Year A
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

When I was in school…  I disliked quizzes and tests…  especially POP quizzes… unleashed on unsuspecting students by teachers who we thought could be nothing less than mean…  but who really just wanted to see if we were keeping up with the classwork…  we had one of those POP quizzes one day in Hebrew school…  on vocabulary words…  the teacher went up and down the rows…  speaking one of the words in Hebrew…  and we had to say what it was in English…  I hadn’t been keeping up…  and when I was next…  when it was my turn…  the teacher said…  anee lo anaynee… 

Anee lo anaynee…  but this wasn’t just one word…  it seemed to be three…  and they could mean almost anything…  and I didn’t have a clue…  but I scoured my memory…  hoping the right synapse would fire and the meaning would be revealed to me…  I can’t remember for sure…  but I may even have made one of those promises that students make…  that if only God would reveal the correct answer to me…  I would…  you know…  behave better… or something like that…  but nothing came…  and finally…  in a moment of mortified vulnerability…  I acknowledged my lack of preparation…  and said…  sheepishly I’m sure…  I don’t know…  and the teacher said…  very good…  and moved on to Marlene…  who was sitting behind me…

The Israelites are quarreling with Moses again…  complaining against him again…  last week it was about meat and bread…  this time it’s about water…  and Moses is exasperated…  he fears for his physical safety…  and he turns to God…  and after God comes through…  and provides their needed water…  Moses named the place Meribah and Massah…  because they quarreled…  and tested God…  and asked…  Is the Lord with us or not…

I wonder how many of us have asked that question…  ] like the Israelites…  we may tend to ask it when things aren’t going so well… Up until now God has been with us…  but now that things have not gone our way… we don’t know…  and while we know that God sustains us in many ways…  and may understand intellectually that God doesn’t thrust God’s protecting hand down into the middle of the messes we’ve gotten ourselves into…  on an emotional level we might just as easily at least think to ourselves…  but I want a God who protects me from myself…  who intervenes and keeps the fruits of my actions…  or inactions…  from coming to me…  I want a God who is with me in the ways I want God to be with me…  and not in the ways that God wants to be with me…  and so we must ask whether we want God to be there for us…  or whether we’re willing to be there for God…  and some of the ways we do this second thing… . are through self-emptying…  humility…  and obedience…  qualities which we find listed in our epistle from Philippians…

The first book listed in the Christian Bible…  or New Testament as many call it…  is the Gospel of Matthew…  but the book which was written first…  the earliest book is 1 Thessalonians…  and the hymn in today’s epistle was written even before that…  verses 5-11 from today’s passage are called The Hymn of Christ…  because scholars tell us that they record an actual hymn which was sung in worship by the earliest church…  and scholars who have tried to work out the rhythm of the hymn…  considering some of Paul’s concerns…  have suspected that Paul placed the last part of verse eight…  even death on a cross…  into the hymn he did not write…

The Temple leaders ask Jesus by what authority he’s doing these things… by whose authority… they’re probably asking for the name of his teacher… and what they’re referring to… is that the day before… Jesus cleansed the Temple… he turned over the tables… and drove out the money changers… Just who does he think he is…

Jesus’ question to them… ups the ante… did the baptism of John come from heaven… or was it of human origin… John Shea writes… instead of answering the question honestly… they gauge how whatever they say will be received… their real concern is not about John’s authority… but about their own… and they cannot answer Jesus’ question without calling their own authority into question…

If they say John’s authority was from heaven… they have to account for the fact that they didn’t give credence to it… and if they say John’s authority was of human origin… the crowds will turn against them… in either case… they don’t look good… and looking good is essential… it’s a form of perfectionism…  even the fact that they say they don’t know… makes them look bad… they are religious authorities who ought to know…

Theologian Charles Campbell writes… even Jesus’ question about John’s authority… is essentially the same as their question about his own… to identify one is to identify the other… in making a commitment about John’s authority… the religious leaders would also be making a commitment about John’s witness to Jesus… and thus to Jesus’ authority…

So Jesus tells a parable about a man with two sons… and he asks them to go work in the vineyard… the first says No but does Yes… the second says Yes but does No… when Jesus asks them which of the two did the will of his Father… they said the first…  but Jesus isn’t interested only in the answer… but in how they got there…

The religious leaders… like many of us… value action over words… doing what the Father commanded is obedience to his will… but the first son also changed his mind… and Jesus wants to help the Temple leaders understand that it was a change of mind that brought the first son to obedient action… and both John the Baptist and Jesus have emphasized that metanoia… a change of mind… is needed to enter the Kingdom of God… and Jesus says the last will be first…

John Shea wrote…  by profession… the chief priests and elders of the people are expected to be close to God… and by profession… tax collectors and prostitutes are thought to be far from God… but when the tax collectors and prostitutes heard John… they repented… they changed their minds and began to live in a new way… the chief priests and elders did not… their endorsement of the first son… is a judgment on themselves… because they are the second son… who says Yes… but does No… and they cannot change their minds…

We all grasp for equality with God… but Paul encourages the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling…  the hymn encourages us to grasp self-emptying…  and implies that…  like the first son…  and the Israelites…  it’s OK to test God as long as we eventually come around… because we are reconciled with God by giving up our power and privilege…  and the hesitation…  the resistance to that change…  comes from the world’s belief that in doing so…  one lets go of perfectionism…  and embraces shame…  but there is a more subtle and grace-filled moment in between letting go of one’s No…  and embracing one’s Yes…  because in that moment…  one lets go of one’s own authority…  of one’s own will…  and can choose to take hold of God’s authority…  and God’s will…

We narrowly missed…  dare I say escaped…  a government shut-down at 12:01 this morning…  on the surface…  it seems to be about an inability for everyone to agree on what’s important…  but below the surface…  it seems more about an inability to relinquish one’s sense of agency in favor of the common good… the 45-day stop-gap measure includes natural disaster aid…  but no additional funding for childcare or Ukraine or border security…  and I wonder if there were any politicians who changed their minds…  who were willing to relinquish their authority…  unlike the Temple leaders…  or any who thought their vote would spare them from some form of shame…  and I pray…  as I prayed in Hebrew school…  do we pray now for God to reveal the right answers to us…  so that maybe we don’t need to ask… Is the Lord with us or not…  but know that we…  collectively as a nation…  are with God…