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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
At one point or another in our lives, who among us has not either told those in authority over us that we would not do something that they told us to do, but afterwards changed our minds and done it, or told those in authority over us that we would do something but not done it? Of course, we may also have told those in authority over us that we were not going to do something and not done it, or told them that we were going to do something and done it. But, those two situations, where the initial statement and subsequent action agree, are not the two situations that Jesus presents in the parable of today’s Gospel Reading. Rather, in the so-called “Parable of the Two Sons”, Jesus uses two situations where the initial and subsequent action disagree, in order to show some Jewish leaders their sin in regards to His authority and so ultimately also to call them to repentance and faith in Him. And, this morning, the Holy Spirit can also use today’s Gospel Reading: to show us our sin in regards to God’s authority, to call us to repentance and faith, and so also to forgive us our sins by grace through faith in Jesus. This morning we direct our consideration of today’s Gospel Reading to the theme “God the Father’s authority and His children’s repentance and faith”.
The day after Palm Sunday, some Jewish leaders came to Jesus while He was teaching in the temple courts, and those Jewish leaders asked Jesus basically one question about His authority to do the things that He was doing—things that likely included the teaching He was doing then and there, as well as such things as His the day before entering Jerusalem with the people’s essentially acclaiming Him to be a king, His clearing out of the temple courts those who bought and sold there, and His healing the blind and lame (Matthew 21:1-17). Not to be evasive, but in keeping with the method of debate in that day, Jesus answered the Jewish leaders’ one question about His authority by asking them one question about John the Baptizer’s authority. And, when the Jewish leaders would not answer Jesus’s question, then neither did Jesus answer their question. The parable that Jesus told next, about a father’s authority and his children’s response, along with the conclusion that Jesus drew from that parable, made clear that the authority not only of John, but also of Jesus, to Whom John pointed, was the authority of the Kingdom of God, and that, like the tax collectors and prostitutes, whom the Jewish leaders looked down on, the Jewish leaders needed to repent and believe, not only John, but also Jesus, to whom John pointed.
We might say that the Jewish leaders were not only challenging Jesus’s authority but also trying to stand in judgment over Jesus (TLSB, ad loc Matthew 21:23-27, p.1629). The Jewish leaders rejected God’s purposes for themselves by not having repented of their sin, not having believed that Jesus was the Messiah (the Christ), and not having been baptized by John (Luke 7:30). Not that the Jewish leaders could not be forgiven of their initial rejection, or not that by nature they were any better or worse than the tax collectors and prostitutes, or any better or worse than us, but the main point is that they did not repent of their sin and believe in Jesus. The Jewish leaders wanted to avoid a question about their unbelief, but they recognized the repenting son in the parable as the one doing his father’s will, and so they condemned themselves and earned Jesus’s right condemnation of their unbelief. The tax collectors and prostitutes were going into the Kingdom of God, while the Jewish leaders would not go into the Kingdom of God at all. What about you and me? Are we children who think or say that we are doing the will of our Heavenly Father but in fact are not and so are being kept out of the Kingdom of God? Or, are we children who have not obeyed His authority but then had our minds changed and done His will by repenting, believing, and being baptized, absolved, and communed?
As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32), the Lord is just: we each are individually responsible if we fail to turn away from our wickedness, or, once we have turned away, if we return to our wickedness, and temporal and eternal life or death are at stake! The Lord has no pleasure in the death of anyone, and so He calls and enables us to repent and live. When we repent, then God forgives us. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 25:1-10; antiphon: v.4), the Lord remembers not the sins of our youth or our transgression but instead remember us according to His steadfast love (His “mercy”). God freely forgives our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who, although He was true God, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Philippians 2:1-18), became also true man and humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. On the cross, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world; on the cross, He died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. Out of His great love for us, Jesus perfectly did His Father’s will, perfectly obeyed His Father’s authority, and was given authority to lay down His life for us, effecting our forgiveness, and to take His life back up again (John 10:18).
Advancing God’s revelation from the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptizer pointed directly to Jesus as the way of God’s righteousness given by faith in Jesus, and Jesus’s apostles and their successors, pastors today, do likewise, with their own Divine authority to forgive sins for those who repent and believe: reading and preaching God’s Word to groups such as this one, and applying the Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. In Holy Baptism, God gives us a new heart and a new spirit, that confesses the sins they know and feel for the sake of Holy Absolution and that hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) and are satisfied in the Sacrament of the Altar, receiving forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
If it is not already explicitly clear, in the context of today’s Gospel Reading, the work in the vineyard that the father of the parable by his authority commands his two children to do is arguably cast parallel to God the Father by His authority commanding all of His children to repent and believe. Similarly, on an earlier occasion, when the crowds asked Jesus what they must do to be doing the works of God, Jesus told them that the work of God is that they believe in Him Whom God has sent (John 6:28-29). Our repenting and believing is first and foremost the result of God’s working in us; faith itself is a gracious gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). That said, we do in some sense work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and our doing other things with God’s help will naturally follow. For example, John the Baptizer told the crowds to share what they had, he told tax collectors to collect only what they were authorized to collect, and he told soldiers not to extort anyone and to be content with their wages (Luke 3:10-14). We also keep the Ten Commandments according to our vocations, and, when we fail to do so, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins.
At some level we all probably can relate to both children of the parable, having told those in authority over us that we would not do something that they told us to do, but afterwards, having changed our minds, having done it, or having told them that we would do something but not done it. This morning, as we have directed our consideration of today’s Gospel Reading to the theme “God the Father’s authority and His children’s repentance and faith”, the Holy Spirit has used today’s Gospel Reading: to show us our sin in regards to God’s authority, to call us to repentance and faith, and so also to forgive us our sins by grace through faith in Jesus. Now and for eternity, we so confess Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +