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Our Gospel lesson this morning seems at first glance to set before us a very simple, very straightforward, binary, either/or choice: Who do we want to be like? Which of the brothers in the parable will we take for our role model? Do we want to be more like the chief priests and elders, or more like the prostitutes and the tax collectors?

That either/or choice is what Jesus puts before the chief priests and elders in the parable he tells them. They have come to Jesus to challenge him, to ask by what authority he does the preaching and teaching and healing and discipling that he’s been doing. And Jesus responds by challenging them, by challenging their very idea of where authority in God comes from. “What do you think?” Jesus says to them: a man has two sons, and he goes to each of them and says “Go and work in the vineyard today; go do the deeds that are part of your family responsibility and part of your family inheritance.” One son says, “Of course I’ll go work in the vineyard. I honor and obey you, father, and it is a privilege to me to do the work that you have given me to do”—but as soon as his father is out of the room, he goes back to what he was doing before, and ignores his father’s summons, and never goes out to work. His words to his father say Yes, but his actions say No. The other son, meanwhile, responds to his father’s call to the vineyard by saying, “No way! I’m not going out to work today; I have things to do, I have people to see, I have my own agenda, I have my own life, and I’m not going to you or any ‘family responsibility’ get in the way of me doing what I want to do. Just forget it!” But later, after his father has gone away, he changes his mind, and he puts on his work clothes and he picks up his viticulture tools and he goes out to work in the vineyard. This son’s words say No, but in the end his actions say Yes to his father’s will for him.

“Now,” Jesus says, “which of these sons would you want to be like? Which of these sons does what his father wants?” And the chief priests and elders, probably seeing the trap they’re walking into but having no idea how to get out of it, say, “Well, the one who went out and worked in the vineyard did what his father wanted.” And that’s when Jesus lets them have it: “You priests and elders,” he says, “you’re just like the son whose words say Yes but actions say No. You claim to honor God; you claim to follow God’s teaching, God’s Torah; you claim to obey all the commandments God has given for purity of life—but when it comes to the things God really wants, when it comes to justice and righteousness and peacemaking and mercy and forgiveness and love—these things you ignore. And even when God sends you a messenger like John the Baptist to call you back to repentance and righteousness, even then you don’t believe him, you don’t follow him, you oppose him and challenge him and you’re glad when he’s imprisoned and executed. You priests and elders,” Jesus says, “you say Yes to God, but what you do is No.”

The tax collectors and the prostitutes, on the other hand, Jesus says, are like the other son: they say No to God at first, but later on their actions say Yes. And the tax collectors and prostitutes do say No to God; they openly flout God’s commandments, they openly refuse to participate in their people’s faithful inheritance. The tax collectors handled a lot of Roman money, and Roman coins had the image of the emperor stamped on them, and the genius of the emperor was considered a divinity in Roman religion—so Roman money was an idol, and dealing in idolatry is against the Second Commandment, so the tax collectors say No to God. And the prostitutes traded in adultery, and “No adultery” is the Seventh Commandment, and so the prostitutes say No to God. We must not romanticize the tax collectors and prostitutes if we really want to get the point of Jesus’ parable: they were not nice people, they were not faithful people, they were not doing what God wanted them to do. But when John the Baptist came, and offered them repentance and a new chance for righteousness, they recognized how important that was, and they believed. And that made them like the son who says No but does Yes; that made them, paradoxically, more righteous than the chief priests and elders.

And that turn in the Gospel puts the question back to us: Who do we want to be like? Which son will we emulate? Do we want to be more like the priests and elders, or more like the tax collectors and prostitutes?

At least, that is the choice the Gospel seems to put before us. But I have to admit, the more I look at this choice, the more carefully I read over this Gospel, the less satisfied I am with these two options. We can say Yes and do No, and that clearly is not pleasing to God; or we can say No and do Yes, which is more like what God wants, but still has something missing, still is not entire obedience to God’s Word. The whole parable leaves me feeling like there ought to be something more, there ought to be a third option, there ought to be a third son in the story, there ought to be a way that we can respond to God’s call by saying Yes and by doing Yes. The parable itself doesn’t resolve that, the parable itself kind of leaves us hanging, until we can make the leap of faith to see in it a new option for responding to God’s call.

