Simple Faith | The Rev. Jordan Griesbeck

When Matthew chapter 18, Jesus has perhaps one of his most tender moments.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

The disciples come to him and say, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

And Jesus brings to them a child and sets the child in their midst and says, "Truly

I tell you, to enter the kingdom of God, you must become like a child." But then

this morning, in Matthew 21, again, Jesus says, "Truly I tell you." And again,

he says, "Here is how you enter the kingdom of God." But this time, instead of

saying, "You must become like a child," he says, "You must become like a

prostitute."

And so the question is, why? Why does God want us to become like the tax collectors

and the prostitutes that we might be with him? And the first answer is honesty.

Because this morning, at least the prostitute and the tax collector are honest.

This morning to set the stage, Jesus is now in the temple.

He's in Jerusalem, where he will soon die, and so we are listening in on one of his

last conversations between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, the Jewish leaders.

And he tells them a story about a father who had two sons.

And the father goes to both and he says, "Son, come and work with me in my

vineyard." But the first son says, "No, I will not." But then later he goes.

While the second son says, "I will go," but then doesn't.

And the truth is, neither son wants to obey the father and go into the vineyard,

but it's only the first son who is actually honest about it.

The second son never wanted to go. I mean, he says, "I will go." And he even adds

the word sir. "I will go, sir." You can hear him being over-polite,

overcompensating, sort of feigning obedience, when in reality, his heart is far

from God. But listen to what the first son says.

When the father calls him into the vineyard, he says, "I will not." In the Greek,

literally, "I do not want to. I do not feel like it."

And that is the type of response God can actually work with.

Because at least it's honest. At least it's someone who knows they are sick.

After the parable, you'll notice that Jesus switches from the third tense to the

second tense, and he says to the Jewish leaders, "You, you are the second

son. You are the one who on the outside appeared obedient and appeared

righteous while your hearts were far from me." And it was them.

It was the tax collectors and the prostitutes who were the first son, those who had

no choice but to admit, "I do not want. I do not feel.

I have not. I will not."

And this is what makes our liturgy every Sunday so important and so vital

because slowly but surely, it forces upon us this type of honesty.

Because the reality is, as we go through our weeks, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, with each day that passes, we have a greater and greater tendency to

become like the second son. Prone to overestimating our

own righteousness and our own willingness to obey God.

And we get better and better at pretending and saying, "Yes, Lord, I will go.

Yes, Lord, I will serve you and follow you." But then we come here, and

every word of the liturgy sort of squeezes us and forces us to ask, "Is that really

true?" And, "Do I really mean that?" Every word, every song, every

prayer is this mirror held up to our hearts, forcing us to confront our

desires, so that by the time confession rolls around, we do not need a priest to

tell us to be on our knees and to confess our sins and say, "Most merciful God,

I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.

Like the first son, you've called me into your vineyard, and over and over again,

I've said, 'I will not. I cannot. I do not want to.'"

So that's the first reason we must become like the prostitute, is because at least

they're honest. But the second is faith.

Because four times in our passage, you'll hear this repetition of the word believe.

Jesus says, "For 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."

So what Jesus is saying then is that the second difference between the two sons,

the second difference between the Jewish authorities and the prostitutes and tax

collectors, is faith.

That when John the Baptist came to them saying, "You are sick, and the doctor is

here," only the prostitutes believed him.

And so when Jesus says it was the first son who did the will of the father,

what exactly is that will? What exactly is it that God this morning wants from

us and expects from us? It is not for us to be perfect.

It is not for us to perfectly follow some laundry list of rules and expectations,

but it is simple faith. He just wants simple faith from us to simply

believe the message of John and the message of the gospel.

That, one, I'm sick and need a doctor.

But that, two, the doctor is here, and now through Christ's life and

his death and his resurrection, I can be made well.

And that's the third point, which is repentance.

This morning, we see the third difference between the two sons, between the

prostitutes and the religious leaders, is that only the first group repents.

And we hear this in the language of changed their mind.

The father goes to the first son and says, "Son, go and work in the vineyard

today." And he answered, "I will not." But later, he changed his

mind and went. And then later, Christ says to the Jewish leaders,

"You did not change your mind." And so that is the language of repentance.

