Year A

Matthew 21:23-32

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

God’s Way of Authority

Many years ago I learned that there were several topics that should be avoided at the dinner table if you want your food to digest well. I’m sure you are well aware of these topics also: money, politics, and religion to name three that if talked about at the dinner table can put people in an uncomfortable situation and possibly lead to arguments. One of the most important social etiquette skills is to master knowing how to have a pleasant and enjoyable conversation at the dinner table. Today, Jesus may not be at a dinner table in our gospel text but the conversation between Jesus and the religious authorities has politics and truth or religion all mixed up in it, and it seems the truth does not come out very well because the question today from the authorities is not coming from a place of truth-seeking but from a place of political power.

This gospel passage today follows the Palm Sunday story after Jesus came into Jerusalem at the start of the Passover festival to the acclaim of the crowds. Without missing a beat, he entered the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. And, if that act was not sufficient enough to arouse the wrath of the religious leaders, Jesus then performed some healing miracles in the temple area, leading the people there to praise him as “the Son of David.” The next day, Jesus returned to the city where he cursed the fig tree that traditionally stood for Israel, because it could not provide him food when he was hungry. 

From there he went to the temple again to teach, the religious leaders interrupted him with a question about the source of “his authority” to do the things he was doing. The temple leaders were well within their rights to ask him this question. The implication being that Jesus has no formal authority; he certainly cannot claim to speak for God without seminary or certification. We already know the answer to this question that Jesus had been sent and commissioned by God and given “all things” by his heavenly Father. The issue of authority in Matthew’s gospel was raised all the way back in the Sermon on the Mount. When the people heard Jesus’ sermon that day, they “were astounded at his teaching, for he taught as one having authority.”

Clearly the popularity of Jesus, his healing miracles and the recognition that he did indeed teach differently than the religious leaders, could have no happy ending and we know the ending. This debate over Jesus’ authority is one of five stories of controversy in Matthew, in which we see that Jesus’ opponents are willfully opposed to the work of God that Jesus had begun because they are not prepared for Jesus’ authority coming from heaven and not from another human being. Matthew will later announce that these temple leaders are hypocrites and blind guides who do not practice what they teach. Jesus then answers their question about his authority with another question about the origin of John’s baptism. Jesus’ right to challenge the whole temple system stemmed directly from John’s baptism. It was at John’s baptism of Jesus, that the voice from heaven had named Jesus as Messiah, God’s beloved son.

The temple leaders knowing they were already caught in a trap no matter what their answer was, confessed ignorance, and since they copped out on answering, Jesus told them so would he and then he tells the parable of the two sons which obviously is read in the light of this conflict. By telling this parable, he was asking the all-too-obvious question: “Which of the two did the will of his father?” This teaching led Jesus to teach the religious leaders that they are like the one who said yes! But acted No! On the other hand, the ones who said no at first but then acted yes! Include the very people whom Jesus spent his time with. This makes the religious authorities really angry and therefore, they began to lay plans to arrest and try him. Little did they know that his arrest and death are all part of God’s plan. So we really can’t judge the religious leaders.

Jesus was God’s chosen instrument for accomplishing the mission of God upon the earth. As Paul tells us, he “emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness… humbling himself becoming obedient to even death on a cross.” This same self-emptying love of God poured out “for us and for our salvation” at the cross is what Paul today wants the Philippians to demonstrate as the power of the gospel among them. In this beautiful hymn, Paul in prison burns with a joy and love he desperately wants the Philippians to share as a common goal. He pleads for a common conviction about the gospel and the new commandment that Jesus left the church: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

He reminds the Philippians of the reality in which they live as believers and implores them to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Do what Christ did and confess him as your Lord to the glory of God. Only when the Church is grasped by this vision of Jesus, rooted in the scriptures will it achieve the unity and obedience of which Paul speaks of enabling it both to “will and to work for his good pleasure”. The humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ will result in glorifying God which is what pleases God.

The prophet Ezekiel, so many generations before Paul reminded the Israelites of what pleased God. In Ezekiel’s congregation, suffering in exile, those listening to the word of the Lord that came to him must have found it hard to swallow the argument about the righteous being rewarded and the wicked are punished. It is only fair that God should spare them rather than let them suffer for the sins of the fathers and mothers. The prophet Ezekiel announced that each person is held accountable by God for his or her own sins that all their sufferings are not a result of former generations. Life isn’t always fair, and yet God is always calling us to choose life. Repent; God says, get a new heart and a new spirit!  I take no pleasure in the death of anyone. God’s answer is grace.

God is willing to remove the consequences of death from those who have “considered and turned away from the sins they have committed”. If the righteous people fall into sin they shall die for it; if wicked people turn to the Lord, they shall live. “What’s unfair about that?” God asked. As God puts it, “Turn, then, and live” Jesus invites all people to turn to him and live.  It is not those who say yes to God who find life, but those who actually in their lives do what God wills. What pleases God is doing the work of the kingdom whether the workers are religious or not. Judging by Jesus’ connection with the unlikely persons of sinners and tax collectors, this just may be what God’s dinner table and God’s authority looks like….