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Septermber 25, 2005
Won't, but Did! Will,
but Didn't!
Matthew 21:28-32
The gospel is amazing. The God of scripture is committed unreservedly to us, to our needs and our hopes. God does not first demand but gives; does not oppress but raises up; does not wound but heals. God spares those who flaunt holy laws and the Holy One: forgives instead of condemning; liberates rather than punishes; leaves grace to rule instead of law; rejoices at the return of a single unrighteous person more than at the ninety-nine righteous; celebrated the prodigal over pouting brother who stayed home; receives the heretic before the orthodox; relishes the lawbreakers and outlaws over the guardians of the law; welcomes tax-collectors and prostitutes more than their judges. The people, who said "I won't," but did over all those who said "I will," but didn't. Amazing!
"It's not what you say, it's what you do that counts." Phoebe Cox, my sixth grade teacher, liked to say that. She said it a lot. She said it to me other classmates unwary enough to make excuses for not having our homework done on time, or for not doing a lot of other things we should have done. "It's not what you say, but what you do that counts." Maybe that sums up Jesus' indictment of word-rich, deed-poor religious leaders—the same religious leaders who had already jumped him for cleansing the temple of the moneychangers they sponsored.
Where do you and I line up? Not a few inside and outside the church think it is full of people who have said "Yes" with the lips, and "No" with their lives. Maybe for a lot of us things are not that clear cut. We may not be all that certain about God, or what God would have us be or do. We may be very clear that the world is a mess and tangle of war, famine, instability, poverty, oppression. We may be very clear that we are not in much of a position to do anything about it.
I remember this conversation between two friends. One says to the other: "Sometimes I'd like to ask God why [God] allows poverty, famine and injustice. When will [God] start doing something about it?" "Then, why don't you ask?" queries his conversation partner. "I'm afraid," his friend replies. "I'm afraid God might ask me the same questions."
I feel uncomfortable with hard questions; maybe you do, too. All of us have doubts about ourselves and about God. Fred Buechner, a Presbyterian minister who turned to writing for a living, reminds us: "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts," he says, "are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving." (Wishful Thinking, p. 20) Anne Lamott, a writer active in a Presbyterian Church on the West Coast, comes at matters of faith and doubt a bit differently. She reminds us that the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, pp. 256f). Doubt looks for what to believe. Certainty already knows and doesn't need to believe.
A friend of mine is fond of saying with certainty: "I can get along just fine without God in my life." I ask my friend if he thinks it's possible not to have God in his life. "Well, just let me say this: I've seen people who say 'Yes,' to God but their 'Yes' amounts to little more than a nod to God, a Sunday call." Quiet, practical atheism is more the fashion. Whatever practical atheists may profess about God, they live as if God matters not.
Practical atheism's . . . three great leaders, someone has said, make converts without persecuting, and keeps them without preaching. Those great leaders are: our wealth, our health, and our power. [Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon] Fading wealth, failing health, faltering powers work to draw many into desperate acknowledgments that God does indeed have some claim upon their lives. Such failings shatter the idols of people who may be all vogue on the outside and all vague on the inside.
I'm acquainted with people who say "No" with their lips, but live affirming life and the lives of other people. Once after walking in New York City's Times Square and seeing among the throngs of people, the derelicts, the bag-ladies, the down-and-outs, my eye was caught by a pastor's reflection on the obituary of a peddler.
The peddler had been known for decades around Times Square as "the walking department store." So far as anyone knew he was not part of any church, nor was he particularly religious. He was renown for his complete honesty: he never overcharged, nor kept the change, nor took anything he could not pay for. If you asked him about himself he grew evasive and would say only, "Woe is me," "Why was I born?" "I'm an unfortunate human being." This seemed only to bring him a wider following. He passed out royal titles to those he met on the street: King Jack, Queen Sadie, Count Mike. And if he didn't know your name, his greeting was simply: "Hello, human being." Those who may say "no" with their lips, but say love with their lives, are the hidden disciples in whose presence and by whose deeds we are made to feel human again.
What of those who say "Yes," and yet seem to miss the point entirely? They seem to have a form of religion, but to have never grasped its substance. Their "yes" is voiced in expressions like this: "It all boils down to the Golden Rule. Just love your neighbor, and that's all you have to worry about." Most of us most of the time find it hard enough just loving our family and friends. Or their "yes" may sound like this: "Jesus was a great teacher and the best example we have of how we ought to live." Jesus is hardly the model for the life most of us try to live or aspire to live. Or their "yes" may sound this creed: "God helps those who help themselves;" and "Charity begins at home;" and "Religion and politics don't mix." That's only a short list.
Ask yourself this: Would Jesus die to so people could embrace such beliefs? Come on. Don't dying and suffering make a mockery of such religion? Isn't its whole point to avoid and evade suffering?
At the heart of God's love for us is Christ's suffering. In that is God's gracious goodness. And we trust that from that gracious goodness comes strength not only to SAY we love our neighbors, but actually to love them. God's "yes" to us is so we may say "yes" to God and live our "yes" with neighbors.
One of Garrison Keillor's "sponsors on "A Prairie Home Companion" is Powder Milk Biscuits. They are made with ingredients that give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Next Sunday we'll be receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The bread and the cup are God's "Yes" to us; God's way of being present with us; God's way of giving us the strength of get up and do what needs to be done.
Jesus does not mention those who say "Yes" and in their lives echo their confession with faithful deeds. These are the ones upon whom we all rely to inspire us and give us courage. They are the people who know that "Jesus never claimed that the process of being changed from a slob into a human being was going to be a Sunday School picnic," as one Christian put it. (Fred Buechner, Wishful Thinking, pp. 32f, 51) They are the ones, like John the Baptist, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther King, Jr. who refuse to reduce life to manageable size: to a bowl of cherries, a rat race, our genes. Those whose words and deeds are one are the people who by their faithfulness stir us to life. They stir us up with questions we might otherwise by-pass. When you are with others, more often than not do you really listen as they talk, or do you simply wait for a chance to say something? Is there anyone you know in whose place, if that person had to suffer great pain, you would volunteer yourself? The answer to such questions starts with a "Yes" in our hearts and ends with something we actually do.
In Christ God is in our midst in Jesus Christ. The gospel tells us that. Jesus' parable questions any who hear it. It is to God in Christ to whom say either our "yes" or our "no." We may say "yes;" we may say "no." In the end, it is whether we DO what God bids us DO to be the kind of human being God intends us to be. The gospel is simply amazing.
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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