When Is the Wedding?

Matthew 25:1-13

November 8, 2026

 

            Several years ago when I was playing a game of Trivial Pursuit with my family, I received a question that asked about a business in the United Kingdom called Q4U. The question was, “what is this business?” I took me a minute to figure it out, and maybe you have already come up with the answer. Here it is: a business where someone will Q4U is a business where someone will wait in line for someone else. With the advent of online shopping, the word queue may be more familiar to us now, but in the UK it is a common word. Q4U is waiting in line on behalf of another person.

            Now maybe if someone were paying me to wait in line, I would be happier about doing it. The idea that a company could prosper because they’re willing to wait in line for someone else is a reflection on a much larger issue. Waiting. We do a lot of waiting in our modern world, and if you are like me, you don’t look forward to it. I am not a fan of waiting in lines, whether I’m standing or waiting in my car. I don’t like waiting on hold. There are some days when waiting for my computer to boot up seems like a lifetime. For many of us, waiting is not an easy thing to do. And I will admit that I don’t always wait with patience or grace.

While it may not seem obvious at first, I think that waiting is an underlying theme in our passage from Matthew’s gospel. And having said that, I also think that I should warn you that this parable and the two that follow are not easy to hear, to understand, or to do. One of the first things a commentator said about this passage in the weekly podcast I listen to was, “Well, I guess we can be glad there’s no wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

As a preacher you know you’re in for a rough ride when even the credentialed, lettered, title-bearing theologians look at a passage of scripture and say, “Yikes! I’m glad I’m not preaching this Sunday.” It is a hard text indeed. The gospel of Matthew is not a lighthearted gospel in general. But when it comes to judgment and the issue of who is really in and who is really out in God’s kingdom, Matthew is particularly hard-nosed. This parable about the wise and foolish bridesmaids is no exception.

Jesus begins this parable in a familiar way. The kingdom of heaven … Sometimes Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like – present tense. In this parable, he starts by saying, “The kingdom of heaven will be like …” As if to say, here is what to expect, here is what you will be waiting for.

The kingdom of heaven will be like this. There are ten bridesmaids. Five of them are wise, and five of them are foolish. They all have lamps, and they are all waiting for the bridegroom to arrive so they can get this party started. The bridesmaids all want to know when the wedding will begin. But the five foolish ones don’t bring extra oil for the waiting. The five wise ones do. This is the only real difference that’s pointed out about these bridesmaids. This is what separates them into the two groups, foolish and wise. All of the bridesmaids get sleepy while they are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. All of the bridesmaids fall asleep waiting for the wedding to begin. But when the groom finally shows up, the wise ones are able to trim their lamps and meet the groom without their lamps, their lights, going dim. They brought extra oil. The five foolish ones didn’t and the wise ones won’t share, so they have to run to the oil dealers and get some more. When they return, the door to the wedding has been closed. When they cry out for admittance, the Lord replies, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” And the final warning to all who will hear is –

“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” 

            It seems that the basic message we’re supposed to take from this is that like a good scout we must be prepared. We must be ready and watchful for the day when the Lord does return. So make sure you have extra oil for your lamps and stay awake.

We are just a few weeks away from Advent, a season when we are called upon to prepare, to make ready, for the coming of Christ into the world. And if we were reading this parable in the season of Advent, I think it would make more sense. Again, seasons like Advent and Lent are seasons in the life of the church where preparation and readiness is specifically emphasized. Yet even though our calendars remind us that Advent is just around the proverbial corner, this is still a Sunday in ordinary time. So why this passage today? 

            As I said, I believe that the underlying message of this parable is waiting. Watchfulness, preparedness, being ready is essential. If the necessity of being prepared were all that we take away from our reading of it, that would be plenty. But New Testament scholar Karoline Lewis points out that there is one line in verse 5 that’s often overlooked;

“As the bridegroom was delayed.”

The bridegroom was delayed, so the bridesmaids were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written for a people who were waiting. I would think that all of the gospels, and the entirety of the New Testament was written for people who were waiting. None of the gospels were written at the exact moment of Jesus’ life. They were written after his life, his death, and his resurrection. They were written by people for people who were waiting for him to return, and they expected that return sooner rather than later. They were people who wanted to know when the wedding would finally happen. But the days of waiting turned into years, the years into decades, and the decades into generations. And each generation was told to stay awake, to be ready, be prepared, but with each generation the people were still waiting. It’s not hard to understand why all the bridesmaids fell asleep. The bridegroom was delayed.

This parable is replete with confounding information. The question of why the bridegroom was delayed is the first of many. Why were the five wise bridesmaids sort of, well, mean to the five who were labeled as foolish. And we need to understand that those words, wise and foolish are not the same as smart and dumb. The word used for wise in this context is not the same word that is translated as wise or wisdom in other places in the gospels. This kind of wisdom was more aligned with shrewdness than knowledge. The five wise bridesmaids judged that extra oil might be a good thing to have on hand, so they planned accordingly. And the five foolish bridesmaids were not dumb or silly. But they did not think beyond the oil that was already in their lamps. Maybe, as Debbi Thomas, pointed out in her commentary, it was more foolish of them to leave to get oil than it was to stay and let their lamps grow dim. Maybe another error in judgement was not trusting that there would be enough light to go around.

And perhaps the five wise bridesmaids, while more prepared, are also examples of our fear of scarcity. They were so afraid of not having enough for themselves, that they did not, they could not share with the other five. Their shrewdness, in this context, can also be connected to self-preservation. Better to preserve themselves than to share their abundance with others, even the other bridesmaids.

While I would like to believe that I am always aligned with the good guys in a story from scripture, I’m not so sure that’s true. And while on the surface, it would seem that the wise bridesmaids are the good guys in this parable, looking at both groups in this light gives me pause. Because I think this parable is indeed about waiting and being prepared. But I also think that this kind of waiting implies intentionality. To wait with intentionality is not just hypervigilance. I dispute the popular cultural beliefs about the end times. But I also know that it is far too easy to sleepwalk through life, thinking that even if we are not fully prepared for what will come, we still have tomorrow to get ready. We sleepwalk through life thinking that we have time.

What we must remember about these last chapters of Matthew’s gospel, about the context in which Jesus told this parable and the ones to follow, is that he is running out of time. Jesus knows that the cross looms just ahead. Jesus knows that he has maybe days left in this life. So, he urgently needs to prepare those who will listen, those who will follow. Stay awake, be ready, be prepared. But was Jesus telling them to cower down in a bunker, hoarding supplies, and wait for the end of the world? Or was Jesus telling them, reminding them, that they just don’t know how long they have. No one does. So live as though he were returning tomorrow. Live as he lived until the very end. Live with intention, live with love, live with compassion, live with forgiveness and grace and generosity and hope. Live as though you may not have much time.

