God never gives up on us
Jesus asked " Which of the two did what the father wanted?" They said, "The second."
Do you remember the Gospel story in which Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" and "Who do you say that I am?"(
Mt.16:13,15). It is then that Simon Peter has one of his finest hours, and one of his worst. At this point in the Gospel no one has openly acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. It is Simon Peter who blurts out the answer first: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God."The power and the strength of the faith this revelation from God has given him evokes high praise from Jesus. Peter reminds him of hard rock. "You are Rock...I will entrust to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," Jesus tells Simon Peter.
(Mt.16:18,19). But, as someone else has said, Peter was not yet a very stable rock. He was a rock that moved. He fell, he faltered, he failed, he shifted. He made mistakes. In that very rewarding moment with Jesus, he made a big one.As our young people would say, "He really blew it." Christ was using that moment as an opportunity to try to explain to the disciples that He was going to be tortured and killed; that He was not the kind of Messiah they had been looking forward to; that He was not going to be a political hero or great military leader. He was going to be humiliated, made to suffer and die, as the Prophet Isaiah had foretold.
Peter could not accept that. To the same Jesus he had just acknowledged as Messiah, he said, "God forbid that any such thing happen to you." Peter was correcting the Messiah, and Jesus called him "satan." In seconds, the Keeper of the Keys to God's Kingdom became the personification of satan.
The "rock" had moved. Peter the impulsive and impetuous down to the very last night of Jesus' life, had moved. Peter was right there with the Master, pledging his loyalty and support to the death. But Jesus knew Peter. He looked him in the eye and said, "Peter, the cock will not crow today until you have three times denied that you know Me."
(Lk.22:34).Three times he denied that he even knew Jesus Christ. This was Simon Peter: A strong man and a weak man; a solid rock and a rock that shifted. But that is not the whole story, because God never gave up on Peter. There is much of Peter in each one of us. We have come here today as a people who intend a good life.
We want to be Christian women and men. We honestly have good intentions about changing our ways. There is a rock-like quality in us way down at the center of our soul. But, like Peter, we are rocks that move. We fall, we falter, we fail, we make mistakes, we hurt other people (often the people we love most).
We talk about Christian love and we mean to love, but oh how we fail! Time after time after time, even in our own families we fail in love. Maybe we've become emotionally drained from the pressures of our day-to-day situation. Maybe we're just overly tired, physically. That's the way it is. In spite of our good intentions, the edges become a little sharp and they begin to rub up against each other, and we wilt!
We fail so often, not only in our close relationships but also in our
involvement with the "outside" world. As Christians, we know that we are called to personal involvement in God's mission of love to the world. We know that we are on mission, all our lives.
We talk about this and we intend that we shall become involved in whatever way the Holy Spirit will direct us, but the fact is that most of us never go out into our Father's vineyard. Most of us love only a very few people and we need to be shocked into seeing how narrow we have become and who we really are.
In Albert Camus' novel, entitled "The Fall," there is a devastating line that expresses the truth of this. The drama begins where a respectable lawyer, walking in the streets of Amsterdam, hears a cry in the night. He realizes a woman has fallen or been pushed into the canal and is crying for help. Then the thoughts come rushing through his mind: Of course he must help, but... A respected lawyer getting involved in this way?
What would the implications be? ... And what about the personal danger? After all, who knows what has been going on over there. By the time he has thought it through, it is too late. He moves on, making all kinds of excuses to justify his failure to act. But, Camus, in that devastating line, says, "He did not answer the cry for help. That is the man he was."
This is precisely what happens to us. We come here with good intentions. We resolve to be Christian women and men as never before. Then we go back out and we hear the cries for help but we just move on, making excuses all the way. And we stand under the judgment of Camus' devastating line: He did not answer the cry for help. That is the man he was.
(adopted)In today's Gospel Lesson we have the simple little story of how two brothers responded to their father's call for help in the vineyard. One son expressed his good intentions, saying, "I am on my way, sir." But he never went out to the vineyard. The other responded negatively, saying, "No, I will not."
But he later changed this attitude and he did go out to do his father's work. "Which of the two did what the father wanted," Jesus asks the chief priests and the elders of the Temple. They answer correctly, of course, "the second."
Jesus is not having a little quiz to see how smart his audiences are. He is making a crucial point about their relationship with God. It is not what we say, not what we promise, not what we teach that matters most
Far better, to move from bad intentions to positive action than to remain locked into your good intentions and no action. This is a lesson in repentance. We stumble, we fall, we shift, we fail, but God is always there, ready to pick us up, if only we will repent. Repentance takes us beyond good intentions. Repentance is the process of actually becoming the person God wants you and I to be.
Turning, is what this parable is all about. Not just turning things around in our life. But being turned 180 degree by God. Like the first son, who turned from his "no," to "yes". To be turned in our mind and our heart. Once we thought of ourselves as sinners.
Now be turned in our thinking and will, in our mind and our heart, to see ourselves in a new light, in the light of Christ, as a saints, a children of God, inheritors of eternal life. Once we saw God as our judge and feared his wrath, now we see him as our loving and forgiving Father who receives us today and puts the sins of the past as far as the east is from the west.
Once we were bent to do our own will that lead to death; now be turned to do
the will of our Father in heaven. And the power of God can do this for you and for me, if we will let it come into our lives. The forgiveness, the healing, the New Life is here and it will change everything for us if only we will be open enough to receive the Resurrection Power of a loving God."
What do you think," Jesus asked. Be careful when Jesus asks what you think. The parable is about to snag you. "Which of the two did the will of his father?" "The first," they replied. The one who said no and turned. Jesus said to them, "Amen.I say to you, the tax collectors and harlots are going into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and harlots believed him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him."
This miracle of life changing which Peter experienced, is ongoing miracle with God. A loving God transforms rocks that move into solid pillars of strength. This is what He did with Simon Peter. This is what He is doing, at this moment, with you and me. At this moment God is offering us the strength to answer those cries in the night with more than good intentions. Carry your mission into your Father's vineyard. And have no fear. The strength will come.
God never gives up on us.
Amen.
September 29, 2002
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu