If you're gonna talk the talk, then walk the walk.

Sermon summary 25SEP11

"If you're gonna Talk the Talk, then Walk the Walk"

Matthew 21:23-32

For the last several Sundays we've been confronted with the parables of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew. I use the word confronted advisedly, for the parables of Jesus have a way of shaking us up, of surprising us, of shocking us, of shattering our worldview and trying to remake the way we see things and the way we do things. So these parables are often shocking to us.

In today's parable Jesus is teaching in the Temple of Jerusalem and the religious authorities come up and say to him "by whose authority do you do these things?" So Jesus begins speaking to them about John the Baptist and the way they refused to receive him. He was out in the wilderness and those who believed his message were baptized, but somehow that did not reach into the temple and the religious authorities: THEY did not believe John. So you notice when Jesus puts the "onus" on them, the authorities do what people often do when they don't know WHAT to do, they start doing theology. 

In seminary we would say we "do" theology, of course we would talk about theology it's not that we'd do anything about it. There is something about theology that's more than just talking about it. So these theologians know what to do, but they don't do it. So our Lord says to them: "that the prostitutes and tax collectors will be going into the Kingdom before you do; you have not heard, you have not repented, you have not changed your ways. Your theological thinking is stuck."

This parable is only told in Matthew's Gospel, and I think we can understand why when we realize that Matthew's Gospel was put first in the New Testament because it was a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The fulfillment of the Old Testament is expressed very well in Matthew's Gospel. It's a simple story isn't it? The first son is asked to go into the field to work, but he says "NO, I will not go", he's going to be disobedient to his father. After a while the father looks out into the field and sees that first son out in the field working. Now when asked, the second son says "oh, yes I'll go, no problem; I'll be in the field today", but after a couple of hours the second son is lying on the sofa watching MTV or whatever and not interested in going into the field AT ALL. Jesus asked which son did the will of his father. Obviously, the authorities realized the first son was doing his father's will, but somehow Jesus' point didn't sink in all the way. 

One thing we learn in life is that it's not all about "head knowledge". We may know a lot about something, but unless we put what we know into practice we haven't really learned anything. For example, you can have all the instruction on dance that you want, even a great lecture on what the dance is and it's origins; but until you learn the steps and get out on the dance floor with your partner and are able to get into the rhythm of the music and put what you've learned into practice, you really haven't learned how to dance. Or maybe in literature class you have an assignment to read Shakespeare's "King Lear", so you read "King Lear". But that is a play so you really don't get into the story until you see it acted out on stage, but even then, through seeing it acted out, you don't have the same understanding of the Character King Lear as someone who is playing his part in the play. And so it is with religion. We may have read the Bible from front to back many times. We may have read all of the books on theology that have ever been written. We may have all of these wonderful sermons that we've heard or read, but yet somehow we haven't connected all of that to our lives. Until we put faith into practice we haven't really grasped what things are all about. 

People will often ask me "what do you believe is a Christian?" like it's all about belief, that's all there is. But you see Jesus wasn't some philosopher who had this "system" that was all worked out: He taught, He preached; but the thing is he lived what he preached. Word and deed became one, there's no hypocrisy in Jesus at all. We can't say that about ourselves can we? If we examine ourselves we often find what we believe doesn't show forth in our lives. If people have to ask you what you believe, you may already have a problem. The early Christians lived their faith in such a way that people would say how those Christians have a love for one another. They saw it in their lives, they didn't have to ask them what they believed. The people knew they believed in something special and they wanted to be a part of that! So the conversions came about not so much by WHAT they believed, but HOW they lived. "Look at those Christians, how they love one another."

Well, we come to Church and a lot of times we sit here and listen to a lot of things. Scripture readings, hymns, the sermon... and we're sitting. Of course in the Episcopal Church we do have our religious calisthenics where we're up and down, we stand to praise, we kneel to pray, we sit for instruction. We're standing more these days in the Church, because that's more of a sign of action when you stand than kneeling or sitting. But when we leave the church we start concentrating on what a wonderful dinner we're going to have, or what restaurant we're going to, or where we're going to have brunch; not what happened to us in Church. The Eucharist used to end with the words "the mass is ended, go now and be the Church". That was an instruction to go out into the world and BE the Church. So it was a  movement by the instruction from the Scriptures, through the Worship, to the  nourishment of the Body and Blood of our Lord from the Table to  BE THE CHURCH. We're strengthened to be the Church through Word and Sacrament so to carry that forth into the world. It's been said that the proof in life isn't so much about knowledge as action. 

In C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" Screwtape's understudy, who is trying to learn how to be a devil, is told the best time to get to a new Christian is the first two weeks after their conversion. He tells his understudy that they've had this great spiritual high from their conversion and from accepting Christ as their Lord and they're really turned on, but within the first two weeks their "spiritual temperature" starts to drop...their not quite as on fire as they were. He instructs his understudy to tell the new convert to not worry so much about everything, to just relax and take all things in moderation; he tells his understudy this because he knows that this is no kind of religion at all and is in fact amusing to the tempters because once convinced of this they are assured a home in that new Christian and soon he will slip away happily out the back door. This is why we as Christians must always be calling on the Holy Spirit to renew us, revive us, and to keep our "spiritual temperature" high so that we are alive in Christ and will go forth to show His Glory in all the world.

"WORDS, WORDS, WORDS, THAT's ALL I GET FROM YOU!" according to Ms. Doolittle from "My Fair Lady" to her aristocratic suitor Freddy. He was very good when it came to TALKING about love, but fell short when it came to demonstrating love... Enfleshing love. I think that is what our Lord is saying to the religious authorities in today's Gospel: "You know all the theology, but you're more interested in respectability than in doing what you're called to do; to get out into the field and work. To repent and to get on about God's work". So He's telling us: "Love is to be enfleshed. Faith is to be made a reality in your lives." C.S. Lewis said once: "just being a good egg isn't enough, at some point you have to hatch."