NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 26 in Ordinary Time Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to the homily for the Sunday, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. And this week the Church offers us the easiest parable in St. Matthew's Gospel. When I say the easiest, I mean it's the one with the simplest, straightforward meaning, and yet one whose background — the difficulty of understanding how it applies — is much trickier than it seems. So just to give a little bit of context: we've jumped over a couple of chapters from the end of our Gospel from last time. It was in the middle of chapter 20. Since then, Jesus has foretold his crucifixion again a couple of further instances. He's then gone up to Jerusalem, and we've had the incident which we celebrate on Palm Sunday — the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem as Davidic heir, riding on a donkey, with the people greeting him as such. We've had him go into the Temple. We've had him conduct the cleansing of the Temple. Various signs performed in the Temple which have irked the Temple authorities. And then Jesus goes out back to Bethany, cursing a fig tree on the way, and the next day he comes back into the Temple. And it's at this point that the Temple authorities say to him: "By what authority do you do these signs, and who gave you this authority?" Now this is not a silly question. The Temple authorities were those in charge of the Temple. They knew perfectly well that there were signs concerning its being brought to an end — a wrathful end, the day of the Lord — and that there was a promised priest-prophet, a Davidic heir, who was due to come and perform a sacrifice just before, or at the time of, that day. All this is in Zechariah and a host of other prophets. In other words, they were aware that there was a risk that this might be the real thing, but they weren't sure. Their job was to make sure that the usual stream of charlatans didn't cause chaos and havoc. So their question is actually a very sensible one: "By what authority do you do these things, and who gave you this authority?" And of course, if Jesus were to say straightforwardly, "I am — I'm doing this under my authority, because it is my Temple, and it is I who decide what happens here" — they would instantly have stoned him before he'd even had a chance to be able to explain to them what his coming really looked like. And it's that that he's interested in. He's interested in showing who he is, so that people are able to make sense of what he's doing, which is going to be quite Different from what they're expecting. So he gives them a question instead of an answer. His question is: John the Baptist — by whose authority did he come? And this of course puts them in a difficult position, because they know that he was very popular, much appreciated. He was a martyr at this stage; he'd been killed. So they don't really want to answer that question, because they hadn't been in favor of him. So they said, "Well, we don't know. We don't know by what authority" — John the Baptist — "who gave John the Baptist his authority?" And it's then that Jesus tells this parable. And as I say, it's the easiest parable, and that's the reason for it being the easiest parable. He's effectively saying to them: you know, you can work this out for yourselves. It's not that difficult to tell from whom John the Baptist got his authority. So this is what he says. "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." And it's interesting that the word here for "changed his mind" is not deep repentance. It's more like having a change of opinion. It might be being remorseful, but it's not the deep penitential word. "The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, 'I go, sir'" — actually, "I go, Lord." There may even be a reference to that little earlier passage where Jesus said to people, "Those who say 'Lord, Lord' — I won't know who they are." "I go, sir." But he did not go. "Which of the two did the will of his father?" Okay, now this is a perfectly clear question. It's perfectly obvious that somebody who says no but then does is doing the will of the Father, whereas the one who says they will but then doesn't is not doing the will of the Father. This is not difficult. This is not computer science, or even parable rocket science, as it were. So Jesus's point is, you know, you can work this out for yourselves. And so they answer. They give exactly the right answer, of course, and they're not stupid. They know what this means. So he says, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you." Okay, so these were the people who initially, when told to go into the vineyard, one supposes had said no, but then they changed their mind. As it happens, there was someone who came along and changed their mind, and that was John the Baptist. And John the Baptist preaching, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," led to this mass popular outpouring of grief and repentance, with people going on to be baptized and confessing their sins. So those are the ones who said no initially and then did. "For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him." In other words, the Temple authorities, the Pharisees, the scribes – for them John the Baptist was a kind of slightly hysterical popular outbreak of folk religion, not something that they went along with. So when they went along to be curious, just about what he was doing, he was really very strong with them, told them, were they seeking to get away from the wrath that is to come? So they ignored him. They were not believers that his was a sign from God. If they had been, they too would have repented, their hearts would have been softened, and they would have sought to enter into a new way of being. But no – these were the people who were the good guys, the people who said "I will go" at the beginning. In other words, they were career good men, if you like, and yet they changed their mind by not listening to the one who came, and decided not to go and enter the vineyard as they were invited. "And even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him." Okay, so Jesus is doing something really very subtle, I think, here. because he's asking them to go back into their own experience of what it was like trying to interpret whether a sign is real. It's only in as far as they sit in that experience that they're going to be able to tell whether he, Jesus, is doing these things with divine authority. You need to go back and think: how did we do this when it was John? And here I think there's a point which is, in a sense, difficult to bring out. When we hear the words "Repent, for the kingdom of God is close at hand," if you're anything like me, we hear this in bully headmaster mode. In other words, someone is coming along and saying: you're an awful bunch, and unless you repent there is going to be a terrible wrath, there's going to be terrible punishment. But if you go along with what I say and repent, then I'll consider to be kind to you. That's the old moralistic, emotionally blackmailing form of relationship which many of us imagine to exist between God and ourselves. And yet, curiously, it's that world that Jesus is going to undo, and knows he's undoing, and realizes that John was merely the first step in the undoing of that world. Because how about if "Repent, for the kingdom of God is close at hand" is not the bullying word of a headmaster, but much more like a friendly invitation to a softening of hearts? Because the one who is going to make possible that softening of hearts is coming into your midst. And that's the condition of surviving and getting into the new world that's being born: having a soft enough heart that you're able to reach out and live and share with other people. And as far as you're able to do that, you're going to be on the inside of the new project. In as far as you choose not to repent, and not to allow yourself to have your heart broken, to allow yourself to understand what you've been caught up in — in as far as you decide not to go that route — then you're exposing yourself to all the wrath that is in fact going to come as the world changes. And the world changes precisely because, once the kingdom of God has come into the midst of people, immediately all the rules and forms of goodness that used to hold people together — forms of sacrifice, temples, strict rules — all of those start to be corroded. Because we start to learn to live — those of us who were previously ashamed, we learn to live, creating humanity amidst our shame. Those of us who are tax collectors or prostitutes, or the modern equivalents, or any of the equivalents of people who have been considered outsiders and therefore living in shame — once the good news has arrived that we can repent, that our hearts can be… Softened, we no longer need to be bound by our shame, and therefore we can reach out and be human to each other. One of the spin-off effects of that is terrible wrath for people who don't get with the show, but it's not the terrible wrath of someone who's threatening in a headmasterly way. It's simply the effect of what happens once sinners are able to get into the kingdom. That, I think, is what's going on here. Jesus is saying to them: if you didn't really understand what John was opening up, when the old headmaster voice thing was just about possible, and John himself was a bit surprised at the lack of vengeance in the one who was coming – in the one whom he later recognized as the Lamb of God – if John himself had to undergo the change in his understanding of what was coming into their midst, then, and he was one who was from God, and you haven't even been able to recognize him, then how are you going to understand the one who is coming into your midst as the one who is going to undo all false goodness and open up the possibility of the Kingdom of God being dwelt in by humans? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.