“Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Some questions don’t have a safe answer. Men, you understand this intuitively. I don’t even have to tell you the question I’m about to ask, but women, you know that you have asked this question at some point.
Does this dress make me look fat? The answer to that, man, you know, is, “No, of course. Honey, you are beautiful.” Because there’s no good way to answer that question.
Realistically, if you answer yes, you’re going to end up in the emergency room. And if you answer the question no, well, is she really going to believe you? Or are you just being nice?
Jesus is asked a no-win question in our reading this evening. Jesus is asked the question, “Who authorized you? Who said that you are allowed to preach in the temple? Who gave you permission?”
And the problem is this, if he says other people did, then he’s claiming that their authority is more important to him than that of the Jewish ruling council, and that’s not going to work.
If he says that nobody has given him authority to teach in the temple, then he’s saying that he just took that authority on himself, and he’s kind of a renegade. If he says that God authorized him, then he runs the risk of being accused of blasphemy, and perhaps even being killed.
So instead of answering the question, Jesus points out their hypocrisy by asking them a no-win question in return. “John’s baptism, the baptism of John the Baptist, did it come from heaven, or is it from human origin?”
And they have the same kind of dilemma. If they say it’s from heaven, well, then why did all these Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders all go out and oppose John to the point where John was so sick of it that he called them a brood of vipers and asked, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
But if they say it’s of human origin, then the crowd is going to turn against them because they all like John and regard him as a prophet. One way or the other, they can’t win. And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making.
“You’ve asked me a question that I can’t win, but I’ve got plenty of questions that will point out your hypocrisy too. An unfair question has earned an unfair response.”
Sometimes those who study logic, the ’logicians,’ will give another example of a no-win question. “When did you stop beating your wife?” Right? No matter what you answer to that terrible question, it sounds like at one point, at one time you were beating her and you’ve decided now to stop. You can’t win no matter what you say.
Does God play fair, as fair is reckoned by human beings? That’s the question I want to bring you to as we think about our reading from the prophet Ezekiel this evening. Does God play fair?
Because that’s the accusation that the Israelites have lodged against God. They say, “The way of the Lord is unfair,” and Ezekiel quotes it twice in responding to them. You say, “The way of the Lord is unfair,” and then he answers.
Why would they think such a thing? Well, they think that the way of the Lord is unfair because they are suffering and they feel that they have done nothing wrong. At least they think that they’ve done nothing wrong. And so somebody else must be at fault.
It must be their parents’ fault, hence that little quip that they’re making, that the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. In other words, the parents did something wrong, the children are suffering for it.
And the Israelites are using this proverb to say, “We haven’t done anything wrong. It was other people. It was our ancestors. It was our parents who did this. I’m not personally responsible for the affliction that’s fallen upon me. I am sinless. I’ve done nothing wrong at all.” It must be anybody’s fault, but mine. That’s not fair.
One of the most common things that you all do is you say to God, “That’s not fair.” And it comes from places of real hurt, perhaps a sickness that didn’t heal, perhaps a child who abandoned the Holy Faith, perhaps a neighbor who seems to prosper without Christ in their life.
But when it comes down to it, it is an accusation. It’s the accusation that says, “I deserve better than what God has given me.” And that’s simply not true.
The truth is that God is not fair. More importantly, it’s good that God is not fair. If God were fair, you would not stand even for a moment. If God had been fair to the Israelites as they came to God and say, “Is the Lord not fair? Are His ways not fair? Is the Lord not good for the way He’s treated us?” They would have earned nothing but destruction.
If God were fair, you would be judged on the merit of your own actions. Are you a good person or not? You would be found very lacking. But let me be clear. So would I, all of us in this room, if judged simply on the basis of our thoughts, our words, our deeds, the things we’ve done and the things we’ve left undone, none of us have earned God’s grace, all of us would be judged and found very lacking.
To live a life that pleases God, instead we must live by repentance and faith. To say with the psalmist, “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.”
So Jesus tells us a parable today. It’s a simple parable about two boys and their father’s vineyard. This time they are sons of the father. We were talking about a vineyard and workers last week. We’re talking about that again now.
And he tells them both to go and work in the vineyard. One says, “I will not go,” but he changes his mind later and he goes. The other one says, “I go, sir,” but he changes his mind later and doesn’t go.
And now Jesus has a new question for them. Which one of these did his father’s will? The one who said the right thing or the one who did the right thing?
And the Pharisees know the answer to Jesus’ new question just like you do. The first one, the one who went and worked, the one who made a change in the direction of God’s purposes and plans, the one whose disobedience was repaired with repentance.
You see, God is not interested in your platitudes. He’s not interested in your empty words. He’s interested in repentance and faith.
But anyone who has promised God something and hasn’t delivered, well, you’re that second son. I’ve done that. Have you ever said, “God, if you get me out of this situation, I’ll change this or that?” Heck, some of you have done that saying, “Lord, if you’ll let the Vikings win this game, I’ll show up to church next weekend.”
That’s the key problem. You promise God your repentance, but you don’t actually do it. You tried. Maybe you’ve even tried hard enough to think that you’ve succeeded, but in that you’ve only made yourself proud, not righteous.
Jesus strikes at our proud hearts when he says, “Tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you,” because their eyes are clear. They know their sin. They know that they have in word and deed said their no to God, but these tax collectors and prostitutes about whom Jesus is speaking are not those who continue willfully and persistently in their unbelief and their sin, the ones he’s speaking of are those who have repented and believed the gospel.
What Jesus is looking for is not just the right words about God. I run into people like that all the time. Well, I believe in God. I haven’t been in church in three years, but I believe in God. Jesus isn’t interested. He’s interested in repentance and faith.
What Jesus is looking for is something more than your simple hard work and obedience. You are not able to obey a command like “turn and live.” If you were able to fulfill this in yourself, you would have done it a long time ago, but you haven’t, but while you can’t turn yourself, you can be turned.
While your repentance is not adequate in and of itself by your own efforts, you can be, if you’ll forgive me, coining a new word, repented because it turns out in this parable there’s actually a third son that you didn’t hear about on the way by.
There’s the first son who says no and then does it. The second son who says yes and then doesn’t and the third son. The one who’s telling the story. This son is Jesus. Jesus is the third son in the story.
The one who both says “I go, sir,” and then he goes. Not to the vineyard for a day’s work, but to a cross. He is the obedient one.
The one who didn’t grasp equality with his father in heaven, but instead emptied himself and took the form of a slave and was obedient to the point of death, even death in such a vile and repulsive way as death on a cross.
But as Saint Paul tells us in Philippians in verse 9, “Therefore God also highly exalted him,” that the one who obediently said, “I go, sir,” and then went to his cross is the one who died and rose.
So returning to the question that the Pharisees asked in the beginning, how is it that Jesus has authority to teach what he does? Because he’s the one who goes, who gives his yes and then willingly goes to the cross.
And how do we know that God has blessed that ministry? Because God vindicated him by raising him from the dead.
Therefore we can be sure that whoever believes in him has salvation and eternal life, no longer running on the treadmill of good enough, but instead trusting in the grace, the repentance, the love, the forgiveness of a God who does it for you. Not because it’s fair, because it’s not, but because it’s love.
The resurrection is the answer to the authority question that the leaders refuse to answer.
So now the obedient son comes to you and he offers himself to you in bread and wine. And as we gather at the table in remembrance of him, we receive this life and we are transformed.
Christ gives us gifts of repentance and faith so that we can cling to His promises, so that we can receive His grace.
May you cling to this promise that it is done for you for the forgiveness of your sins. In Jesus’ name, Amen.