Every Saturday, my headstrong elder son would balk.
“Not now, Mom!” he would holler. “Why do you always make us do chores? None of our friends have to do chores! You’re just a neat-freak! Everything is perfectly clean right now! Just leave us alone!”
His younger siblings, in sweet contrast, would always answer, eyes still glued to the TV, “Sure, Mommy! We’ll do it. See 'ya later!”
When I would come home from my errands, though, it wasn’t unusual to find my elder son’s chores all finished, while his younger siblings were still glued to the TV in their pj's.
In one way or another, today’s Gospel parable is a familiar scene to us all. When it comes to Almighty God, it isn’t often that we dare come out and say “NO!” like my son. But it’s so easy to talk the talk, yet wimp out on actually putting our Christian words into deeds. How much easier it is to “like” a clever meme on social media than to actually take action for a cause! When it comes to following Jesus, taking real action is even harder. He’s asking us to do such impossibly difficult things, like loving our enemy and forgiving one another and following him to the Cross. Who’s eager to go into that vineyard?! It’s so easy to feel paralyzed by shame over our failure to act, especially when it comes to something as frightening as climate change.
Most of us here today know and accept the disastrous impact that our way of life is having on our world. We’re not the people out there denying that there’s a problem, or refusing to acknowledge the extent of the impact of climate change. But at the same time, our understanding presents us with really hard, life-altering choices. Do I really want to divest from fossil fuels, even if it negatively impacts my retirement portfolio? Do I really want to spend my hard-earned money on solar energy or an EV or a new HVAC system, when I’d rather jump on a gas-guzzling airplane for a trip to Europe or remodel the decor in my basement? Do I really want to pay more for my food so that it can be grown in a sustainable way? Do I really want to get out in the hot sun and spend every day in a home garden that could be devoured at any time by rabbits and bugs? It’s one thing to agree with what needs to be done, and, as the second son in our parable knows all too well, it’s another thing to do it.
How is today’s parable, then, Good News for those of us who, in one way or another, fail to follow where Love leads?
Let’s look at the setting of our parable in Matthew’s narrative. Before the scene we read today, Jesus and his disciples have recently arrived in Jerusalem with quite a ruckus. It’s the dramatic entry into the city that we remember every Palm Sunday, with the crowd waving palm branches and crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” full of excitement that the Messiah has come. If that isn’t enough to threaten the powers-that-be, Jesus has just come from the Temple, where he’s thrown a prophetic tantrum and overturned the money-changers’ tables. The religious leaders don’t like it that Jesus is moving in on their territory. He’s interfering in Temple matters without any formal authority. He’s messing with the orderly universe in which they operate. In figuring out how to deal with Jesus, they see it as a power-struggle. They want to undermine his authority in order to get their own way.
That’s the way I used to view parenting, too, I’m afraid. I worried that my children wouldn’t learn right from wrong unless they obeyed my commands. I wanted to make them share my vision of a clean house. My blood would boil when my elder son would refuse to do what I asked, and then it would boil again when the younger ones would ignore me. For me, Saturday mornings were a power-struggle to be dreaded, a trap from which I couldn’t free myself.
Jesus, however, isn’t interested in a power struggle—either with the religious authorities or with you and me. Jesus knows that authority, unlike power, can’t force itself onto someone else by violence. It can only be given.[1] Now, sometimes, authority is bestowed in order to achieve a certain end: A police officer is given authority by the laws of the city, county, or state to make arrests, for example. But in other cases, authority must also be freely accepted by those beneath the person in authority. Yelling at a child might give you power over him, but not true authority. Coming in with riot gear might make you powerful, but it won’t give you authority over someone once you take that gear off. Authority is different than brute power.
Instead of directly confronting the religious leaders in our lesson, Jesus calmly asks questions that will up-end their thinking. Jesus’ authority lies in changing hearts and minds. Jesus asks the religious leaders—and us—“What do you think?” He’s giving us a choice. We can accept his authority, or we can turn away from it. No coercion, no threats, just an invitation: “What do you think?”
Not only does Jesus ask us to decide, he also emphasizes the importance of changing our minds, deciding anew, again and again. Jesus praises the tax collectors and prostitutes for “changing their cares,” for changing heart, changing their way of life. That’s what “repentance” means, too, you know: changing our mind, turning around, starting over. Jesus issues us all a permanent invitation to change paths.[2]
When it comes to climate change action, here too I picture Jesus asking us, “And now, today, what will you do?” Past failures can’t prevent us from changing our minds, from trying again. We don’t need to stay frozen in shame or in indecision, because each instant, we are invited anew. One thing that I learned in Mariann Budde’s book about bravery—that we’ll start discussing today after coffee time—is that decisive actions aren’t always big and public. Sometimes they’re small acts of persistence, quiet steps in the right direction. They ebb and flow, day after day, taking form slowly, and with the help of community, with mentors and friends who support and encourage us.
I hope that the Episcopal “Creation Care Covenant” that we’ll pick up today in our church boxes will help us encourage and support one another to take some new action to care for this creation that God loves. Sure, maybe today some of you might look at the papers and grumble, “This is dumb. We want our old pledge cards back!” You might toss the form in the recycling bin. And maybe tomorrow you’ll decide to go ahead and take on some actions, quietly, without telling anyone. Or perhaps you’ll look at the Covenant and get so inspired that you write down ten things—and do none of them. If so, then tomorrow is a new day, when you just might “change your cares” and start taking action, one step at a time.
Our forgiving God continues to invite us all, you see. There’s another parable in the Bible that begins with the phrase, “a man had two sons.”[3] Can you guess which one that is? Yes, it’s the parable of the Prodigal Son, the parable in which we’re once again asked to choose between two sons, this time an elder and a younger. While we usually identify with one or the other, the Father in the parable doesn’t make a choice between his children. The Father loves both sons. The Father longs for nothing more than to have both sons with him always.
Our loving God offers us life, not chores and obligations. Our God doesn’t storm back in from the grocery store wanting to show us who’s boss. Our God invites us, as many times as is necessary, to put on the borrowed robes of Jesus and to join him freely and joyfully in the concrete, daily deeds of love that will care for our planet—and bring about God’s Kingdom.
[1] David Lose, “Pentecost 16A: Promising an open future.” Found at http://www.davidlose.net/2014/09/pentecost-16a-open-future/
[2] “Is God With Us,” September 25, 2023. Found at https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/9/21/is-god-with-us-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-seventeenth-week-after-pentecost
[3] Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 85.
