Proper 21, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Proper 21, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Exodus 17:1-7 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifying Spirit. Amen.
God offers life!
I want to begin there and end there today,
even if we wander through the muck of life in the middle…
because I think we need to hear that Good News in the midst of these days and times.
It seems our times are dark and filled, perhaps, with anxiety and fear and pain.
We live in a time when our politicians can’t seem to even have a conversation,
much less agree on anything…
political discourse is fear-mongering, finger-pointing, and self-aggrandizing.
We hear of wars and ousted leaders
along with our own country’s news of abuse of power and gun violence.
Natural disasters strike every side of our country,
and in our county affordable housing and help for substance abuse are hard to find.
I don’t know about you,
but I find that I don’t want to listen to more than about 5 minutes of news at a time,
yet I force myself to keep listening.
In addition to this more “global” reality,
we ourselves are experiencing the frailties of our own bodies
and grief at the loss of loved ones.
And yet…
in the midst of all of this,
God offers us life!
God offers us life.
To add to the complexity,
some of the darkness we experience may be of our own doing,
but much of it is not.
Etty Hillesum was a young Jewish woman who suffered much injustice,
none of her own doing,
in a concentration camp.
While at the Westerbork transit camp she wrote:
“There is a really deep well inside me.
“And in it dwells God.
“Sometimes I am there, too…
“And that is all we can manage these days
and also all that really matters:
that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.”
I am grateful for that image she offers:
that we safeguard that little piece of God,
in ourselves.
Even as she was surrounded by so much suffering,
she was well aware of God’s Presence with… and within her.
In today’s story from Exodus the whole congregation of the Israelites is grumbling again.
Life is hard:
they have no water to drink,
and no one can live without water!
So they complain to Moses:
Why did you bring us out of Egypt if we’re just going to die out here?
Their question is:
“Is the Lord among us or not?”
And the answer is: Absolutely!
Moses strikes the rock,
and God provides water to drink.
However dire the situation seems,
God will provide.
It may not be exactly what we were looking for,
but God is with us,
and God will provide.
Today’s psalmist reminds God’s people of God’s provision:
“[God] split open the sea and let them pass through.” (Ps 78:13a)
“[God] led them with a cloud by day,
and all the night through with a glow of fire.
“[God] split the hard rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as from the great deep.” (Ps 78:14-15)
God offers life!
The invitation to choose the ways of life is the topic of today’s gospel.
The chief priests and elders,
jealous of Jesus’ authority amongst the people
and afraid of his threat to their authority in the Temple,
try to trip Jesus up with questions.
“By what authority are you doing these things,
and who gave you this authority?”
Jesus doesn’t fall for their trap and offers a question back:
Answer me this:
“Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
They know that either answer will trip them up!
So, they remain silent rather than offer an honest conversation and defeat.
Jesus could have stopped with their silence, but he didn’t.
Let me ask you another question, Jesus says.
A man had two sons;
he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.”
He answered, “I will not”
but later he changed his mind and went.
The father went to the second and said the same;
and he answered, “I go, sir… “
but he did not go.
“Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said, “The first.”
They answered correctly.
The son who went and did as the father asked,
regardless of what the verbal response was.
Then Jesus tells the chief priests and the elders that the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of them because the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed John’s way of righteousness.
Jesus clearly says that those who “live it right” will enter the kingdom of God before those who merely “say it right.”
Take a moment to reflect:
Have you ever told someone you would do a thing and then not done it?
Have you ever told someone you would not do a thing and then,
perhaps because of an inner voice,
gone and done it anyway?
I imagine we have all done both…multiple times!
We have choice!
Always.
And we can always change our minds.
God offers life!
How will we choose?
Paul offers us a way to choose life over death:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” says Paul.
John Main, a Benedictine monk, said this about having the mind of Christ:
“Holiness is the point.
“It means to discover the Spirit of God within us.
“Wholly open to that Spirit
we are taken up into that spirit of love beyond all division…”
(Main, Door to Silence, p. 13)
And now we seem to find ourselves back at the words of Etty Hillesum:
“There is a really deep well inside me.
“And in it dwells God.
“Sometimes I am there, too…
“And that is all we can manage these days
and also all that really matters:
that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.”
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Possessing the mind of Christ,
we humble ourselves in the presence of another,
knowing that God is at work in and through us…
and – through the other!
We take up the work of love,
forgiving ourselves…
forgiving others…
standing up for justice and truth…
allowing God to dwell within us,
saying “yes” to the offer of life!
Amen.
