+Saying Yes while Living No. That’s how Biblical scholar Fred Craddock characterizes the parable at the end of today’s gospel—the Parable of the Two Sons.
A man had two sons---he asks them both to go work in the vineyard. The first says, “sure Dad, I’ll head right over,” and then doesn’t go at all. The second says, “no way, Pops, I’ve got better things to do,” but then has a change of heart and goes to the vineyard to work. The first son said yes and lived no, the second son said no, but lived yes.
So, just why did this story infuriate the temple authorities?
Well, maybe they saw way too much of themselves in the first son and not nearly enough in the second.
You see, even though Jesus tells this story in response to his authority being questioned, he’s really telling it to call the temple authorities out on their hypocrisy and corruption.
Jesus turns the tables on their so-called righteous indignation by questioning their motives:
• Are they protecting “the faith,” or are they protecting their status?
• Are they protecting the honor of the temple, or are they protecting their role of prestige within the temple?
• Are they living their faith or are they just talking about their faith?
• Are they living a life of yes, or are they saying yes, and living no?
Jesus convicts them with his words and, if we’re honest, he convicts us, too.
But before we shut our ears and close our hearts to this “hitting close to home message,” hear me out.
We readily point fingers at the hypocrisy of others---religious leaders, politicians, celebrities, sport heroes, our bosses and our neighbors who say yes while most definitely living no. That’s easy.
What’s not so easy----and a whole lot more uncomfortable---is to list all the ways we say yes, but live no. But to simply beat ourselves up and say how bad it is that we say yes and live no far more often than we should is, to me, a cop-out. So often we say “yes we stink, we should do better blah blah blah” and then just go on living life as we have—that’s just another way to say yes and live no!!!! It’s taking the easy way out.
And you know what? I don’t want to take the easy way out, I’d rather take the tough way in.
You see it’s the defeatist attitude of beating ourselves up by admitting that we say yes and live no more often than not that keeps us mired in our shame…and that shame keeps far too many of us stuck looking from the outside in, assuming that our weakenesses, our sins, our mistakes keep us away from the fullness of God’s love, God’s mercy and God’s grace.
And that, my friends, is BULL.
Too many of us think that because we’ve had times in our life where we’ve said yes, but lived no—that we aren’t welcome, that there’s no room for us at the table of our Lord-- that “true believers” are those who have always, or at least most of the time, said yes and lived yes. That the only way to take a seat in the kingdom of God, in the fellowship of Christ, in a pew at Trinity (St Paul’s), is to clean up our acts, get all spiffy and bright and “perfect” BEFORE coming to church.
That’s completely backwards!
Why do we feel the need to pull ourselves together BEFORE showing up in a place designed to accept our brokenness, to heal our hurts, to forgive, heal, and renew?
It’s like what my mother always did before a cleaning lady came---she cleaned!!!
It’s nuts!
We’re way too hard on ourselves, assuming that the faith of “true believers” is unshakeable… unwavering.
Thinking that if we say we believe in God, we can’t ever question God.
Thinking that if we say we “love everyone, always no exceptions” that we can’t ever dislike or disagree with another.
Thinking that we can’t volunteer to help out on the altar or in the choir or in Sunday School or on the vestry because we don’t know enough or aren’t faithful enough or aren’t good enough.
The temple authorities don’t like that Jesus eats with prostitutes and tax collectors. The temple authorities want everything to look nice and tidy and bright; they’re way more interested in how things look, rather than how things really are.
The kingdom of God here on earth, isn’t nice and tidy and bright, the kingdom of God is full of people like you and me, people who try our best but sometimes fail, people like you and me who sometimes say no, but then find a way to live yes, people like us who make mistakes but get up and try again.
Living into the yes isn’t a place of perfect people, it’s a place of perfect grace.
So perhaps we’ve all “said yes and lived no” more than we want to admit. The good news is, God doesn’t care about the mistakes we’ve made, nearly as much as God cares about the progress we’re making.
Like the parent in today’s parable, God’s far more interested in what we’re doing and how we’re living, rather than what we’re saying and how we look, because God isn’t keeping score, God is cheering us on.+