I am not advocating a “eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die” mentality. That seems to me to be the dark side of what Jesus would have wanted. But don’t put off kindness because you think that you will have another chance tomorrow. Don’t hold your compassion in reserve because you believe that tomorrow gives you another opportunity. You  may not get that chance, so live as Jesus lived now. Do as Jesus did now. Fill your waiting with love. Stay awake to every possibility of sharing the good news. Be prepared to be generous. We don’t know when the wedding will be, when the bridegroom will return, but we will be ready with hearts and minds and hands open to living God’s grace and love. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

No More Tears -- All Saints' Day

Revelation 7:9-17

November 1, 2026

 

            Earlier this week I was going through the pictures on my phone. I wanted to open up some digital space, and I knew that there were pictures that could be deleted. Along with finding seemingly hundreds of pictures of our cat, Jolene, sleeping, I also rediscovered some old selfies that I took with my mom and dad. The amazing thing about our phone technology is the ability to take them in “live” mode. I don’t understand how this technology is possible, but I do know that “live” photos look like still photographs, but if you press them they are actually mini recordings. And these mini recordings reveal just a few seconds of the moment when the picture was taken.

            So, I pressed the photo of my dad and me and I got to watch him make a little, almost silly, smile for a second before the recording stopped. And when I pressed the picture of my mom, I got to see her turn her head and kiss me on the cheek. I’ve been trying to find a way to describe how seeing these pictures made me feel ever since I rediscovered them. I’m still not sure I have the right words. The one word that comes to mind is not English, but Portuguese. It is saudade. The closest English comes to translating it is that it is a longing, a yearning for something or someone that is no longer present. It is a bittersweet, paradoxical mix of sadness and love. From what I read, in Portuguese you don’t feel saudade, you have it. When I looked at those pictures, those mini recordings, of my mom and dad, I had – have – saudade. And if I have saudade, rather than feel it, that must mean it is a part of me. It is deeply ingrained into who I am and who I will become.

            And if I have saudade, then probably so do you. It is the unique trait of being human. We live in the tension between love and grief, joy and sadness. And recognizing our saudade this morning is appropriate, because today is All Saints’ Day. On this day we remember not only the large ecclesial and cultural saints – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King – but we also remember our own saints through their pictures, in their names, in their memories. Our saints are not saints because they were perfect, but because they, to quote Fred Rogers, “loved us into being.” And because we remember our saints on this day, we also read scriptures that give us a glimpse into the world that is, that world as it should be, and the world to come.

            Our saints are members of the great multitude that is spoken of in this passage from Revelation.

            I don’t understand Revelation. I’ve led Bible studies on it. I’ve read it. I grew up being told in sermons and in Bible studies to take it literally. But none of that has given me great insight into this strange and even disturbing book. Despite my reading, leading, and studying, I am just as confused about this book today as I ever have been. Pushing back against the preachers and teachers of my past, I do not think it is meant to be taken literally. A literal reading is pointless, because it wasn’t written to be taken literally. It was written in a strange metaphorical sort of code to encourage the churches who were being persecuted by Rome, and to exhort those believers who were suffering and struggling to live faithfully in a culture that not only worked against them but sought to destroy them. It wasn’t written in the kind of code that means if we can just break it, we will know exactly what will happen at the end of the world. It was written in a specific context for specific people, yet it still speaks to us today because the world is still a place of suffering and struggle. The context may have changed but the suffering of our world has not.

            And I understand from the scholars that I have read that this passage before us is considered a pause in the narrative. It is a pause of comfort and consolation that comes between the opening of the sixth seal and the seventh. The words in this passage are some that we most often hear in funeral services because they are words of comfort and consolation. When we are facing the death of someone we love, we need to hear and to trust that one day there will be no more tears. These are words that remind us that the line between this life and the next is thin, and that when those we have love have crossed that line, they join a great multitude of others, a cloud of witnesses, and are now with God up close and personal.

            Again, I know there is a lot of imagery in this passage that is confusing, and it is surrounded by imagery that can be heard as threatening or frightening. It is considered apocalyptic, which in our culture has taken on the meaning of doom and destruction. But something that is apocalyptic is really something that unveils or reveals something else. Reveal is part of the word revelation. What does this imagery reveal? What does it unveil?

But for a moment, let’s focus on this great multitude that we read about. The great multitude is described as those who have come through the “ordeal.” Their robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. This is probably a reference to the Passover from Exodus, and from other passages found in the prophets. Traditional theology sees this as our salvation in the atonement of Jesus on the cross. These words can have connections to all of the above and more. This great multitude is diverse and comprises people of every nation, of all tribes, of all languages. This is not a homogenous gathering, but one that is inclusive of all of God’s children.

            But what about this ordeal? Scholars that I read talked about the ordeal of this great multitude as life and living. Those people are people of faith who have lived faithfully in spite of the suffering that life threw their way. It is a reminder that God was with them in their life on this earth, and God is with them in their new life. That’s why it is a comfort. Death in this life did not defeat them, instead it brought them even closer to God.

            So, I think these words, despite the strange language and context, give us hope. The world is still a place of suffering and struggle and tribulation. We have all experienced our own ordeals, whether it is the loss of loved ones through death or divorce, struggling to make ends meet, loneliness, regret – all of it is an ordeal in some or way or another. You don’t get through life without some suffering, some sadness, some grief, and heartache. And if you are lucky enough to know great love in this life, you will know great heartache even more. That’s the deal and perhaps the ordeal too. I believe that is the foundation of saudade.

            This passage comes up in the lectionary passages for All Saints Day because it reminds us that at the heart of these words is a great multitude of people who are now with God, with their Creator, surrounded by love and joy and light. Their suffering is over. Their ordeal is done. Their tears are wiped away. And in that great multitude are the people that we love and are separated from for just a little while. In that multitude are the people who have encouraged us, inspired us, pushed us, challenged us, discipled us, loved us. In that multitude are the people who have loved us into being.

