most of the time I have changed my mind it was because I learned something new or I was given new information to consider. I changed my mind because I had a new experience, or just because I became older and wiser. But the most important moments when I have changed my mind is when I had a change of heart. Most important because a change of heart was always evidence of God’s compelling presence in my life, moving me in ways which often did not even make sense to my rational brain or my life experience. And a change of heart always did more than just change my mind, it changed my life.
For instance, I stand before you today to preside at this Eucharist because of a compelling call from God to become a priest of the church. It certainly seemed irrational to leave a job that I loved six years away from the benefits of full retirement. In fact, six years before I even left my vocation to go to seminary I spent great amounts of time talking with friends and counselors and spiritual directors trying to understand the senselessness of it only to find ever more compelling reasons in my heart to turn to religious vocation. And now, after completing three years of seminary with a senseless amount of debt and only a part time job, I stand before you a more complete child of God and a more fulfilled human being than I have ever been, because of the new life God has given me to live. And that is saying a lot. Because I felt very fulfilled and quite complete in the life I had made for myself before I answered God’s call to religious vocation. That is, until I had a change of heart.
Having a change of heart is at the center of our gospel lesson today, and I believe change of heart is God’s central message for us in all of Hebrew and Christian scripture. Because a change of heart is the only thing that can ever really change us. We can change our mind by receiving new knowledge and information and by the new experiences we have, but it takes a change of heart to change our life and the way we live it. Now, if you think I am nit-picking about this, just think of the many times you changed your mind about something because you gained new knowledge or experienced something new, but that did not change your behavior. For instance, we have good information from sound research that smoking is the leading cause of lung disease, cancer and heart attacks—especially in women, but I have known people who continue to smoke even after experiencing debilitating symptoms or serious complications from such diseases. That’s because smoking is one of the most difficult addictions to break. And those who have been able to quit smoking and make a life-change to healthy behavior will tell you that it took more than information or willpower; it took a change of heart. It took a change which came from something deep inside of them which urged them to change and supported them in their effort. For people of faith, for people like you and me, we recognize such deep and lasting change as the power of God. A power which emerges in us from someplace beyond our head; from a place from deep inside which compels us to act in ways we never thought were possible. We feel it in our gut, but we call that place our heart.
In our gospel lesson today Jesus is showing us how important it is to pay attention to what our heart is saying, even when what we hear seems to contradict the knowledge of our mind or the learning which comes from our life experience. Today he contrasts the religious leaders of his day with the sinners of his day who respond to God’s call to repentance and a new way of living. We need to be reminded that repentance means turning one’s life around, not just away from that thing which keeps us enslaved to human thoughts and passions which diminish our potential for good; repentance also means turning toward that good so that our life will become changed to serve God’s good purpose for it. We can see that the chief priests and elders in today’s gospel do not have any desire to change anything about their life. Typical of Jewish authorities, they come to Jesus with a question they are not willing to answer; nor are they willing to hear Jesus’ answer.
Jesus has been teaching in the temple for the last several days until one day the authorities of the temple come to him to ask, “Who gave you this authority” to teach in the temple? As he often does, Jesus responds to these leaders by asking them a question. By whose authority did John baptize people? Did he baptize by God’s authority or by human authority? Now, if they answer that God gave John authority, they make the admission that Jesus also teaches by God’s authority because Jesus has identified himself with John in his question. And if they say John baptizes by a human authority, they will lose credibility among their people who believe that John’s authority came from God. So the only way these religious leaders can safely answer Jesus’ question without losing their own authority is to say, “We don’t know.” And Jesus will go on to tell a story which will reveal them for the hypocrites they are. Religious leaders whose authority is not invested in God; rather their authority is invested in a religious and political system which maintains their own power and privilege. Which only makes them believe in their own righteousness.