And that new option, of course, is Jesus himself. Jesus is the one who says Yes to God, and who does that Yes in his teaching and his preaching and his healing and his living and his dying and his rising to life again. Jesus is the “third son,” of the parable, the true Son, who shows all of us the way that we can faithfully respond to God in word and in deed. That’s what Paul is talking about in our Epistle lesson today, when he says: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”—the mind of Christ, that pours himself out in humble obedience to God, the mind that says Yes and does Yes, can be in us too, can empower us and inspire us and enlighten us to believe in God’s call and to behave in ways that live out that call. The mind of Christ gives us the third option, so that we can “work out our own salvation,” and we can work it because “it is God who is at work in us, enabling us to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”

So the real message of the Gospel to us today is not just to choose which brother we want to be like; the real message is that we must let our words about God and our actions for God measure up to each other. The real message is that if we say God calls us to justice and righteousness and peacemaking and forgiveness and love, then our actions must be all about justice and righteousness and peacemaking and forgiveness and love.

That message of the Gospel is true for us Christians in all times and places; but I think it has a special urgency for us in this time and this place, right here and now. In our time, as we in America continue our international campaign against terrorism, as our country appears to be preparing for a military invasion of Iraq—in our time far-reaching decisions about justice and peace are being made by our government and governments all around the world. Those decisions are complex, and complicated, and have many dimensions to them, and are not reducible to simple black and white answers. There are people around the world who wish to see our nation harmed, and we have an obligation to defend ourselves; but there are also innocent people around the world who will be harmed if we go after “the bad guys” with too much vengeance and too much force. There are governments around the world who scoff at the power of international law, and they must be restrained; but what happens to our international credibility if our nation sets aside the rule of law when it seems to fit our national interest? The quest for justice and peace in this moment seems particularly precarious—and so at this moment it seems important to me that we, as citizens and as people of faith, stand up to say that our words about justice and peace and our actions for justice and peace must measure up to each other. If we as Christians in America believe that God calls us to build up right relationships, personally and communally and nationally and globally; if we believe that God’s will for us, for all of us, for all humanity, God’s will is well-being and wholeness of life; if we believe that what God wants for us ultimately is that we be creative and not destructive—if we believe these things, then we ought to behave in such a way that these things become possible. And we can behave that way, because the mind of Christ is in us, because it is God who is at work in us, enabling us to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.

That still means there are no easy answers. There are plenty of different opinions about what we should do in the international situation and how we should conduct our national politics; there are different opinions in our community, in our circles of friends, right here in our parish family. I would not presume to tell anybody how to think and feel and vote in this post-9/11 world. But I would say that as people of faith we have a particular role to play in our national debates, we have a particular message to share with our lawmakers and leaders, we have a particular ideal to hold up for our national and international life. We have the Good News that God in Christ calls us to believe in the power of justice and peace and mercy and love, and God in Christ empowers us to behave with justice and peace and mercy and love. And that Good News, I believe, is meant for our political life every bit as much as it is for our personal life.

In our Gospel today Jesus calls us to say Yes to God and do Yes for God. Let it be our prayer today that we may answer Jesus’ call: that we may believe deeply in God’s promises, and behave faithfully for God’s purposes.

In the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Readings For Sunday, September 29th, 2002

The First Lesson                        Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32

The word of the LORD came to me: What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"? As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die. Yet you say, "The way of the Lord is unfair." Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die.

Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, "The way of the Lord is unfair." O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?  For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.

The Second Lesson          Philippians 2:1-13

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

The Holy Gospel                                                                               Matthew 21:28-32

Jesus said, "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. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, 'I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.  For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”