            And on this All Saints’ Day, these words are good to hear and to know and to believe. But even if we are not currently experiencing the death of a loved one, we need some comfort and consolation. We need a holy pause to catch our collective breath, to hear words of hope, to remind our hearts and minds that one day there will be no more tears. Because right now there are plenty of tears. Right now I am exhausted by the world. Even though Tuesday will bring an end to the political attack ads that we can’t get away from, I fear it will not bring an end to our divisiveness, to our partisanship, to our mistrust, and even our hatred.

            With or without an election in process, children here and around the world still hurt. People still go hungry. People still live through ordeals that we cannot imagine. To even feel a miniscule amount of the world’s suffering is to be overwhelmed by it. So, we need some comfort. We need to hear these words of consolation. That’s why I chose this passage from Revelation to preach from; it just seemed to me that we all needed this consoling pause. We all needed a reminder of why we hope. We needed to hear the beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel, not as something to aspire to, but to be reminded that Jesus was describing the world as it should be. He was saying that this blessedness, even of those who suffer, even of those who seem to be on the bottom, on the margins, is the world as it should be. Blessedness is normal, he seems to be saying. The world of empire is not.

            I realize this is not my most challenging of sermons. I know that it does not call us to account, but I hope that it calls us both to remember and to believe, to trust and to hope. Sometimes we just need a pause, a moment to take a deep breath, a moment of consolation before we once more face our ordeals. So let us give thanks today for this moment. Let us give thanks that our beloved saints who have joined that great multitude and gathered with that great cloud of witnesses now shed no more tears. And we trust that one day our tears, and every tear, will be wiped away as well. No more tears. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

No More Questions

Matthew 22:34-46

October 25, 2026

 

            You only have to walk into my office to know that I am a Harry Potter fan. I realize that I am much older than the original demographic, but I bought the first book as a present for my youngest nephew. I had heard about it and thought it sounded interesting. Before I wrapped and sent it to him, I decided to read a few pages. A few pages was all it took to hook me. It wasn’t long before I went looking for a copy of my own, and I didn’t stop reading until I read them all.

I loved the movies too. They managed to bring the characters to life. And I’ll be honest; I grieved when I watched the final credits on the last movie. It was done and I was not ready. I loved both the books and the movies. But if I had to choose between them I choose the books first because of the depth of the story that the books provide. And that’s what I love the most about the Harry Potter series. They tell a powerful story.

What makes these stories powerful is that at their heart they are about love. And this love is not just love that is sweetness and light, sugar and spice and all things nice. The stories are about sacrificial love – to be more specific they are about the power of sacrificial love. The Harry Potter arc is imbued with the force of sacrificial love from the beginning to the end. His mother’s sacrificial love saves Harry’s life when he was a baby. And that same willingness to sacrifice for the love of others brings about the downfall of an evil, brutal regime and its leader, Voldemort.

Here are a few essential facts about the series. Harry loses his parents when he was just a baby. They were murdered by Lord Voldemort. As I said Harry’s mother sacrificed herself to save Harry. When Voldemort tried to kill him, Harry survived. Voldemort was reduced to almost nothing. Not dead, but not alive either.

Harry doesn’t know he’s a wizard until age 11. From the moment he finds this out his life is irrevocably changed. In each book he is tested in a new way as Voldemort tries to regain his life and his power. Harry must also cope with doubts, ridicule, and ostracism from his classmates and others. His home life with his muggle (that’s non-magic folk to the unenlightened) aunt and uncle is downright abusive. And he’s not without his own self-doubt and fears. 

But from the beginning to the end love is there. It is the one thing that Voldemort underestimates. Because he does not know love, he cannot understand how or why it motivates others – even those who seem to be loyal to him. In the end Harry must sacrifice himself in order to stop Voldemort. Just as his mother was willing to sacrifice herself to save him, Harry willingly sacrifices himself to save everyone else. Why? Love.

Love is the answer that Jesus gives to the Pharisees in today’s passage from Matthew.  Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. At the very core of our faith lies love.

We are at the last of the questions asked of Jesus in today’s passage. In fact, Jesus’ response to the religious authorities leaves them with no more questions to ask. From this point on the die is cast. Jesus is moving inexorably toward the cross. He knows it, but still he doesn’t shy away from these intense encounters and taking on questions meant to trap him. Yet the question that the Pharisees ask in our passage today does not feel as tough as the others have. Well let me rephrase that. Today’s answer doesn’t feel as tough. I have to be honest. When I saw that this was the passage for this week, I breathed a sigh of relief. The issues we have wrestled with the last few weeks have been intense to say the least. 

I suspect that preachers everywhere gave a loud cry of joy when they read that Jesus answered this final question with a word about love. Because who doesn’t want to preach about love? I mean this should be the easiest sermon ever, right? It’s all about love. Note to self: never believe that something Jesus says about love will be easy. You’re just setting yourself up for trouble.   

Love is a wonderful topic, true, but easy? No, it’s not easy. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t. We should love as easily and as naturally as we breathe. Yet we don’t. Theologian Debbi Thomas wrote that part of our trouble with Jesus’ use of love comes from our own overuse of it. We use the word “love” for everything. So much so that we’ve diluted its meaning and its power. I love Harry Potter. I love ice cream. You love a good movie. And so on. But when it comes to the love that Jesus spoke of, that Jesus lived, we don’t seem to get it. And even if we do get it, we struggle to live it.   

That’s where we come to in our passage from Matthew’s gospel. The Pharisees have heard that Jesus silenced the Sadducees. But the Pharisees aren’t ready to quit just yet. They’re going to give their plan to take Jesus take down, verbally, one more shot. They gather together, supposedly to formulate a plan. One of the Pharisees is a lawyer, so he decides to ask Jesus another question that will test him.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

As usual Jesus knows what they’re up to. He answers,

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Pharisees were so astounded by his answer and his next words about David, that they went away with no more questions to ask. Their questions to this troublesome man might have been silenced, but they were perfectly able to plot his death and put an end to his troublesome ways and his troublesome talk about love.

Because love, as Jesus taught it in his words and in everything else that he did, is troublesome. Love in this context doesn’t just require us to feel something. It requires us to do something. 

Recently I read a commentary on this text by two preachers. They took on the idea of being spiritual versus being religious. You’ve probably heard people say that. I’m not religious, but I am spiritual. But these two commentators claimed that being spiritual is easy. Their argument was that people who claimed spirituality over religion are those who simply want to feel loving. It’s easy to say “I’m a spiritual person. I believe in love, but I don’t want to get bogged down in all that religious stuff.” 

And to be fair, religion in our culture carries its own challenging connotations. The claim that someone is religious often makes people think of having to abide by unbending doctrinal rules and regulations. Being religious is believing the right things and saying the right prayers. Today is Reformation Sunday, the day in our church year when we remember the reformers who challenged the ecclesial status quo and pushed for greater faithfulness. But these reformers were also human. And even though I believe they were right to push back against the church and call it out for the ways that it had lots its faithfulness to the gospel, I also know that these same reformers established their own rules and regulations and also lost their way in being faithful to the gospel. But that’s the point of the reformation. We are reformed and always reforming.

But think carefully about what Jesus said. Because Jesus did not say that the greatest commandment was about right doctrine or right worship or who gets the gospel correct. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is Love – love God and love one another. This is the foundation of everything. The Law, the prophets, all that they know, all that understand hangs on these two commandments. Love.

But going back to these two commentators, being spiritual rather than religious puts spirituality on an amorphous plane. Spiritualty doesn’t require anything but warm fuzzies on our part. So it is easy, say these scholars, to be spiritual. It is easy, in this way, to love God. It is easy to love when there is no skin in the game, literally and figuratively.

But loving our neighbor? That’s the challenge. And that’s where these scholars made their claim for being religious. But not religious in the way that we often think about being religious. To understand being religious, you have to dig deeper into the meaning of the word.

The word religious comes from the word legare which means to be tied, to be bound.  Our word ligament also comes from legare. What do ligaments do? They hold our bones, our muscles, our joints together. Extrapolating from this means then that religion binds us together.  It ties us to one another and to God. I can understand how some people see this as challenging at best. We don’t always like the implications of being tied to one another. 

But think about those ties in terms of love. Loving our neighbor as ourselves means that we are tied in love to one another. The other’s welfare is equally as important as our own. We are called to do acts of love for one another. When SNAP benefits were paused last year, our congregation worked together to provide groceries for neighbors. What did we get in return for feeding the hungry folks in our community? We didn’t get money. We didn’t get membership. We may feel good for having done it, but ultimately what we get doesn’t matter. What matters is what we did; what we do. Providing for our neighbors is how we love our neighbors. We love our neighbor as ourselves because we are tied to one another. Even when loving our neighbors is the most difficult thing we can do. That’s the kind of love Jesus was talking about. 

And the good news is that when we love one another in this way, we’re also loving God.  Jesus wasn’t drawing lines of demarcation between these loves. I don’t think he was creating a hierarchy of love. Instead I think he was trying to show the Pharisees and anyone else with ears to listen that when we love God, we are not just wrapping our arms around a warm, fuzzy, faceless concept. We love God when we love God’s children. And when we love God’s children, we love God.  Legare. Tied. Love. 

It sounds easy, but it’s not. To love in this way requires us to be vulnerable. To love in this way requires hearts and minds that are open. To love in this way requires sacrifice. Maybe we won’t be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made, but we must be willing to. We must be willing to love our neighbors as ourselves, even when our neighbors make us uncomfortable and even afraid. We love because we are tied together, bound to one another. We love because when we love the very real people in this world, we are also loving God.

Love answers all the questions. Love is the foundation of our faith. Love is at the heart of everything. Love binds us together. May we love as Jesus loved. May we love as Jesus loved. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

 

Who Gets What?

Matthew 22:15-22

October 18, 2026

 

            My first theology class in seminary was intimidating. My professor, Dr. Dawe, was delightful and kind, but that didn’t make the content of the class any easier for me to grasp. Many of my fellow classmates were religion majors in college. They were already fluent in the language of theology, while I was still trying to learn my theological ABCs. The class was intimidating in general. But when we were given a big assignment to compare and contrast Karl Barth and Gustavo Gutierrez, two leading theologians and their particular branches of theological thought, the intimidation became specific.

            Dr. Dawe told us that most people would choose to write a paper on this, but he also told us that he would accept more creative approaches as well. I chose both ways. I realized that if I were going to understand the differences, I would need to see them. So, I created a collage. I went through magazines and found pictures that I thought represented Barth and pictures that represented Gutierrez and I laid them out on a poster board, Barth on one side and Guttirez on the other. When I could see the differences, then I could write my paper.

            In preparing for this sermon, I’ve tried to create a mental collage like the one I did for theology. I picture one side labeled as Caesar and one side labeled God. What belongs to Caesar? What belongs to God? Who gets what? On the surface, this might seem like an easy exercise. Caesar should have very little if anything. Maybe some money and taxes. God should have everything else because everything belongs to God. We all belong to God. Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Amen. Yet I know it’s not that simple, because no matter how much I try to make clear boundaries and keep the two categories separate, Caesar is everywhere. Nothing is as clean cut and simple as we might like it to be.

            On the surface this passage is about taxation. You’ve heard the expression that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That aphorism is here at the beginning of our passage. The Pharisees and the Herodians may not have been enemies, but they were definitely not friends. They did not work together. They usually stood in opposition to the other. On paper, the Pharisees, as the religious leaders, were against collaborating with the Roman government. They believed in the authority of God alone. They were proponents and keepers of the Law, which took precedence over any other human-made law. The Herodians, as their name suggests, cooperated with the Roman government. It was safer and more expedient to be on the side of might, even if might was not necessarily right.

            But neither group liked Jesus, and they didn’t like how he influenced the people and undermined their authority. They did not appreciate the grave danger that he put all of them in. So, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, which means that it would be better for all of them to unite forces and get rid of this guy? That is their true motivation in this story. Get rid of Jesus by whatever means necessary, and they come together with a question intended to do just that.  

            The Pharisees sent their disciples along with the Herodians to ask Jesus a question about taxes. They begin with flattery.

            “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

            Yeah. Right. Jesus saw through their oozing adulation and named it – hypocrisy. Jesus was profoundly adept at taking a question meant to trick and trap him and putting it back onto the questioner. The Pharisees and the Herodians want to entrap him, because if he says that it is lawful to pay taxes, the people will turn against him. If he says that it is not lawful to pay taxes, then the Herodians can claim he is guilty of treason. Jesus loses either way. But Jesus was not about to step into their trap. He knows exactly what they’re doing.

Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Fine, you want to know about taxes. Here’s your answer. Give me a coin. One of them handed him a denarius. He looked at it, then asked,

            “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They replied, “It’s the emperor.”

            Then there is your answer. Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor and give to God what belongs to God.

