Practice What We Preach

 

Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill           The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling 

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a sermon many years ago on this parable told by Jesus. She called it “The Yes and No Brothers.” Now I imagine that most of you will say “yes” to a request and actually carry through with your intentions. Or sometimes you will say “no” because you cannot or do not want to respond to someone’s “ask” for very good reasons. Both responses have integrity.

And then Jesus tells us this parable about those two brothers' responses to their father. One says, “yes” but doesn’t follow through in his actions. The other says “no” but eventually changes his mind and goes to work in the vineyard. What’s going on here? What point is Jesus actually trying to make?

Perhaps you remember that famous quote? “Practice what you preach”? Which begs the question. How can we live out our faith with integrity? Now, if we say “yes” all the time, we may become an easy target or the proverbial doormat. If we say “no” all the time, we are accused of being curmudgeons and selfish. And then if we say one thing and do another, we become liars or hypocrites. Never mind that there may be good reasons for changing our minds.

In her sermon “The Yes and No Brothers” Barbara Brown Taylor refers to a book by Isak Dinesen entitled Out of Africa. “In it, she tells the story of a young Kikuyu boy named Kitau who appeared at her door in Nairobi one day to ask if he might work for her. She said yes and he turned out to be a fine servant; but just after three months he came to ask her for a letter of recommendation to Sheik Ali bin Salim, a Muslim in Mombasa. Upset at the thought of losing him, she offered to raise Kitau's pay, but he was firm about leaving.”

“He had decided he would become either a Christian or a Muslim, he explained, and his whole purpose in coming to live with her had been to see the ways and habits of Christians up close. Next he would go live for three months with Sheik Ali to see how Muslims behaved and then he would make up his mind. Aghast, Dinesen wrote, ‘I believe that even an Archbishop, when he had these facts laid before him, would have said, or at least thought as I did, ‘Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came to work for me.”

For the most part, we intend to do good, to be responsive to people’s requests for help, to be faithful, and to follow through with what we’ve agreed to do, but then for one reason or another, we may change our minds. We fail to carry through with our good intentions. And even so, our good intentions don’t always translate into good actions.

First, let me be clear. Today, when I’m talking about changing our minds, I’m talking about our decision-making process and the resulting actions. Are they true, good, loving and kind? Are they helpful or harmful and to whom? And does our stubborn pride or human arrogance prevent us from changing our minds?

            So what about those two brothers in today’s parable? Presumably their father needs some help at work and so he turns to his sons with a request. One son responds to his father’s “ask” by saying that he will go, but then he doesn’t. The other brother says “no” but then later changes his mind. So Jesus asks the crowd, “which of the two did the will of his father?” It’s an easy answer right? It’s not about what the brothers said, Jesus suggests, but rather what they actually did.

            I spent a few days in early September in the Adirondack mountains at the home of one of our best friends. Every year for the last several decades, Paul and I have gathered with a small community of friends to share food, hiking, conversation, and prayers. At the end of our visit together, we gather in the chapel for Holy Eucharist and reflection upon scripture. This year we talked about “changing our minds.” Why do we change our minds? And does God ever change God’s mind? we wondered.

Examples surfaced. President Zelensky decided to change his mind about his defense minister and then fired his six deputies, feeling the need for a new approach to the on-going war against Russia, and changing what some people claimed was a corrupt system. Recently the leaders of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute unexpectedly changed their minds, and plan to realign their organization with Beth Israel Hospital after decades of a relationship with Mass General Brigham. Reasons varied. Getting closer to home, our conversation turned to the upcoming election for our new president. How and when and why do leaders and voters change their minds?

Which led our group into a conversation about the difference between being a leader and having authority. Leaders who are hired or elected are given authority to make changes in organized institutions, businesses, and democratic societies. Not so, with Jesus. He had no religious authority when he walked into that temple to teach people about the kingdom of God. Indeed he might have been accused of having chutzpah when he was confronted by the chief priests and elders about his teaching. Never mind that only days before Jesus had overturned tables and cleansed the Temple.

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” they demanded. Typical of Jesus and common to rabbis in his day, he answered their questions with one of his own. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” he asked them. When they would not answer, because they were afraid, he told them this parable.

            I often hear that people who choose not to go to church will point to the hypocrisy of Christians. And while we can argue that all people are hypocritical at times, that is we will say yes when we mean no, or we will behave contrary to our standard moral guidelines, our actions may belie our stated beliefs. There is an obvious lack of integrity. And this is why Jesus told the parable to the chief priests and elders. Unlike them, He was using his authority from God to do good for God’s people not to maintain his own personal power and privilege. He was a leader of and for and by the people.

In fact, that was the point that Jesus was making to the religious leaders of his time. They weren’t practicing what they preached. Nor were they interested in who Jesus was nor willing to consider any changes to their liturgy, laws, and life. Maybe you answered correctly, he was saying to them, but you are not behaving according to the will of God. Indeed, despite your great authority in our religious tradition, those who you consider to be the worst sinners of all will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you!

            Parents jokingly will say to their children, “Do as I say, not as I do” and children, like Jesus, have a way of calling us out with our inconsistencies. My granddaughter and I were sitting in the back seat of our truck on Cape Cod this summer when we began fastening our seat belts. I struggled with mine so I decided to hold it down in the cracks between the seats and pretend that I was buckled in. Elia looked over at me and said, “NanaGoose, I know what you are doing!”

            It’s not always easy to make faithful decisions, to say “yes” or “no” or even to change our minds about long-held and established traditions and beliefs. It’s not always easy to follow through with our good intentions. In truth, we may do things we shouldn’t and we will fail at our attempts to do good. We will miss the mark despite what we think is our clear aim. And so we sin.

And thankfully, God did change God’s mind about us. According to our salvation story, after the flood, God promised Noah that God would never take that action again. Then after the crucifixion of Jesus, God promised that our sins would be forgiven once and for all people. Recently, I saw a young man wearing a t-shirt that said, “If you bring up my past you should know that Jesus dropped all the charges.”

            Does that let us off the hook for our daily behavior? No. Like that ever popular phrase, “We can do better.”  We can seek to know the will of God and to follow Jesus in the Way of love. We can say “yes” to God even when it means that loving others is hard work. And we can say “no” without any guilt. We can ask ourselves that question “what would Jesus do?” and then do it.

            Barbara Brown Taylor ended her sermon with these words: “To quote Soren Kierkegaard, Jesus wants followers, not admirers. Whether we say yes or no to him is apparently less important to him than what we actually do. To tell which brother you are, - look in the mirror. What is moving? Your mouth or your feet?” Or as Benjamin Franklin once said, ““Well done is better than well said.”

            Each day is a new beginning; and we can do better, because God helps us. As St. Paul once wrote to the Philippians “for it is God who is at work in (us), enabling (us) to both will and work for his good pleasure.” Today may we practice what we preach. Amen.

           

Philippians 2:1-13              Matthew 21:23-32