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Philippians 2:1-13 | Matthew 21:23-32
Sometimes we make promises with the best of intentions but then we don’t follow through.
When my husband Rob and I were living in Florida for a couple of years back in the 80’s (I feel so old saying that) we became friends with a couple that were our age. We’d met them at church, and despite the fact that they had a kid and we didn’t, we hung out together a lot. We would cobble together dinner from whatever each of us had on hand, and afterward, we often played cards – usually Spades – and, because this was Florida, we also made a game out of shooting the bugs on the walls and ceiling with bug-swatter dart guns. (Side note: Cinderblock houses are not a good idea in tropical, bug-infested areas.) When we moved back to California, we were truly sad to leave our friends. We cried. We hugged. We promised to keep in touch.
But then we didn’t.
The fault was entirely ours. They started writing us letters right away (remember, this was the 80’s before home computers) but we never wrote back. We meant to, but we just didn’t. I don’t know why. But they weren’t going to give up easily. So one day we received a form letter from them. Literally. A form for us to fill out and send back, with a pre-addressed stamped envelope to make it easy to send back.
There were questions for us to answer: How do you like your new home?
And then multiple choice answers:
- We love it.
- We hate it.
- It’s ok but we miss you.
Their form letter was clever and funny and beautiful. We showed that letter to so many people because it was so well done. But you know what? We never sent our answers back to our friends who wrote it. We were so busy sharing how wonderful it was that we never got around to fulfilling the purpose of the letter.
We had great intentions, but really bad follow-through. Kind of like the second son in the mini-parable in today’s scripture reading. Jesus says:
“A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. “ (Matthew 21:28-30)
Rob and I were like the second son. We said we would write, but then we didn’t.
Jesus asks the people that he’s teaching in the temple, “Which of the sons did the will of the father?”
The one who changed his mind and went.
I think we have a habit of mocking people who change their minds. We say things like “it’s just like a woman,” and we don’t mean that in a good way. We call it capricious, flip-flopping, impulsive. We say, “I told you so,” if they change their mind to agree with us.
But the reality is that changing our minds is a good thing. Which of the sons did the will of the father? The one who changed his mind. Many Bible translations say that the son who changed his mind repented, because that’s what repent literally means, to change your mind. To transform our thinking. To think more like Jesus.
We can and do change our minds. We learn, we grow, we change, the Holy Spirit gets in there and helps us along, we pray, we ask questions, we get curious, we ask Google, we ask friends. We change.
Sometimes we need to change to have integrity, to make our words and actions line up. The sons in the parable said one thing but then did another. Sometimes we do that too. To use a really obvious example, we made a commitment to be a Matthew 25 church, working to dismantle systemic racism and eliminate structural poverty, and to be revitalized as a church. That’s a really huge commitment that we made carefully and intentionally, and that we can and will live out in so many different ways. But if we don’t take the time to learn more about how to do that, and we continue to do or say things that perpetuate systemic racism or structural poverty or are apathetic about those things or about the church, then we aren’t doing what we say we want to do.
The Pharisees in the first part of today’s gospel reading may not have realized it, but they were lacking integrity. Actually, Jesus calls them on that in Matthew 23. He says “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”
The Pharisees taught about the law, which would include the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, plus the 614 Jewish laws written to help them keep pure and avoid inadvertently violating the laws of the Torah. They would likely agree with Jesus when he said that all the law and the prophets could be summed up in two commandments – to love God and to love your neighbor. But their practices didn’t necessarily reflect that focus on love. They were focused on legalism, and many had developed a contempt for common people who couldn’t live up to their high standards. That’s why they were challenging Jesus’ authority.
Sometimes it’s hard to change because we’re afraid. The Pharisees were afraid to answer Jesus’ question because they were afraid of the crowds. They were afraid of what the crowds would think about their answer and what they might do in response.
What do you do when you’re afraid of what someone might say or do?
I’ve been asking people that question this week. I’ve gotten some interesting answers. One said, “Redirect, change the subject, avoid the issue.” Another said, “Proceed with caution.” Another said, “It depends on the situation.” All good answers. How would you answer?
What are our fears? The past few years with the pandemic and so much change have increased our fears and made us face some fears we might not have realized we had. People were afraid of catching COVID and dying. People are still afraid of dying. Churches are afraid of dying. The Pharisees were also afraid of their churches dying, especially as people were splitting off to follow Jesus. But the more we focus on not dying, the more we lose track of what’s important – love God and one another, faith, joy, and peace.
The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, reminds us of the central importance of our faith in Jesus Christ. He says in Col. 1:17 “In Christ all things hold together.” For many years, I thought the way to keep a church strong was to keep on focusing on Jesus and ignore all the issues that we disagreed about. Now I’m seeing that it’s our faith in Jesus that gives us the courage and strength to face those issues, address them, and work toward reconciliation. This is the way of peace. Not that we hide from our differences, but that we acknowledge our differences and accept one another anyway. Jesus’ love is strong enough to hold us together so that we can give peace a chance.
At the end of today’s gospel reading, Jesus says, 31“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For 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.” (Matt 21:31-32)
John came in the way of righteousness. What is the way of righteousness?
Caring about people. Loving one another. Loving God and wanting to please God.
Jesus demonstrated how to do this, and Paul describes it rather eloquently in Philippians 2:
1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus was not afraid of dying but rather willingly died, but then was raised from the dead. Through his death, he conquered sin and death. Fulfilling our purpose as God’s people means finding ways we can share God’s love and help people know that love that conquered death through Jesus Christ.
To have peace, we have to have the courage to address things that get in the way of peace. We have to give peace a chance.
I have a friend who worked at a school, and one day the librarian came storming into the office complaining about some of the students and in her anger, making some racist generalizations. My friend’s daughter is a person of color so she felt compelled to speak up, pointing out that in saying those things, the librarian was also saying those things about her child. The librarian hadn’t meant to be racist, but her frustration obviously revealed some unresolved, deep-seated bias issues. She apologized. And she and my friend worked through the hurt caused by the incident by continuing to have conversations about race and family. They talked about their differences and discovered they also had things in common, and they are still good friends today.[5]
Colossians 3:15 says, “And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.”
That word “rule” brabeúō (“decide as an umpire”) means to arbitrate, i.e. “making the call” in “a conflict between contending forces.” So, in other words, let the Holy Spirit help you work for peace, guiding your choices, giving you the words to speak, stopping you when you need stopping.
Paul says it another way in Philippians 2:
12Therefore, 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; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Working it out with fear and trembling means it’s not always going to be easy. We have to work at it. Change is hard. Making peace is hard. But it’s worth it, and it’s what God calls us to do.
Where in our lives have we been avoiding making peace?
With God’s help, we can give peace a chance.
Thanks, God.
[1] Photo by KoolShooters : https://www.pexels.com/photo/couples-having-a-double-date-9750905/
[2] Photo by Ann H: https://www.pexels.com/photo/word-integrity-on-blue-background-15246406/
[3] Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kid-hiding-on-pillows-262103/
[4] Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
[5] True story. Used with permission.
United Presbyterian Church 