Over and over again, Jesus’ words have been interpreted through the lens of separation of church and state. If even Jesus implies that there is a dividing line between them, then the two should be separated. Yet that kind of political and religious separation is our modern understanding. I’m not, in any way, stating that in our modern context church and state should not be separated. But given the context and the culture of the time, I doubt that anyone listening to Jesus or even the first hearers and readers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought in those terms. Religious law was the law. There would have been no separation between the two.  But that’s also why the empirical tax was so odious. 

This tax was the Roman census or the “head tax” that was instituted when Judea became a Roman province. The tax was not only considered unfair, but it also went against Torah. The land of Israel belonged to God alone. Since Caesar was a usurper, paying the tax was considered an act of disobedience to God. Not only would Caesar’s image have been on the denarius, but the inscription would also have read something like, “In Caesar we trust.” Caesar was not just the governing ruler; as emperor, he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. So paying the Roman head tax meant that the Jewish people consistently broke the first two commandments. They put another god before the Lord God, and they used a coin that bore a graven image. When Jesus asked to see the coin, he was asking those leaders what was in their wallet. How interesting that they could produce this coin which went against the Law and he couldn’t? How interesting that they could produce this particular coin in the temple? The hypocrisy of that, of the religious leaders having a coin like in this in the holiest of places, was not lost on Jesus. 

Even when this passage isn’t interpreted as a reason for separation of church and state, it is used as a way for believers to find their way through a complex world that is driven by money.  Just give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and the rest goes to God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But real life is a different beast altogether. We are, like it or not, driven by money. You need a certain amount of money just to survive. If you don’t have it, survival can be tough to say the least. Every week the church gets requests for assistance with utilities and other expenses. The constancy of need just to pay for the basics shows us how necessary having money is, and, more importantly, what it means not to have it.

And let’s be honest, the church is not immune to the demands of money. The session is getting ready to put together the budget for 2027. Budgets are about money – what we have and what we don’t. You saw the numbers last week about the building expenses we’ve had in just a few months. This building requires money. Our programs require money. You pay me to stand in this pulpit. And I need to be paid. As much as I may wish that I didn’t need that, as much as I wish that I could do this for free, I can’t. Because our family is also driven by money – what we have and what we don’t.

If Caesar in this passage is synonymous with money, then Caesar is everywhere. That mental collage I tried to make has no easy, clear lines between Caesar and God. Money is our reality, the same as it was for the people gathered around Jesus.

Jesus was not giving an answer that suggested that any of this was clear cut and simple. I suspect that he understood the complexity of life then, just as he would understand the complexity of life now. Because life is complex and this is a complex issue, I don’t have any easy answers going forward. I don’t have a ten-point list for how to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

But a commentary I read reminded me that if that coin bore the image of the emperor, than what image do we bear? The answer is found in Genesis. We were created in the image of God. We bear God’s likeness. We bear God’s fingerprint. It may not be something that we can see with our eyes, but it’s there. And if we bear God’s likeness, then everything we do, every decision we make, should be done with that in mind.

Too often, I find myself thinking, what requires my money and how much will be leftover for God, for the church. I think that needs to be turned on its head. Maybe the question I should be asking is, how does my faith direct my money? How does my belief that we are all created in God’s image direct what I give, how I spend, where I spend? How does my faith determine what I value?

These are questions that cannot be asked just once. Every time I open my wallet, I must ask the question, who gets what and why? We bear the image of God. We were created in God’s likeness. We owe God everything. May we remember that when it comes to money and everything else in this complicated, challenging world we live in. We owe God everything. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children, created in God’s likeness, say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

The Unrobed Guest

Matthew 22:1-14

October 11, 2026

 

            Mary Cooper is thrilled. Pastor Jeff, the pastor of her church, has asked Mary to create and organize the church’s interactive Halloween experience. This experience is designed to teach participants about the wages of sin and lead them to the church and to God.  

            The experience is Heck House, where each room reveals one of the seven deadly sins and its deadly consequences. As each person works their way through the house, the hope is that they climb the stairs to Heaven. If the project works as it should, people will be appalled and afraid of what they’ve seen in the other rooms, when they reach Heaven they will ask to be saved.

            Mary is excitedly telling her family about her plans for Heck House at the dinner table, when her mother – affectionately known as Meemaw – asks a question.

            “You mean you’re trying to scare people into joining the church?”

            Mary responds that on Halloween people like to be scared anyway, so why not use that fear to push them in the right direction. At this point her youngest son, Sheldon, speaks up and comments that for centuries religion has used fear to motivate people. And, he adds, when you add in a measure of guilt to that fear, it becomes an excellent form of crowd control.

            His mother responds to this by saying that their religion leads by love not fear. Sheldon then asks what happens when people don’t follow the rules. Without hesitating, Mary says in a cheerful voice,

            “Then they burn in hell.”

            When she sees her family staring at her in shock, she quickly adds, “Because God loves them.”

            This is a funny moment from the second season of the television show, Young Sheldon, created as a prequel to The Big Bang Theory. Although it was meant to be funny – and it is – Mary’s comment about burning in hell because God loves them highlights something that I grew up believing to be true. You break the rules, you suffer eternally.

            We touched on this same idea last Sunday, when we dug into the Ten Commandments as a gift from God rather than a means of trapping people into breaking the rules. However, both of our passages today give me pause, because they speak strongly of the opposite of the idea that God gave us a gift when we were given the Law. Both our passages speak to this belief that when we mess up, we face eternal damnation.

            The parables that Jesus tells in these last days before his crucifixion are becoming darker and more dangerous. The tension between Jesus and the religious authorities continues to grow. Everything Jesus says to them pushes him closer to the cross. And he knows it. The plots to have Jesus killed are fomenting. He is angering the religious authorities. He speaks truth to those in power, and therefore he is a threat to those in power. This parable, which is dark and hard to hear, is right in line with what is happening in the world around Jesus.

            “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.  Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’  But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

            The context in which Jesus is speaking this parable is also dark. As much as the crowds around Jesus have lauded him, followed him, sought after him, and beseeched him, Jesus knows that his ultimate rejection by the world is fast approaching. As I said, he is angering the powers-that-be. He is making enemies, and those enemies are plotting to seek their revenge. That is the context in which Jesus is speaking these parables. But we are dealing with a larger context as well because Matthew is writing his gospel account to a particular audience in a particular context too.

Scholars believe that Matthew’s gospel was written to a church in conflict. His community is splintering. His community, his church, is on the brink of a split. Matthew and those others who have heard the good news of Jesus and believed are most likely the minority. It seems that the majority are unwilling or unable to hear or believe the good news, and the result is a theological and emotional battle for the soul of the gathered people.

