September 27 ~ Turn and Live
Sermon by Pastor Joel
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Psalm 25:1-9
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
I was once told that the best parenting skill is a short memory. The mistakes our kids make when they are young – and for that matter, the momentary failures they experience - don’t define them. Address the mistakes, work through the failures, but don’t think they lock down who your child will be next week, or next year. Those mistakes and failures, just say they are on the path, in our usual human way, to becoming a person, hopefully their best self. Isn’t that a path we are all still on?
Our current round of readings are yet again addressing one of the most significant of human failings: judgement without empathy. This is the person who doubts apologies and questions motives, yet never seeks the answers that might build a more compassionate picture. They are the ones who say people never change, yet are the first to say how this life event or that experience was life-changing for them.
Because, here in our readings today we have stories about the ability of people to change.
In Ezekiel, the people are complaining that life is unfair. They are trapped by the past. Some blame their parents. Others blame circumstance. Some believe their mistakes have permanently defined them. They cannot change – they are trapped.
But God pushes back on this: those who know better and commit a gross injustice against another, they will suffer – either for their mistake itself, or for the loss of joy and community around them. But those who say sorry for their mistakes, God says, their lives be saved. In other words, don’t live in the past, don’t make excuses for wrongdoing, don’t sit in the mess of your own guilt and shame – own up to it, say sorry, and do better. Turn and live, God says. So much power and wisdom in those simple words: Turn and live.
The entire reading rests on this seemingly radical assumption that human beings can change. And an even more merciful suggestion that God seems far less interested in tallying our mistakes, than seeing what we accomplish when we move past them.
In the gospel, the chief priests approach Jesus with a question about authority. But Jesus, as he often does, offers a different question entirely. He tells a story about two sons. The first son refuses his father's request. The second son agrees. One looks righteous. The other looks rebellious.
But then we learn: the son who refused, changes his mind and does what he is asked. The son who said yes to the request right away, doesn’t do it. Who is right? Jesus asks. And of course, we all say – the son who said no but then did as asked. Because the answer is clear: both sons did the opposite of what they said. But the second son shrunk into a smaller person – someone who cannot be depended on, who talks a good talk but is unreliable. The first son started poorly or slowly, but turned things around in the end; and we sense that a lesson was learned along the way. His story, I imagine reminds us of times when we have misspoken, or jumped to conclusions that we then regretted, and the second chances we wished to have been given. Jesus talks about second chances, about change for the better, about paths not being predetermined.
And this is his long story to make a very clear point: the pharisees are like the people who believe themselves to be pious, yet do not act honorably. But the tax collectors and prostitutes will go to heaven before you, Jesus tells them. Not because they were perfect. Not because they were pious. Because they were willing to change. And tax collectors and prostitutes are all of us – flawed and careless, willing, trying to change, trying to figure things out.
The religious leaders, by contrast, saw themselves as experts. They already had everything figured out. So they could sit back and judge. Monitor. Evaluate. And Keep Score. They could say who was righteous and who was sinful. Who deserved grace and who didn’t.
The only thing they did not seem to notice was what was happening in their own hearts. Which is what always happens when we judge – locking people into one place. It feels like we have things figured out; but we have lost the opportunity to do the important work of looking inward, to figure out ourselves.
Jesus isn't criticizing the religious leaders because they care about morality. He's criticizing them because they are focused on everyone else's moral development and not their own. It's much easier to evaluate another person's soul than our own. Much easier to identify another person's flaws. Much easier to spot hypocrisy somewhere else.
Paul spells it out perhaps the most clearly. He offers a life lesson that is the opposite of sitting in judgement: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” He urges an outward approach to the world that requires a belief in the value and goodness of people. “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others.” And for guidance, he recommends a mind modelled on the example set by Jesus.
Jesus who tells us, we can learn from our mistakes and grow. We can fix what we have broken. We can change and be better.
And thank goodness for that. Because every one of us has been wrong about something. Every one of us has hurt people. Every one of us has needed forgiveness. And every one of us has the power to learn and change, grow wiser and become kinder.
The Gospel assumes that transformation is possible. More than that, the gospel insists that we be transforming people, and transformational communities. While we are busy making mistakes or judging others for theirs, God is always extending the same invitation – to get ourselves, as Ezekiel says, "a new heart and a new spirit."
Turn and live. Amen.
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