Sticking to our word.

“…For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him...’’ (Matt 21:32)

Matthew 21:28-32 (Year A: Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity 1^st October 2017)

Dictum meum pactum / my word is my trust

Someone’s word is their trust.  Or, is it?

Many a promise has been made in a rush of enthusiasm or prolonged positive feeling.  When the storms come or when circumstances change, the initial promise and zeal comes under strain.  Like in the parable of the sower, the worries, trials and attractions of life can blow us off course and we are at risk of losing our initial clarity of vision and determination of will. Questions arise. Doubts are sown and regrets begin to sprout. 

Words come easily when there are few clouds in the sky and all seems bright and easy. The same might be said of a religious experience when someone had a very strong sense of God’s love at a particular moment in time and in a particular place.  We might give our ‘all’ and our ‘yes’ in such circumstances. Then, a year later or 40 years later we might be tempted give only a qualified ‘all’ and a qualified ‘yes’ (if a ‘yes’ at all).

Actions speak louder than words.

Yet, words are extremely important. They arise from the Life that is within us and they give Life to those with whom we share conversations in the daily journey of life. 

For Jesus declared in Matthew 7:21

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Perhaps, the parable of the two sons reminds us that we need to consider carefully what it is that we are saying yes to. Perhaps, the first son was right to avoid saying yes, initially. ‘But later he changed his mind and went’ (v. 29).  The point is that the first son is an example of someone who does the will of God having thought the matter over and having opened himself or herself to God’s grace (we never say ‘yes’ without the help and free grace of God).  The ‘second son’ is something of an unreliable character who promised much but ended up delivering little.

On a more ordinary everyday level, we might associate the first son with people who make lists, have lots of plans and are always about to deliver but never carry out what it is that they promised or undertook to do. The second son might be a difficult sort who is stubborn and unwilling to commit but who actually delivers. Clearly, the doer (the second son) is the preferred response. However, we might combine something of both traits from the two sons and be enthusiastic doers of God’s word.

The Gospel of Matthew ..

was written at a particularly difficult moment among the first Jewish Christians, many of whom were faced with exclusion, rejection and excommunication from the closely-knit community centred around the Synagogue (or Temple a decade or so earlier).  Many of the first ones presented to God had rejected the One God had sent but many of the second ones (sinners, tax-collectors, prostitutes and the gentile who were, by definition, unclean). Such were the times in which the Good News had to be refined and communicated to a new generation of believers who had not seen the Lord in the flesh some 50 years previously. The audience, according to Matthew, for this passage were the chief priests and elders and the location was the Temple in Jerusalem (which would be destroyed some 40 years later or 10 years before Matthew Gospel was written from various oral and other written sources). (Matthew 21:23-27)

We might, sometimes, backtrack on our promises and words but God is ever faithful and waits patiently and lovingly for us to return to him (2 Peter 3:9)

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

Are there among us those who consider themselves safe and sound..

on the right side of God? Do we look with disdain on the masses of the unwashed – heretics, non-believers, people living very different lifestyles to those approved by traditional norms, etc.? Might there be more manifestations of Godly righteousness and compassion outside our church circles than within?  We might, yet, be in for a shock in the fullness of time.