Sunday Worship 1 October 2023

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Nicola Furley-Smith

 
Call to Worship
 

The Psalmist says:  teach me your ways and make them known to me. Teach me to live according to your truth – teach it to me – because you are my God who saves me.  I put my hope in you all day long. Remember, your kindness and constant love – they are forever!  Forgive the errors of my foolish and childish ways.  Remember me only according to your faithful love  for the sake of your goodness, Lord.
 
 
Hymn:   At the Name of Jesus
Caroline M. Noel (1870)  BBC Songs of Praise
 

At the name of Jesus
ev’ry knee shall bow,
ev’ry tongue confess him
King of glory now;
’tis the Father’s pleasure
we should call him Lord,
who from the beginning
was the mighty Word.
 
Humbled for a season
to receive a name
from the lips of sinners
unto whom he came,
faithfully he bore it
spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious
when from death he passed;

 May I run the race before me,
strong and brave to face the foe,
looking only unto Jesus
as I onward go.
 
Reading        St Matthew 21: 23-32
 
When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 
 
“What do you think? 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.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 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.
 
Sermon
 
I like a good grumble!  Who doesn’t? The exiles in Babylon were no different. Why has this happened to us? Whose fault is it? Who’s to blame? And they remember the popular proverb: The parents ate green apples but it was the children who got stomach ache. 
 
So it’s our parents’ and grandparents’ and great-grand-parents’ fault that we’re now in this terrible situation,  they say.   Whatever they did, it must have been pretty bad because now look what’s happened to us.  It’s not our fault, it’s not fair, God’s not fair.
 
But it wasn’t just a popular saying in Ezekiel’s time. It was also a dangerous saying.
It was a proverb that would lead a people from sickness to death. These simple words had seduced them to surrender, to resignation, because in the face of horrible pain they could see no way out. Instead of asking what they could change, they told each other that they had no choice: suffering was the only option available. 
 
We may never have eaten a deadly sour grape or know exactly what it means to have our teeth set on edge, but we get the gist of the proverb in Ezekiel:  The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.  In other words, children suffer the consequences of their parents’ actions. They use the proverb to exonerate themselves of any responsibility for their situation: they are not in exile through any fault of their own but rather are suffering for the sins of their ancestors.
 
We need to remember the people of Israel lived as a community rather than a collection of individuals. They believed that their good or bad luck was a consequence of the good or bad behaviour of the majority.  And because there was no belief in life after death, the reward or punishment for the behaviour of that majority had to be experienced in this life; So because things were going badly, that was taken as punishment for what their ancestors’ had done.  
 
This communal experience of guilt and punishment explains their belief that God’s justice demands the iniquity of the parents is visited upon the children and the children’s children,  to the third and the fourth generation to quote Exodus. It’s hard to find fault with that.
 
Children sometimes do suffer from their parent’s mistakes. We only have to look at the mess of our world: What on earth were my parents and grand-parents and great grandparents thinking?
 
The exiles are digging themselves deeper and deeper onto a black hole of despair, 
blaming others for the state they are in.  And it is against this backdrop that God proposes an alternative understanding of the nature of justice .For God, the issue is not how the proverb is used, but that it’s used at all. 
God cuts them short:
 
As sure as I’m the living God, you’re not going to repeat this saying in Israel any longer. Every soul—man, woman, child—belongs to me, parent and child alike. You die for your own sin, not another’s.
 
God’s speech grounds their responsibility. God is a living God, dynamic, engaged in the present life of the people just as much as God had been in their past.
 
The verses that are omitted from our reading break the basic premise of the proverb. 
 
A wicked son does not benefit from his father’s righteousness,  nor does he jeopardise his son’s chance at life.  And because all life belongs to God, even the lives of the wicked, the future remains open, not only for children of the bad, but also for the bad themselves.
 
Somewhat surprisingly, the exiles protest: God’s way doesn’t add up they bleat.
 
It was the wrong thing to say. God throws it back at them: Isn’t it that your ways don’t measure up? My measures are certainly in order. It’s you who are using faulty measures. 
 
You are willing to throw away your own life, which is worth everything. 
By what measures would you prefer a life of suffering to the freedom of being able to repent, to change course, and to gain life? 
 
So perhaps the real riddle of this reading is why the people prefer their proverb and not God’s offer of life. To choose a fatalistic proverb over a God who delights in life makes no sense at all.
Although the exiles don’t get to answer that question, we can guess that the argument in chapter 18 forces them to acknowledge their own responsibility. They want to see themselves as innocents, children suffering for parents’ sins. If that perception gives them the freedom to remain victims of others’ actions, it also renders them helpless to move into new patterns of life.
 
Ezekiel challenges them “Yes, we’re having a bad time but we’re alive! There’s nothing to gain from blaming our parents; if we want to free ourselves we must take responsibility ourselves.  God doesn’t take any pleasure in anyone’s death  – so turn to him, and live!”. God’s offer of life stands. 
 