            Although a similar parable to this one is found in the gospel of Luke, Matthew takes this parable and makes it a grave, even sinister, warning. If you do not accept the invitation to the king’s feast, if you decline, even though you were supposed to be on the guest list, you will not only be replaced by someone else, but you will also be destroyed. Yikes.

            And, just as in last week’s parable of the vineyard, the emissaries of the king who brought the invitations were not only dismissed, but some of them were also abused and killed. So it is understandable, I guess, why the king would be angry, but it is still a struggle – at least for me – as to how to grasp the terrible turn that takes place in today’s parable. The king is not only angry. The king sends out his troops and destroys those who declined, those who murdered the emissaries and burns down their city. Then, while the city is on fire, others are invited. The party doors are thrown open to a brand-new guest list. And then there is the poor guy at the end, who accepts the invitation to come to the party, but isn’t wearing the right clothes. Instead of being given a chance to run home and change, he is bound hand and foot and thrown out into the outer darkness. Again I say, yikes!

            How do we interpret this dark and disturbing parable? For years I have only heard this as allegory. Jesus begins by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet …” Therefore, it must be that the kingdom of heaven is like a great feast, and if you are invited to attend, you really should. Because if you don’t, if you ignore the invitation, or worse, if you harm the messengers of the king otherwise known as God, you will suffer dire and eternal consequences. And if you do come, make sure you pay attention to what you wear. For this party, the right clothing is everything. And I mean everything.

            If Jesus’s point in this parable is to let the religious authorities know that they were invited to God’s great banquet but rejected the invitation and killed the messengers, then it seems to counteract every other thing that I was taught about love and grace and mercy. But is Jesus telling this as an allegory or is something else being shared? If parables were told, as Dr. Amy-Jill Levine said, to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” who are the comfortable in this case? Who is being afflicted by the story Jesus tells? And where is God really in this story?

            If God is the king, then all our understandings about God are true. God is great and loving and gracious, unless you cross him. Or is that what we want to believe about God,  because we are convinced that we are the ones who accepted the invitation to the party? Let the others who didn’t suffer for it. We took our seat at the table.  Or did we?

            Theologian and essayist, Debbi Thomas, wrote that perhaps Jesus told this parable as another way to turn things upside down and inside out. Perhaps, she wrote, Jesus wanted the people listening to see that they projected this understanding of God onto God because it made them feel better. Because as long as they believed they were the ones who accepted the invitation, then they felt secure, their anxiety was eased. And anxiety is a great motivator, isn’t it? I think anxiety lies at the heart of our story from Exodus. The people were so anxious about Moses being gone for too long, that they let their anxiety push them into demanding Aaron make a new god for them. The golden calf is not so much about worshipping different gods, it’s about thinking that ultimately we have the power to create the god we want.

            And if there is truth in that, then could it also be true that we turn God into a despotic king who hosts a party inside while outside the city burns? Maybe the king is not God in this parable. Maybe the king is who we want God to be, what we try to make God into. Maybe that king is as much golden calf as the one Aaron makes for the people.

            So, what about the unrobed guest? Thomas ponders the possibility that the divine in this parable is not found in the king but in the unrobed guest. Did this person forget to wear the wrong clothes or did he choose not to? Was his fashion faux pas an act of ignorance or refusal, resistance to the despot king and those who partied with him? Was he unwilling to dress for a party that once again strengthened the misperceptions of who was in and who was out?

            Perhaps, as Thomas suggests, he went to that party unrobed, because he understood that being bound hand and foot and thrown out to the darkness of crucifixion and death was the way of faith. If the divine is to be found in the unrobed guest, then how we read and hear this parable is truly turned upside down.

            Or not. Maybe I’m wrong about all of the above. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. But I know that too often I put myself into the place of the “good guys” in scripture and forget or ignore or refuse to consider that I might be walking in the shoes of those who just don’t get it. I know that my anxiety about the world, about life, about God, has led me to create golden calves, to fashion God in my own image. And the minute I think I have destroyed those false idols in my life; a new temptation arises and I am rebuilding before I realize what I’m doing. But I know this, God is always bigger than any story of God can proclaim. God is always more than my limited understanding can perceive. God will never stay in the boxes I build to contain him. God will never be found in the golden calves I create.

            And isn’t that the good news? Isn’t that the gospel? That God is more? That God is not what we make God to be? That the kingdom of heaven is unlike any kingdom or empire or realm that we can create? And isn’t the foundation of our faith built on the belief that God comes in unlikely ways to unlikely people? So perhaps God is in that unrobed guest after all? Because we are reminded again and again that God is God and we are not. God is God and we are not. That is good news. That is why I emphatically and joyfully say, thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

 

 

The Gift -- World Communion Sunday

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-10a, 12-20

October 4, 2026

 

            The Good Place is the first and only television series I’ve ever watched that included Moral Philosophy and the study of ethics in in the foundation of the show. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can give you a few main points. The premise of the show is that when you die, you wind up in either the Good Place or the Bad Place. And we reach either the Good Place or the Bad Place by a calculation of points. Every day of our lives, we have the opportunity to earn or lose points. We earn points by doing good things and being good people. We lose points by doing bad things and being bad people. It’s that simple, or at least it should be. The rest of the series is one twisty, turny, roller coaster ride as to why the points system is not as simple as it seems. That’s where Moral Philosophy and ethics comes in.

            In the first episode, one of the show’s main characters, Eleanor Shellstrop, wakes up in The Good Place. She meets Michael, her guide to her part of The Good Place. One of Eleanor’s first questions of Michael is who got it right. Which one of the religions got heaven and hell correct? Michael tells her that all of the world’s religions got some of the afterlife right. But he shows her a picture hanging on his wall of a young man in the 1970’s. The young man is Doug Forcett. In the 1970’s, when he was in an, let’s call it an altered state, he had a vision of the afterlife and he described it with a 92 % accuracy. This made him an afterlife hero, which is why  his picture is hanging on the wall.

            In a later episode, we meet Doug Forcett in person. He is an older man living in Calgary, and his perception of the afterlife when he was in his 20’s changed him – but not for the better. He spent the rest of his life so scared of losing points that he gave self-sacrifice a bad name. He would take care of any injured animal. Any injured animal, domestic or wild, even if caring for that animal meant his own life was put in danger. A kid who lived near him came and taunted him on a daily basis, making mean requests of him because he knew that Doug would do them. Doug was so terrified of not earning enough points to get into the good place, he ended up living in relative isolation, unable to be in relationships, and unable to experience any happiness or joy. He was controlled by fear, which does not make for much of a life.

