[Sermon composed for the Sunday broadcast at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Phoenix AZ (https://www.stmarysphoenix.org/online) for Sunday, September 27, 2020, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.’[1]
Imagine having this comment thrown at you.
Maybe, then we can imagine the shock, the anger, the rage that the Temple authorities felt course through their collective psyche when we heard Jesus throw this very comment in their faces. Granted, you could say they started it. After all, they had come up to Jesus while He was teaching in the Temple courtyard and point-blank asked Him for His credentials. This was not some sort of bureaucratic procedure nor was it a clumsy conversation opener. The motive here was palpably less than noble. It was clear that the authorities did not like Jesus, they did not like His message, and they did not want Him around. This was no honest inquiry into His credentials, this was a direct challenge, and a hostile one at that.
Now this is the man who preached, “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles,”[2] and, “As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them,”[3] and, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God.”[4] What on earth could get their backs up with this?
The key to this is the fact that throughout his ministry Jesus held up a mirror to religious establishment, and the reflection they saw did not match the image they had of themselves. The prevailing self-image matched that of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.[5] Members of the religious establishment fasted frequently, paid their tithes scrupulously, and generally kept their noses clean. Our Lord, however, pointed out frequently that while they meticulously fulfilled their duties regarding sacrifice, fasting, and tithing, they ignored the weightier matters of the law, that is, justice and mercy and faith.[6] Also, it was more than His accusations of their hypocrisy and iniquity,[7] He wasn’t even from the right people. Not only was He not part of the religious establishment, He was from Galilee, the Jewish hinterland: “Search and you will see,” the authorities had said, “That no prophet is to rise from Galilee.”[8] After all, even some of His closest disciples were skeptical at first, as we can see when Nathanael had asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”[9]
So here was what to them was a backwoods trouble-making hick in the holiest, most important spot in the world teaching like He owned the place. To them, this man was bad news and worse, not only was He undermining their authority, He assaulted their cherished and highly polished self-image. I think it is safe to say they were a little perturbed. And thus, perturbed beyond all semblance of civility, as a group they stalk out into the Temple courtyard and demanded, emanating waves of hostility, who He thought He was.
Masterfully, Our Lord turned to them and told them that He would be more than happy to tell them, provided they tell Him what they thought of John the Baptist. He might as well have handed them a grenade whose pin had been pulled. And it was covered with glue. And they knew it. So, they decided to defuse the situation by not answering the question.
St. Jerome pointed out in his Commentary on Matthew that Our Lord’s response, “Neither will I tell you,” effectively prevented them from putting the pin back into that grenade. By considering His question, they accepted the terms, and then by refusing to commit to an answer, they effectively reneged on the bargain, eviscerating their challenge. Moreover, Our Lord’s refusal to accept the challenge was followed by a parable. We heard that parable just moments ago. In the Commentary, its place immediately following the challenge was aimed straight at the religious authorities. Please indulge me as I summarize the parable, this time replacing the symbolic characters with those whom the parable really referenced:
“God approached the Children of Israel and said, “Children, I need you to work for me today in the world.” The priests and the scribes and the pharisees said, “Certainly, O our God of our Fathers, that we shall do,” but as soon as they thought God had departed as He did when He left the garden in Adam’s care, they proceeded like Adam to ignore their duty and sit on their laurels. The prostitutes and the tax collectors said, “No, we have better things to do!” and scampered off to do their unsavoury business, but changed their mind and repented their decision and went back in humility to do the work of the Kingdom of God.”
This was indeed a stinging rebuke. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this same passage, cast it in these words: “But even after the publicans and harlots believed, you did not believe. You should have repented long before they did, but you did not do it. So you are deprived of all excuses.”[10] Their challenge backfired, the grenade detonated in their faces.
So, what do we take from this encounter? When I was a boy, this parable was given to me in a highly sanitized and decontextualized manner. The challenge to the priests and elders was not mentioned and the parable was blithely passed off as a fable to condition children for obedience. By extension, the intent was that as the child carried this parable into adulthood the orders of the parents would transform into obedience to God and to society. The parable had been coopted into a tool of societal control rather than the stinging slap that it was. Yes, obeying God is important, but the point of this story is about wilful ignorance and wilful self-deception causing a wilful failure.
As if this were not enough, Jesus threw one more parable at them, one you may remember, the parable of the wicked tenants.[11] As a reminder, the parable tells of a landlord who gave tenants charge of a vineyard, but every time he sent someone to collect the rent, they mistreated, maimed, or killed the messengers. At last they killed the final messenger, the landlord’s son. Our Lord then inferred with this parable that the tenants were the religious leaders in front of him, that the messengers were the prophets, and that He was the son that they would kill. He then explicitly declared that the Kingdom of God would be withheld from them, the leaders of Israel, because they could not, indeed would not engage in the repentance required to enter the Kingdom of God.[12]
I find this passage incredibly uncomfortable, as I am sure you do as well. It warns that when we think we are part of the in-crowd, when we rest on our laurels, when we take comfort in our rank, or our position, or our heritage, or our self-perceived sanctity, we are in grave danger of missing the mark and will fail to achieve the Kingdom of God. Like Israel in this passage everyone is called to the repentance of sins and bearing the fruits of repentance to enter the Kingdom of God. Temple priest or prostitute, Pharisee or tax collector, Archbishop or layman, religious or secular, cradle or convert, we are all called to a life of repentance. But even if at first we had said to God, “No, we will not do what you ask,” if we turn back to do the Father’s will, no matter how late in the game, the grace is there to carry us through. That way we can link arms with the prostitutes and tax-collectors who heard and heeded the message, and with them enter the Kingdom of God.
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Saviour save us.
Icon of Jesus and John the Forerunner, 15th century, Anonymous