And that was Jesus’ message too. Repent, turn to God, for God’s reign is at hand! It’s close enough to see, if you have eyes for looking; it’s close enough to hear, if you have ears for listening.  The decision to accept or reject Jesus’ message, is ours and no-one else’s.  The responsibility is ours and no one else’s just as it was for the chief priests and the elders in the Jerusalem Temple.   
 
The question of authority is a theme in Matthew’s Gospel from the beginning. The acknowledgement that Jesus’ authority comes from God will be crucial for an effective discipleship follow-up programme at the end of his gospel All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… Who gave you the authority do you do these things? they ask Jesus. It wasn’t in their own self-interest to find out but that didn’t stop them asking.  Of course, as they should have known, Jesus tended to prompt people to answer their own question by asking one of his own and this time was no exception.  But before the question, he told them that story of the two sons.  
 
Both sons knew their responsibilities to their father but when he asked them to do something for him, the elder one said  ‘no’ but later changed his mind, the other said ‘yes’ but didn’t follow through. 
 
In our understanding of the story, we tend to focus on the behaviour of the two sons and what this parable what it says about them.  We agree that the better son is the one who, even belatedly, did what his father asked.  Jesus, on the other hand lived in a culture that still exists in many parts of the world where honour and reputation were more important than what was morally right.  The chief priests and elders, would more likely be thinking about  the way in which the honour of the father was defended or defamed.  So to them the one who said “yes, I’ll go”, even though he didn’t, at least showed respect to his father’s position.  In that sense, according to their culture, he was the better son.  But Jesus rarely offers a neat ending to his parables. He leaves that to his hearers.  
 
So instead of asking which son had done the right thing by the custom of society,  Jesus asks “Who did his father’s will?” and to that, there was only one answer.  Perhaps to Jesus’ surprise,  the chief priests and the elders answered correctly, then realise they had implicated themselves in Jesus’ challenge. 
 
In the parable, each son made his own choice. Each son was responsible for his own response to his father’s request. That was also the choice open to the chief priests and elders.  But their love for their own reputations, their love of controlling other people, got in the way of living their faith and of doing God’s will.  They turned away from Jesus with his words ringing in their ears: Tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom of God ahead of you.  
 
Where Ezekiel was talking to people whose bad situation had come about due to another’s power and control, Jesus was talking to the powerful who made situations bad for others.  
 
And yet to each group – the answer was similar:  take responsibility for your own lives with a love for others and ourselves which is both tough in the face of those who are proud, and compassionate in the face of those who are lost and the vulnerable.  God doesn’t take any pleasure in anyone’s pain– so turn to him, and live! God’s offer of life still stands.
 
We are at a pivotal moment in our church’s history. 51 years of Christian witness yet we, like most denominations, have a shrinking membership, tired buildings with less people to do all that we did in 1972 and more. We cannot leave it up simply to the good folk of the Church Life Review! Have we abdicated responsibility for our collective choices, adopting a pretense of powerlessness?  Is it easier to imagine that we can’t do anything to change what appears to be broken? 
 
Both Ezekiel and Matthew would say: What a lack of faith! What a lack of imagination! God calls this church, this generation, this people to stop making excuses, and stop hiding behind other people’s mistakes. We are to turn our honest gaze on ourselves and repent now, making life our ultimate value. We maybe a small church but we surely still have a big heart and even bigger ears to listen to God’s call?
 
God leaves it up to us to choose the way of life over the way of death. Perhaps we can understand the final words in that passage from Ezekiel Turn, then, and live ! God’s offer of life stands. Why don’t we turn, and live?     
 
Hymn    Christ’s is the World in Which we Move
             John L. Bell & Graham Maule © 1989 WGRG, Iona Community  BBC Songs of Praise
 

The love of God comes close
where stands an open door,
to let the stranger in,
to mingle rich and poor.
The love of God is here to stay,
embracing those who walk His Way.
 
The peace of God comes close
to those caught in the storm,
forgoing lives of ease
to ease the lives forlorn.
The peace of God is here to stay,
embracing those who walk His Way.
 
The joy of God comes close
where faith encounters fear,
where heights and depths of life
are found through smiles and tears.
The joy of God is here to stay,
embracing those who walk His Way.
 
The grace of God comes close
to those whose grace is spent,
when hearts are tired or sore
and hope is bruised and bent.
The grace of God is here to stay,
embracing those who walk His Way.

The Son of God comes close
where people praise His name,
where bread and wine are blest
and shared as when he came.
The Son of God is here to stay,
embracing those who walk His Way.
 
Blessing
 
Help us to follow your way; to obey your teaching; to trust in you.
Bless us now and always.
 
And the blessing of God Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit
be amongst us and remain with us this day and for evermore. Amen.

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