19th Sunday after Pentecost Ezekiel 18

19^th Sunday after Pentecost Ezekiel 18.1-4, 25-32

25 September 2005 Psalm 25.1-14

St. George’s Episcopal Church Philippians 2.1-13

Le Mars, Iowa Matthew 21.28-32

The Rev. Dr. Karen Wacome, Presiding

Dr. Donald Wacome, Lay Preaching

Saying Yes to God

Jesus rides into Jerusalem, enacting Zechariah’s prophecy:

Look, your king is coming to you,

humble, and mounted on a donkey!

and throws the city, already thronged with pilgrims there for the Passover festival, into an uproar. Then he goes into the Temple compound and attacks the merchants who are exchanging money and selling animals for the sacrifices. When he returns the next day, the priests and elders ask,

By what authority do you do these things?

In the circumstances, this is a pretty mild reaction. But Jesus’ response, the parable of the two sons that is today’s lesson, is contentious: The religious leaders who ask this perfectly reasonable question are the son who makes a show of obedience to the father, but in reality blows him off. Because they do not accept Jesus as their king, they say “No!” to God. In contrast those who seem to have been saying “No!” to God in every possible way, the prostitutes and tax collectors who follow Jesus are like the son who at first refuses the father, but in the end obeys. One more move in the end game where Jesus goads the leaders of Israel to accept him unconditionally as God’s anointed, or to reject him unequivocally. Saying “No!” to God can sound for all the world like saying “Yes!”

And what in time becomes a “Yes!” to God can sound like an emphatic “No!” Archbishop Williams writes, “To come to the point where you disbelieve passionately in a certain kind of God may be the most important step you can take in the direction of the true God.” Among the times I’ve suspected that I’m doing something worthwhile in the kingdom of God are those when a student sits in my office and says, “Dr. Wacome, don’t be shocked, but I’m not a Christian, I just don’t believe in God.” More or less impervious to shock, I say, “Really? Tell me what you don’t believe.” Almost invariably, I can honestly respond to whatever they say with, “Oh, I don’t believe any of that stuff either.” For the religion of control and condemnation they reject bears no relation to the good news of Jesus; the God in whom they have lost faith is not the loving God we meet in Jesus. For them, the only way to the gracious God who was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, is through disbelief. Before the coming of the true God, there is the breaking of the idols.

The question to ask ourselves is where we say “No!” to God, even if only in a whisper we hardly hear ourselves. The authorities Jesus contended with in the Temple are not alone in having a hard time accepting a God who comes to us not in the trappings of prestige and power, but in humility and weakness. Charles Moore, a member of the Bruderhof community, confesses, Jesus “is too powerless for my liking; he’s too much like the person I don’t want to be, but actually am....Humility I could handle, but naked vulnerability repulses me....Deep down, I am not willing to receive the one who unveils my powerlessness.”[1] We are, reasonably enough, put out that God does not use his power to keep bad things from happening–terror attacks, wars, tsunamis, hurricanes, buses filled with old people exploding–and behind that lies the fear that maybe God somehow has lost that power, that by recklessly making himself weak in Jesus he really has given up the wherewithal to make things right. How confident can we be in a God who acts as though he has no interest in being God? How can we trust a God who renounces his power and calls us to do the same? Nothing so effectively arouses our anger, fear and denial as feeling powerless. We want–we need–that inner stronghold where we’re in control, where we’re invulnerable, where we’re physically, spiritually, intellectually, morally, and religiously secure. We want to insist on God doing his job and guaranteeing that for us. Acknowledging the voice within that says “No!” to the God who is in Christ is vital to letting him be for us who he really is and not replacing him with a consoling but lifeless idol. The picture of Jesus humble on his little donkey is nice, but what we really want is the king who, after producing a satisfying display of shock and awe, rolls in in an M-60 tank, plants the flag, brings in the International Court of Justice, and makes everything come out right in the end. What we get instead is a God who gives it all up and dies in our place.

N. T. Wright notes that “when people ask, ‘Was Jesus God?’ they usually think they know what the word ‘God’ means and are asking whether we can fit Jesus into that.”[2] But the only God we know is the one made all too vulnerable flesh, the one who, as St. Paul told the church at Philippi, “did not regard equality with God a something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” God himself says “No!” to God, that is, to a certain possibility, to a plausible way of being God, in order to be the God who makes himself available to us, the empty God, who makes room for us in himself and quietly asks for his place in us. In Charles Moore’s words, “this weak God finds his home in impoverished places, in hearts that have nothing to offer.” Christus Victor who casts all sin, evil and death into hell...he is yet the one of whom R. S. Thomas can say in his poem “Crucifixion:”

Satisfied to be the savior

not of the world, not

of the species, but of the one

anonymous member

of the gambling party

at the foot of the cross.

The leaders of the Temple ask Jesus by what authority–by what power; the word is ekouisoa–he does the outrageous things he does. Jesus supplies no answer they can comprehend; he does not justify himself; he does not explain himself. His only answer is to become powerless for the sake of the powerless, weak on behalf of the weak, to give up what is his and to take upon himself–and into the very life of God–the world’s sin and suffering.

Jesus did not demand what was his by right; he did not insist on justice; on being treated fairly; in incomprehensible humility he gave all that up for our sakes. Paul calls us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” to make the humility of Christ our own. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus!” We are called to give up what is ours for the sake of Jesus, who gave himself up for us. For he is the one whose final, life-giving “Yes!” unhinges everything in us that says “No!” to God.

During apartheid, members of the South African security services, including an officer by the name of van der Broek, shot an 18-year old boy and, to destroy the evidence, burned his body. Several years after that, van der Broek returned, seized the boy’s father and, while forcing his wife to watch, tied him to a woodpile, poured gasoline over him, and set him on fire. Years later, apartheid at last ended and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission took up these murders, among the 20,000 human rights violations it sought to bring to light. The Commission’s rule was that if the perpetrator of an atrocity told the truth about his crime and confessed his guilt, he would not be punished, but receive amnesty. This is, of course, a flagrant disregard of justice. Hundreds of individuals avoided punishment for thousands of horrific acts. Often, the friends and family of victims were present at the amnesty hearings. For them to share in the amnesty process was to forego the retribution to which they had every right, and for which many had longed for years.

The woman whose son and husband van der Broek had murdered was present as he recounted his crimes. When he finished, one of the judges asked her, “What do you want from Mr. Broek?”

Gazing on the Afrikaans officer, the frail black woman, now in her seventies, replied, "I want three things. I want him to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned and to gather up the dust so I can give his remains a decent burial." Van der Broek, his head down, nodded agreement. Then she continued, "My husband and son were my only family. So I ask for Mr. van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining within me." She paused: “And, finally, I would ask someone to help me across the courtroom so I can take Mr. van der Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven." As the bailiff led the elderly woman across the courtroom, Mr. van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he had heard, fainted. Then spontaneously those in the courtroom, friends, family, and neighbors–all victims of similar oppression and injustice began softly singing: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. ‘Twas blind, but now I see.

That South African woman emptied herself, refusing to regard what belonged to her as something to be exploited, and instead took on the humility of Christ, giving place to his forgiving, healing love in this wrecked and bloodstained world. Let the same mind be in us.

Amen

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