Pentecost 16A: Promising an Open Future
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Can I give you some advice? Clear some time on your calendar next week for additional pastoral conversations with people. Because this Gospel reading, with its tussle over authority and deceptively tame parable, has the potential to really stir things up in the life and identity of your people.
On one important level, the topic at hand is authority, as the religious authorities challenge Jesus’ right to teach and preach, particularly in the Temple, and Jesus in turn reverses their challenge and ensnares them in their own trap. And certainly you could preach a whole sermon on the dramatic exchange here, how it fits in to the larger story of Jesus’ journey to the cross, and on the complex nature of authority. But to be honest, I think there’s essentially one thing we need to keep in mind about authority: it’s given. This is the primary difference between power – the sheer ability to do something or bring something about – and authority – when one’s ability to do, say, or make something derives from having been delegated or given that ability. Authority, in short, is power that has been given, directed, and limited to achieve a particular end.
This is the connection between authority and its linguistic siblings authorize and author. One has authority to do things because one has been authorized to do them by the author, the one with the actual power. Authority is always and only something given.
But authority is given in two ways. That is, not only is authority given by those “above” with the power, it’s just as often given by those “below” who decide to accept the authority of another. When I was a child, for instance, I remember a conversation with my dad where I told him that he was making me feel bad for not following through on something I said I’d do (sound familiar?). He responded by saying something that absolutely infuriated me in the moment: “I don’t have the power to make you feel anything. You’re in charge of your own feelings.” Now, truth be told, we try to make people feel things all the time, and maybe my dad really was trying to make me feel bad. But even granting that possibility, he was still absolutely right. He may have had authority to dish out consequences for my behavior, but he had no authority – unless I gave it to him – to make me feel bad.
And here’s the thing: in about 99% of the cases of our life, those with authority over us have it only because we give it to them. The colleague who slighted us, the child who disappointed us, even the spouse or parent who abandoned us – yes, in each case the person in question may have actually done something to harm us, even something catastrophic; nevertheless, the way we regard that action and person over time is something we get to determine. If we are still angry, hurt, disappointed, or upset, it’s because we have decided to give authority to that person or event to continue to influence and even dominate our lives. We may have been victimized, but we choose whether or not we will live as a victim.
It’s only against this background that I can make sense of the parable Jesus tells his interlocutors. I mean, what does this story of two sons have to do with authority in the traditional sense? Pretty much nothing. But it has everything to do with how we regard the past. One son says he’ll help out and doesn’t follow through – I sympathize. J The other son, however, is the focus of the parable. For he says he will not help, but does. Whatever may have motivated his initial response – he was already committed, he was feeling overwhelmed by prior obligations, he was annoyed that his father is always asking for help, he nursed a grudge about a time he felt his father didn’t help him, whatever – he recognizes that the future is always open. He can still respond to his father’s request and invitation, and as he does he proves himself faithful and lives into his father’s hopes for him.
At this pivotal moment in Matthew’s story about Jesus, and through this deceptively simple parable, Jesus is inviting his adversaries into an open future, one not dominated by the arguments and opposition of the past, but one that is open to the movement of God’s spirit to heal, revive, restore, and make all things new. The chief priests and elders do not accept this invitation. They have too much at stake in the past – it has created for them their primary identity and, whatever its limitations, they have become dependent on that identity – and so they refuse to trade that past for an open future. But those who are down and out, those who discover that the identity created by their past does not bring them life – represented here by “tax collectors and prostitutes,” two categories of people whose actions supposedly remove them beyond the pale of decent society – grab hold of Jesus’ promise with both hands.
And here’s the thing: Jesus makes this same promise to us. No matter what we have done, no matter what may have been done to us, the future is still open. Whatever hurt we may have experienced or done in the past is, ultimately, in the past. We do not have to allow it to determine or dominate our future. We do not have to drag our past on our back the way a snail does its shell. We are, finally, more than the sum total of all that has happened to us. The future is open. It may be hard – really, really hard – to let go of the past and walk into the future. The past, after all, we at least know, and even our dysfunctional identities are at least familiar, whereas the future is so open it can be scary. (Which is why, by the way, you’ll want to allow more time in the weeks ahead for pastoral conversations, so you can help people reckon with their past and accompany them as they walk into the open future Christ invites.)
Now, the temptation at this point will be to tilt the sermon toward the moment of decision: “the future is yours to grab hold” or, more crassly, “have you accepted Jesus into your heart and found eternal life?” And certainly we are invited to step into the open future God has created. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think the focus of this scene and parable is on us nearly as much as it is on God. God the author of all life who regularly decides to invite a new relationship with us. God who will not count our past deeds, mistakes, griefs, or hurts against us. God who refuses to define us by what we do (or what has been done to us), but instead regards us always and only as God’s beloved children.
So perhaps this week, Dear Partner, our task is to invite people to consider to whom or what they have given authority in a way that does not serve life. Perhaps we may dare to ask them to call to mind those elements of their past – those things they have done or have been done to them – that they most regret or resent…and invite them to let them go, to consign them to the past, to no longer give these past things authority over their lives and invite them to walk into an open future defined not by regrets, hurts, and resentments but instead by God’s promise to be with us and for us forever.
If so, then maybe it would make sense to move the confession and absolution that often opens our services to right here, just after the sermon, as in the absolution we hear God promising that the future is always open. Or maybe we can move from the sermon into an affirmation of Baptism, as it is in Baptism that we hear most clearly of God’s commitment to regard us as beloved children no matter what. Or maybe we can simply gather up all those hurts and regrets and offer them to God in a time of silent prayer, perhaps closing with words something like the following: “Dear God, we often allow things from our past to dominate our present and close off our future. But you have promised that you love us no matter what, and so we offer our hurts, regrets, and resentments to you, trusting that you already know them and love us anyway. Help us to believe about ourselves what you believe about us: that we are worthy of love and respect. And help us to treat others as you have treated us: as those who deserve love and respect. All this we ask in the name of Jesus, the one who died on the cross to show us the depth of your love. Amen.”
You’ll know best how to deliver this powerful word, Dear Partner, the word about God’s commitment to see us always and only as God’s beloved children. As you proclaim this good news – and walk with people into God’s good future in the days ahead – please know how grateful I am for your fidelity.
Yours in Christ,
David
Note: For those of you just finding this page, this is the space where I’ve continued to post my weekly reflections on the RCL texts (usually the Gospel reading) for preachers. If you are interested in having the reflections sent to your email, you can subscribe in the box toward the top of the right hand side of the page.
“Our task is to invite people to consider to whom or what they have given authority in a way that does not serve life.” Love this. Your reflection reminds me of something that my husband (also a pastor) and I used to talk about… We would talk about times when we would “give our authority away.” He used to call these moments “getting hijacked.” His words were often combined with an observation that “it’s not about you (personally)” which was a good reminder sometimes. I think that we can be honestly disappointed and truthfully frustrated, and respectfully critical without “getting hijacked.” One of the ways that I try to stop being endlessly (and needlessly) hijacked is by practicing a three-fold accountability: share with someone that I trust, pray for the particular situation at hand and show the person that I am actively praying for the person(s)’ well-being or the situation (not just words, but putting shape to the prayer), and figure out how I personally might have contributed to whatever consternation that has occurred (which might mean owning my reaction). My husband’s words are priceless to me because, like most couples, we had our differences and disagreements. But his ideas about “being hijacked” have stayed with me. One of the things that we forget is how long human beings may need to process events, to process surprise or reactions or whatever, esp. in our instaneous culture or sophistication. What seems to be –to us– a “no-brainer” kind of reaction to authority may take someone else a long time to understand. The congregant who is like the older brother may need to walk through his feelings of not following through just as much as the son who responded ‘no’ but ultimately went. Jesus doesn’t say how much time has lapsed in the parable. We see the conversation betw. the sons and their father, but we don’t hear the conversation betw. the sons (brothers) themselves or their reasoning, even granting that all of this is “just” a parable. And isn’t there a difference between authority granted “over” and authority shared “with”? I wonder about this. I wonder if there is a way to see Jesus as “stepping into the parable” too, his own parable, as both the first son…and the second son. I sometimes think that Jesus was speaking from his own experience of refusal, recognition, recommitment, and reconciliation, even though “tradition” wants to believe he was “without sin’s stain.”
I like your idea of Jesus stepping into his own parable. In a similar, though slightly different, vein, I heard a sermon once that answered Jesus’ question another way: neither son fully obeyed his father. Only Jesus does that – says yes and shows up to be obedient to the Father.
Where did the link go that connects to your columns on previous YR A 16th Pentecost?
https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1596
Oh, I see. It wasn’t about the gospel passage but the passage from Philippians.
🙂
Thank you for this wonderful message, and all of your wonderful messages and reflections. I am not a clergy person, but a retired senior administrator who has done a lot of strategic planning and has been trying to encourage our leadership to adapt. As Dee mentions above, I am guilty of forgetting the time human beings may need to process events, surprises, etc. Mix this with all of the other human attributes experienced by volunteer leadership (aka council members) making a living, raising a family, etc. and the window for change gets a bit small. We don’t have difficult conversations in our church; I’ve stepped on some toes trying to promote planning but I don’t know where. I just know the silence surrounding this endeavour is deafening and that I’m on the outside looking in. The only response that currently makes sense is to take a membership sabbatical to give things an opportunity to jell and the Spirit to work.
One of Seth Godin’s posts earlier this month appears to be a custom fit: “People who like this stuff… like this stuff.
When you work in a genre (any genre), break all the rules at your own peril. Sure, you need to break some rules, need to do something worth talking about. But please understand who the work is for.
If it’s for people outside the genre, you have a lot of evangelizing to do. And if it’s for those that are already in it, you can’t push too far, because they like the genre. That’s why they’re here.
Those who have walked away probably aren’t just waiting around for you to fix it. Those who have never been don’t think the genre has a problem they need solved. Blue sky thinking isn’t really blue sky thinking. It’s a slightly different shade of the blue that’s already popular.
It’s a little like the futility of the “Under New Management” sign on a restaurant. People who like the place don’t want to hear you’re changing everything, and people who didn’t like the old place aren’t in such a hurry for a new place……”
Above my pay grade; again, please keep up the great work; it’s also my main source of spiritual nourishment at this stage.
David,
I have in my congregation a young woman who is consigned to a wheelchair after contracting meningitis as a six-year-old. Her mother, also part of the congregation, says that she was the most boisterous and active of her three children when she became ill. I’m just wondering how I might speak to her about letting go of the past or no longer giving her disability authority over her life? I’m not saying this to be smart, but I do really struggle with preaching about hope and the future to people whose whole lives have been overturned by things which were and always will be totally out of their control.
I appreciate your question, Ken, and don’t want ever to suggest that talking about hope or the future is a panacea, or that there is a moral imperative to let go of the past and move on. And I certainly don’t want to underestimate the very real tragedy people have experienced. At the same time, you probably also know people who have endured significant tragedy and are not defined by it. I don’t think our role is to tell people that they should let go of the past but that promise that God does not define us by the past – things we’ve done or others (or life or disease or whatever) have done to us. We are more than what has happened to us and this young girl is more than her disease or suffering. Thanks for writing. These are major issues.
thank you
David,
I love your post and read them every week and sometimes use some of your ideas. This past week I watched a movie with my wife about the shooting in Nickel Mines Pa. back in 2006. One of the mothers who lost a child had a difficult time forgiving the shooter while the rest of her community had done so. Holding on to hate is one of those things we give authority to over us. Your post reminded me of this and I plan to use this in my sermon this week.
Thanks for all you do for us preachers who are still working. Blessings
David,
It seems there are several different passages for World Communion Sunday. This is one of them for Oct. 1, 2017. But, I’m also finding that World Communion Sunday is listed as Oct. 7. What is the day and scripture are we doing? Thanks. Pat