            The points system in The Good Place may be an invention, but it resonated with how I understood God for a long time. When I was a kid, I was convinced that any mistake I made would bring disaster down upon my head. When I was four, I was with my parents in the grocery store. The store had inexpensive paperback novels for sale near the checkout lane. I picked up one of the books and put it in a grocery bag. My mom liked to read, so maybe she would like to read one of these books. When we got home and my parents discovered it, they naturally questioned me. I was terrified. I knew that I had done something wrong, and I knew that I would be punished. But as scared as I was of being punished by my parents and the prospect of going to jail, I was even more scared of being punished by God. If I were in The Good Place, I would definitely have lost points.

            You see God was confusing to me. In Sunday school we learned that God in Jesus was our loving shepherd. He took little children into his arms and blessed them. But we also learned that God was always watching us, and if we ever made a mistake, if we ever put one toe out of line, then God’s foot would come down from the clouds and stomp us like a bug.

            I want to stop for a moment and defend my early religious teachers. I don’t remember any of them ever using the image of a foot stomping on a bug to describe God. But that is the impression I had. And whether I would have admitted it or not, I carried that impression with me well into adulthood. What helped to reinforce that impression of God? The Ten Commandments.

            To be fair, it wasn’t just the Ten Commandments themselves that gave me the idea that God was waiting to stomp me out of existence. It was the story around the giving of the commandments that scared me half to death too. If you look at the passages building up to our verses from Exodus, you will read that it took three days of preparation for the Israelites to be ready to hear these words given by God to Moses. On the third morning, there was thunder and lightning. The mountain of God was covered in thick smoke. From out of nowhere a trumpet blared so loudly that it made every person waiting in the camp tremble and shake.

            This would have terrified me as a kid, and I’m not crazy about it as an adult either. But this colored my association with the Ten Commandments. It is The Law, and it is designed to keep us in line. Or else …

            But was it?

            I don’t want to tell you how old I was and how long I had been in ministry when I began to wonder if God didn’t create the Ten Commandments as a club to hammer the people into submission, which is what I’d always thought. Maybe, just maybe, God gave the people the Ten Commandments as a gift. A gift. God gave them as a gift to help the people, who were being formed into a community, as a way to be in community, to be in relationship with God and with each other.

            When I teach the Ten Commandments to confirmation classes, I encourage the young people to notice the structure of them. They begin by first talking about how we are to be in relationship with God. God has brought the people out of slavery in Egypt. Our God is a liberating God, so don’t create idols because worshipping those idols will make you captives all over again. What idols do we worship today that hold us captive? Money, power, busyness?

            And what about not making wrongful use of God’s name? Is this about swear words or is it about using God’s name to justify evil, to excuse harm, to support the oppression of others? How much of the evil done in the world throughout history and today is done in the name of the Lord? And before we point fingers at other religions, we need to turn those same fingers toward ourselves. Every religion is guilty of this. Every religion continues to be guilty of this.

            Then there is the command to keep the sabbath. Is the sabbath about restriction or is about rest? In the story of creation, God rested on the seventh day. God rested. Shouldn’t we rest too? And shouldn’t we allow the rest of others, other people, animals, creation itself? Instead of rest, though, we have turned sabbath keeping into another list of rules and regulations. Or we ignore sabbath altogether and believe that constant busyness proves our worth as humans.

            I’m not going to explicate every commandment but looking at the rest of them, we see that they are about being in relationship with others. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t break relationship, don’t be envious about what others have. Honor the people who have loved you into who you are now. In the gospels Jesus summarized them with this same structure. Love God. Love one another as you love yourselves. The commandments are about relationship – with God and with one another – and I think they are a gift.

            Jesus also taught that his coming was the fulfillment of the Law. He didn’t talk about overturning it or making it obsolete. He talked about fulfilling it. Jesus, as the divine incarnate, showed us what it meant to be human, what it meant to be in relationship with God and with other people. Jesus showed us what it meant to love neighbor as self. Jesus exemplified the gift that is the Law.

            And it seems to me that when Jesus had run-ins with the religious authorities, which is the context of our gospel passage this morning, it was to try and show them that they took the Law God gave them as a gift and turned it into a weapon to be used against those over whom they held power and authority. It was not God who made the commandments into a club to wield against the people. It was the people who did that. And we still do it.

            We still try to use the commandments, the Law, not as a way to build relationship, but as a way to force submission. We use it not as a gift but as a hammer. And when it is used as a hammer, it builds walls between us instead of tearing them down. When we use it as a hammer it pushes people away from God instead of drawing them near. If Jesus tried to tell the religious professionals that they had lost the plot when it came to the Law, then I suspect he would tell us the same thing. We get the letter of the Law, but we never quite capture its Spirit. The Law was meant to be a gift, to build relationship, to create community. And we need that gift more than ever, because our world is one of broken relationships. And that brokenness reveals itself in small ways and large. It reveals itself in harm toward others, toward creation, toward ourselves and toward God.

            I think it is fitting that we think of God’s gift of The Law on this day. Because today is World Communion Sunday. Today is a day when we emphasize our relationships, not just with one another in this place and in this community, but with people all over the world. Today, people in every context and culture, will gather at the table and take the bread and drink from the cup and remember Jesus and what he lived for and what he died for and who he died for. And we all will remember that in him death is not the end but the beginning. We are a resurrection people. And resurrection is not just something that happens in the sweet by and by but in the now. When relationships are built and rebuilt, when we extend the grace that has been given to us, when we forgive as we are forgiven, when we see the Law not as a hammer but as a gift, we participate in resurrection.

            We have been given a gift. We are called to love God and to love one another and to love ourselves. It is a gift. It is the good news. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

Power?

Matthew 21:23-32

September 27, 2026

 

            “Because I said so.”

            These four words are some of the most basic, simple, seemingly benign words in the English language. Yet when I was a child, the combination of these common words held the power to undo me. I hated hearing them. To my childish way of thinking, they were the epitome of all that was unfair and unjust in the world.

            All I wanted to know was, “Why?” Why can’t I do this or why can’t I have that? But as a kid, it seemed like the only response I ever received from my parents to my sincere inquiries about the limits enforced upon me was, “Because I said so.”

