26th Sunday in Ordinary Time -  September 29, 2002 - Matthew 21:28-32

An expression we have all used many times I'm sure is, "Actions speak louder than words!"  In today's Gospel, we can see this illustrated not only in the behaviour of the two sons but in the behaviour of the chief priests and elders as well.  When we say that actions are louder than words, what we really mean are that the things we do are usually a better indicator of what is in our hearts than the things we say are.  For a culture that supposedly places a value on actions over words, we don't behave much like it.  In fact in many ways we behave just like the Jewish authorities ourselves, for all we have the lesson we were supposed to have learned from this gospel right in front of us. 

Let's look at the start of the Gospel.  The chief priests and elders approach Jesus and challenge his right to teach. They ask him what authority he has!  They don't listen to what he is saying.  They don't let their feelings be touched by his message.  No, they only want to analyze why he should be allowed to talk at all.  We do this all the time.  How many times have we said things like, "Who does he think he is!" or "What does she know about it!" or "Who died and made you King?"

When we hear something that we don't like, we try to find reasons why we shouldn't listen, reasons in our head - instead of listening with our hearts and trying to find out why what we are hearing is disturbing us!  We all have our cultural biases about who we are prepared to listen to.  We say, "He's too old!" or "She's too young!" or "He's from the wrong country!" or "She's the wrong colour!" 

How many times have you turned on the TV and discovered it was on the Vision TV channel but because the speaker wasn't a Catholic or because they spoke with a southern accent about "Jea - sus", or because they spoke too dramatically for our conservative Canadian sensibilities we shut them out or turn them off and say things like, "He's probably a crook!"  We don't let the message touch us because we have dismissed the messenger, our heart has lost the battle with our head.

So the elders challenge Jesus and how does he answer them?  Not with a defence of his right to speak but with a lesson for them that they need to forget about what we say and look at what we do as a much better indicator of where our heart is.  Jesus tells the story of the two sons.

Now I've always pictured these two as teenagers rather than men in their twenties or thirties, and I kind of see them as the classic characters that are in so many of our stories and movies.  The slightly rough and rebellious character with a heart of gold and the slick slimy one who knows how to get on the good side of adults, kind of like the old "Eddie Haskell" character on the "Leave it to Beaver" show.   Or maybe like the kid beside you in school who says, "Yes, Teaxher!" and then when her back is turned hits her with a pea-shooter when her back is turned and puts it on your desk before she turns around!

The Gospel doesn't tell us why the first son refused or why he changed his mind.  Maybe he was tired when his father asked him, or upset about some bad news he had, so he snapped back at his Dad.  Maybe he was just feeling ornery because his brother seemed to get all the credit just because he  behaved well in front of his father and it didn't seem fair so he said to himself, "What's the use" and just refused.

But he changed his mind and went.  Maybe he thought about how much he owed his father and so he changed his mind and went willingly and gladly.  Maybe he suddenly thought how much trouble he could get in and so went with a grudge!  But he went!  He did the will of his Father.  We may not always feel happy or full of righteousness when we do what is right, in fact we may be downright resentful, but when we do it, we are following God's will and we will feel better in the end.  And even though we started poorly, the reward will be there for us as well.  In the end, the reasons don't matter, only that with our actions, we did His will.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on the second son.  Maybe he wasn't the sneak I've always imagined.  Maybe he was just absent-minded and on the way to the vineyard he got distracted by another person, got into a conversation about last night's gladiator match at the stadium and he forgot.  Perhaps he got an invitation to go out with his friends.  He may even have been pulled away by another good deed of a different kind and put in some equally hard work - but on another project.  In the end, he didn't go.  He didn't do the will of his Father.  When we allow ourselves to be distracted by the many busy tasks that world puts in our way and we neglect to do what we know we are called to do, even when we have lot's of excuses, we have not followed the will of the Father despite our promises and best intentions.

So Jesus turns the tables on the chief priests with his story by showing them that it is not the vestments you wear, or a cross around your neck, or a prayer book in your hand that proves you do God's will, but it is in your actions which show your heart.  Refusing to listen to Jesus, refusing to listen to John the Baptist, refusing to consider anything that upset their comfortable way of life meant they were just like the second son - full of good intentions perhaps but unable to see the truth, unable to follow the Father's will because they put their own will first.

Jesus even tells them that the sinners of the world will be in heaven first because even when they turned away from God and lived lives of sin, they changed their minds, they repented, they did God's will by believing in John.

Where are we in all this?  Will we pray today and promise God to live as he wants us to, to be generous of spirit and heart, and then go out into the parking lot and start muttering at the driver in front of us because they had the nerve to let two cars into the line on the driveway and hold you up for another 10 or 15 seconds.  Will we promise to love one another as brothers and sisters and then laugh at the teenager with the spiked hair and nose-ring or the homeless person in their filthy rags just as the chief priests laughed at John the Baptist in his strange dress and his homelessness.  Will we receive Jesus in the Eucharist and invite him into our hearts, and then lock our hearts away inside the safe at work for the rest of the week so that our feelings won't get in the way of doing business and so that Jesus can't possible speak to us again until next Sunday?

If you ask most people who don't come to church why they stay away, you will find that the answer lies with us - when our actions don't match our words, there is nothing to draw them here!  Today when we receive the Eucharist, we must not challenge Jesus' authority to live in your heart, we mustn't promise one thing and do another but rather open ourselves to his message and to his Father's will, and no matter how difficult it may seem, let our actions speak for us and not our words.

- Deacon Steve.