After about a month and a half of getting settled in, teachers, parents, and students are off and running. The new school year is officially underway. Across the state of Arkansas teachers have welcomed new flocks of learners. Classrooms are clean, stocked with supplies, SMART Boards and Chromebooks. Students are sporting new uniforms and backpacks. Just a few months ago these students admired, with awe and wonder, the upperclassmen whose very desks they now occupy. They’ve honorably graduated to the next grade, living out all of the rights and privileges matriculation entails.
So, despite these newfound rights and privileges, why are the first few weeks of school so challenging? I have three teens now–a couple of high schoolers and and eighth grader–and they’ve just about perfected their delay tactics. I drive them to school in the morning, and we can never quite make it to the car at the same time. Somebody’s still making their lunch, brushing their teeth, or putting on their shoes while the rest of us wait in the driveway watching the seconds on the dashboard clock tick by.
I do take comfort in the knowledge that other households have experienced the same drama. And, if I’m being honest, I admit that it’s occasionally me who is late getting to the car in the mornings. The kids love that. It seems when change happens, even positive change, it can take awhile for us to catch up.
Take the chief priests and the elders, whom we hear about in today’s Gospel. For them, Jesus represents change and they don’t like it. In this temple showdown, the chief priests and elders publicly question Jesus’ teaching authority. Jesus masterfully turns things around by asking them their opinion on John the Baptist, a very controversial figure at the time. The public saw great value and truth in John, while the temple officials were skeptical. In a forum like this, Jesus’ questioners had to tread carefully lest they lose public support.
Jesus does not relent. He offers a parable. Two sons – one is asked by his father to go work in the vineyard. The son initially says no but later changes his mind and obeys his father’s request. The second son is asked by his father to work in the vineyard as well. This son initially agrees but later shirks his responsibility. Jesus’ question to the chief priests and the elders is this: “Which of the two sons did the will of his father?” The answer is obvious. The first. He goes on to explain to his questioners that John the Baptist, a righteous man, came and was rejected by the officials while others believed. And now that the truth of which John the Baptist spoke is being lived out in the person of Jesus, the healer and miracle-worker right in front of them, the officials refuse to change their minds even still.
As far as the officials were concerned, this purported healer and miracle-worker was more likely a working-class man from a backwater town with a quick, troublesome tongue. And as far as Jesus was concerned, these officials were far too worried about protecting the status quo and their well-honed religious dogma that they could no longer see God at work in their midst. In fact, they seemed to be threatened by the possibility.
You see, if the chief priests and elders were to recognize Jesus as the long awaited messiah, so much would have to change. It would be complicated, uncomfortable, and messy. It would upset the hierarchy. It would expose the inequalities in cultural and social practices. It would force them to examine their lives and question their behaviors. Yes, they wanted the messiah to come, but not this messiah!
Before we get too carried away pointing fingers at the antagonists in this story, let’s not miss the Gospel’s challenge to us. You and I may have come to recognize Jesus as the messiah, but that doesn’t mean we are immune to resisting a potential change that is set before us. We, too, can be blinded by our desire to find what is comfortable. We can obsess about our plans and our interests so much that we can fail to see the one we seek, even when that one is right in front of us.
This line of thinking applies to communities as well. Just as an individual can be resistant to new situations and ideas, so can a group of individuals, like say, the Church. You’ve heard the joke: “How many church members does it take to change a light bulb?” “Change!? Change!? My grandmother paid for that light bulb!” We all appreciate grandmother’s generous donation of the light bulb, don’t get me wrong, but how does focusing our energy on preserving that bulb “restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” as we’re called to do?
I don’t mean to be too critical of the Church. After all, resistance seems to be in our DNA. It is something we are destined to struggle with generation after generation. In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he reminds the fledgling Christian community to look not to their own interests, to do nothing from selfish ambition and conceit, but instead to let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. A church two thousand years ago needed that encouragement to look beyond themselves, their possessions, and their comforts, to find the often challenging will of Christ in their midst. I would argue that we can benefit from that same encouragement today.
You know, I think the great tragedy in formal education is that it comes to an end. Kids make their way from pre-K to twelfth grade, and some on to college and graduate school, but then it’s over and day-to-day work life sets in. Many feel like they have received their degree and completed their education. Instead of being challenged each year to move to the next classroom and sit in an upperclassman’s desk we stay right where we are because it’s more comfortable.
But it seems the Gospel is calling us out of our comfort and urging us to take the more unsettled attitude of a life-long learner. Imagine for a moment believing that God could do something new in our lives and in our community. And if we embrace a Christ who is truly active, then we have some wonderful work to do. We can look beyond our doors and creatively invite others to join us. We can challenge our church and each other to walk the meaningful path towards resurrection, instead of just rearranging the stones along the way. God is beckoning us to move up a grade and open our hearts and minds, to recognize that the divine teacher we have been seeking is among us today. Amen.
Proper 21, Year A