            I swore on everything I held sacred that when I grew up and had children of my own, I would never, ever say those four words to my own kids. I would always carefully and lovingly explain to my children why they could not do something or why I expected something from them. I would strive to ensure that my children understood my reasoning. The phrase, “Because I said so,” would be anathema in my home.

            Never say never.

            Becoming a parent makes you understand your own parents a little better. My parents were not tyrannical authoritarians. They would often talk to me about their expectations of me, and attempt to explain why they made the decisions they did. But I realize now that there just weren’t enough hours in the day to calmly answer my every questioning of their authority with,

            “Amy, we love you. Your well-being and safety are more important than anything to us.”

Or, “Amy, it is our job as your parents to teach your responsibility, to make sure you can function in society on your own.”

            Or, “We take seriously our task to rear you to be an engaged, thoughtful, compassionate, caring citizen – not just of these United States, but of the world that God has given us.”

            Or, “We set these limits because no matter what the standardized tests say about your intelligence, sometimes your decisions make us question whether you and your brain leave the house at the same time.”

            “Because I said so” was quicker and made the point without a lot of fuss and bother. It is a statement of authority and of power to a certain extent. It states clearly that I am the parent and you are not. Even though as a child I did not like hearing these four words, as a parent I learned quickly that I had to be the parent. I was the parent and my kids were not. Sometimes “Because I said so,” was the surest way to drive that truth home. And to prove that life goes in cycles, just the other day Zach told me how much he hated it when I would say, “Because I said so.” And I thought to myself, “Just wait.”

            Authority and power are at the heart of this passage in Matthew’s gospel. When Jesus comes into the temple, the chief priests and elders approach him while he is teaching and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

            Who gave you the right to do and say what you do and say? Who gave you the power? Who do you think you are?

            The larger context this passage lives in tells us a lot about what is happening within our verses. We are not reading about just a random day in the temple. Significant events led up to this moment and to this question. Chapter 21 begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, or what we know as Palm Sunday. Jesus rode into the city as a king, and because of this the entire population of Jerusalem was cast into confusion and tumult. From there Jesus went to the temple and “cleansed it.” That’s a rather bland way to describe what Jesus really did, which was overturning the tables of the money changers and knocking over the seats of the merchants selling doves. He drove them out and charged them with turning his Father’s house into a den of thieves. Once those folks were gone, he healed people. The blind and the lame came to him to be made whole. This infuriated the religious folks who held their own brand of power, which made the cross loom ever nearer.

            After all this, Jesus left the temple and went to Bethany to spend the night. The next morning, as he made his way back to the temple he stopped by a fig tree hoping to find some fruit for breakfast. But the fig tree was barren; no fruit, just leaves. He cursed the fig tree and it withered at the sound of his voice. The disciples were amazed at this, and Jesus explained it by ascribing it to faith. If you have more faith than doubt, you can tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea and it will happen.

            Now we come to our passage. Jesus has returned to the temple. He is teaching. The chief priests and elders come to him and demand to know who gave him his authority, where does he believe his power comes from, and who the heck does he think he is?! But their question is a trap and Jesus knows it. If Jesus says the wrong thing, then they can accuse him of blasphemy which was no light offense. But the religious authorities have never set a trap for Jesus that he does not see through, so rather than answer their question, he asks one of his own.

            “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”

            The religious folks know that they have stumbled into a snare of their own making. If they say that John’s baptism was of divine origin, then Jesus will want to know why they didn’t believe him. Because wouldn’t that mean they did not believe God? But if they say it was of human origin, then the crowds will turn on them because the people believe that John was a prophet. The only safe answer is the one they give. “We don’t know.”

            Jesus responds, “Well, if you don’t know, then I’m not going to tell you the origin of my authority.”

            But Jesus does tell them a parable about a father and two sons. The father asks both sons to go and work in his vineyard. The first son refuses but then changes his mind and does what has father asked. The second son replies in the affirmative. He will go and work in the vineyard but doesn’t make good on his promise. Jesus questions the questioners,

            “Which of the two did the will of the Father?” They answer, “The first.” Jesus then equates the son who does the will of the Father with tax collectors and prostitutes. The sinners, the castoffs and cast outs of society, the ones who said, “No,” are now the ones who go “into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

            Jesus makes it clear that John’s authority, John’s power, should have convinced the chief priests and scribes, but they did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. They heard John. They believed John. They flocked to the wilderness to be baptized by John. They recognized how lost and broken they were and they believed. Even though they originally said no. They changed their mind and they took faith from words to action. So they will go into the kingdom of God ahead of the religious professionals.

            I guess Jesus could have responded to the original question with, “Because I said so.” He was and is the Son of David. He was and is the incarnate coming of the holy into the world. He had that authority and he held that power. Instead, he tells a parable about two sons and turns it back to John. John came with authority, the authority of a prophet, power given by God, but you wouldn’t believe him. You wouldn’t listen to him. Now you demand to know my authority?! Yet the people you have deemed unfit to even be in your presence heard and believed John, and they will be in God’s presence before you will.

            The one thing that the religious leadership – and the disciples and a whole lot of other folks if I’m honest – never really understood is what Jesus tried to teach them about power. I realize the word power is not used in this passage. And while it is a synonym of authority, it does carry a different connotation. Jesus understood where his power and authority came from. It came from the Author of life, of all creation. And I believe that Jesus knew he could have used his power to get what he wanted, to do what he wanted, and to avoid what he wanted to avoid. But he understood what power truly is, and it is a lesson that the people then and us now cannot seem to grasp.

            Jesus understood that power is not something you wield against others. Power is something that you lay down for the sake of others. Isn’t that what the Christ hymn in our passage from Philippians speaks to? He had the power to make the story go in a very different direction, but he chose not to use his power as a weapon but as a blessing instead. 

            The people around Jesus constantly misunderstood his power. And we do too. We think that power is about strength and might. We think that power is something we hold. But Jesus, in everything he did, even driving out the moneychangers, was about turning our notions of power upside down. True strength is found in what the world considers weakness. True power is not something to cling to but to let go. True authority is not what we grasp for ourselves but what is given to us. True wealth comes not from what we hoard but from what we give away. In about five days from the time of this confrontation, the chief priests and elders will think they have won. But that death is just the beginning of the story God continues to write, to author, to create, to speak into being.

            Which son will we be? The one who says no, but then gets a glimpse of the true power of God and says yes to the work of the kingdom? Or will we be like the son who says yes, but then gets lost in the world’s power and abandons the kingdom work to be done? Which power will we follow? Which power will we cling to? That’s the question. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.