Tell me what you think, says Jesus, as he tells them the story of a father who asks both his sons to work in his vineyard. One son says “no,” but he comes back later to say that, in fact, he will work in his father’s vineyard. The other son says “yes,” but he never shows up to work the vineyard. This second son, it seems to me, is much like the leaders of the temple. They have said “yes” to God but they are not doing the work, the work of God’s vineyard. The other son resembles the common people; sinners who have said “no” to God, but then they have a change of heart. They repent of their sin. They turn from living a promiscuous or usurious life and return to God. And they go to work for God in his vineyard. After telling his story Jesus drives his lesson home.
It is the sinners, the tax collectors and the prostitutes who will go into God’s kingdom ahead of such religious leaders. Because they heard John’s message of repentance. It was a message which came from John’s heart. It captured their own heart. And the message changed them. But those who we might think would easily believe John’s message and recognize God’s authority in John’s righteousness will not believe it. Even after they hear John’s message of repentance and witness the life-changing power of baptism, they do not believe that he is speaking to them. “Even after you saw it,” says Jesus, “you did not change your minds and believe him.” And it is important to remember that Jesus is not talking about the mind as we know it today, and he is not using the world “believe” as we define it and use it in our time. In Hebrew and Christian scripture of ancient times, the heart was the seat of true knowledge and belief is what you gave your heart to.
As a people of faith, then, it seems to me that our gospel lesson prompts us to ask this important question: what do we give our heart to? And how is that different from what we give our mind to. Well, if the lessons of scripture teach us anything this morning, they teach us that nothing we can learn or know from experience can ever really change us. The only place where change truly happens and really lasts is within the heart. A place deep inside of us where the power of God resides, where the power to change our life comes from. A power which gives us the strength and courage to live our life with values and attitudes and opinions and beliefs consistent with the Gospel. Otherwise we are just like the religious leaders of the temple in our gospel account today: HYPOCRITES; people who talk the talk but do not walk the walk. Or like the Israelites Moses led through the wilderness who continually tested the Lord and quarreled with him: DOUBTERS; people who say we believe in God but who are resistant to God’s power to change their life, and to God’s presence with them to sustain them in the life he gives them to live. So now we need to ask where we can find such hypocrisy and unbelief, or doubt, in ourselves; places which keep us enslaved to self-serving agendas which keep us unwilling or unable to repent of a life which does not serve God’s purpose for us.
Recognizing our own hypocrisy and doubt is no easy task. It is too easy to see the hypocrisy and doubt or unbelief in others. However, thinking about my own places of hypocrisy and doubt recently has caused me to become more conscious of the kinds of hypocrisy and doubt which I have witnessed throughout the presidential primaries and this election campaign. And it distresses me. I am distressed to know that in a recent poll, one of our presidential candidates is down by 6 points in the poll rankings only because of the color of his skin. I am dismayed by people of faith and people who claim to support civil rights for minorities in our country tell pollsters that, for whatever reason, they cannot pull the lever for a black man. Even though they work with people of color and live in the same neighborhoods with them, and fought with them in our wars. By the same token, I am dismayed to hear statistics about women who will vote for a woman only because they are women. Such statistics make me realize the value of John McCain’s campaign slogan in helping us see beyond our own self-serving prejudices: Country First. But for people of faith “country first” come only after God.
For people of faith God must be our authority in any decision we make for our life, for our country, and for our world. I like to think that when people of faith put God first we make different choices from those which only seek to serve our own self-serving purposes; choices which serve God’s purposes for us in creation. I like to think that people of faith make a difference in our world when we live by a higher authority than the authority of government or the authority of people in high places who hold us hostage to their power and greed. I like to think that people of faith live life seeking the power that is within us to bring about real change when we are called to repentance as a people and a nation. Because it is only true repentance that can bring the kind of change we can believe in. The kind of change which requires more than a change of mind; change which goes deeper than cosmetic changes in laws and rules and policy and procedures which are an attempt to fix things. True change requires a change of heart, and change of heart is the only change which can make a real a lasting difference for good in our life and in our world.