That is what repentance is, is changing our mind.

In the words of our Ezekiel passage, it is turn then and live.

To see that I've been walking in the wrong direction.

I've been walking in the path of death, but even now, today, I can turn around and

change.

And that is easy for the prostitute and the tax collector to see because their

lives as they were, were not working.

In the words of Alcoholics Anonymous, their lives had become unmanageable,

and they had no other options. They had nowhere else to go.

But for the rest of us, repentance is extremely difficult because we have not

yet bottomed out.

We're still left depending on our own willpower, our own devices.

And so Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, "Even when you saw the prostitutes and the

tax collectors go out to John and be baptized and have their lives changed by the

power of God, you wouldn't repent.

Even when you saw all the evidence in the world, you would not change your mind."

And here we get to the real reason why the Jewish leaders would not repent.

Because that would have meant becoming like them.

It would have meant becoming like the people they hated and despised the most.

Repenting would have meant getting baptized like the tax collectors and the

prostitutes. It would have meant going down and sharing the bathwater with

them, and that was all just too much.

It was all just too lowbrow.

But that is what the gospel is. It is so lowbrow.

It is for tax collectors and prostitutes. It is for sinners and slaves.

It's about a son who Paul tells us in Philippians becomes like a slave.

Who though he was in the form of God, emptied himself and took on human flesh and

became like a slave. Who had no problem going down into the waters

of the Jordan River with tax collectors and prostitutes, becoming like them in

order to save them.

So why must we become like the prostitute?

Simple honesty. I'm sick. Simple faith.

The doctor is here. Simple repentance.

I can still turn and be made well.

Speaking of lowbrow, as I was thinking about our passage this week, I was reminded

of two different children's stories.

The first is that poem we all read as children called "Sick" by Shel Silverstein.

Do you remember this poem? It's about this little girl named Peggy Ann McKay, who's

lying in bed one morning and dreading the thought of going to school.

And she makes up all these excuses about why she won't and why she cannot.

I will not. She says, "I cannot go to school today," said Little Peggy Ann McKay.

"I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My tonsils are as big as rocks. I've counted 16 chickenpox.

My leg is cut, my eyes are blue, it might be instamatic flu." I don't even know

what instamatic flu is, but you get the point.

But then suddenly Peggy Ann is interrupted, and her parents call out to her and

tell her it's Saturday. And so she gets out of bed, and she goes out to play.

And for all the parents in the room, this is a very familiar story.

But there's this other one that's almost the exact same concept.

And it's called "Thomas' Snowsuit" by the author Robert Munsch.

You may not know this story, but it's a good one.

"Thomas' Snowsuit." And it begins like this.

One day, Thomas' mother bought him a nice new brown snowsuit.

When Thomas saw that snowsuit, he said, "That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen

in my life. If you think I'm going to wear that ugly snowsuit, you're crazy." The

next day, when it was time to go to school, the mother said, "Thomas, please put on

your snowsuit." And Thomas said, "No." And in the book, it's like that.

It's like four Ns and then an O. No. So later, when Thomas is at school, it comes

time for recess, and so his teacher says, "Thomas, put on your snowsuit." And

again, Thomas says, "No." And so then they call on the principal, and the principal

tries to get through to Thomas. And it says the principal gave his very best

principal look and said, "Thomas, put on your snowsuit." And Thomas said, "No."

But then what happens? It says,

from far out in the playground, someone yelled, "Thomas, come and play."

Thomas ran across the room, jumped into his snowsuit, got his boots on in two

seconds, and ran out the door.

And so what are these two stories revealing to us?

And what is being revealed to us by Jesus this morning?

It is that if we are ever to go outside, if we are ever to obey and

follow God into his vineyard, we must be wooed.

We must be wooed. We need good news.

We need to hear that we are not our past, that our sins can be forgiven,

that like the first son, we can still change.

That although we have said no to God our whole life, we can still say yes, even

today.

In order to repent and to believe, we need to hear that life with God

is not a chore, it is not a burden, but with God, it is always

Saturday. It is always recess. It is always time to play and turn

and live.

Child, son, daughter, come with me and work in my

vineyard.

And the son said, "No." But later, he changed his mind, and he went.

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.