Today’s story of the two sons, each of whom did the opposite of what he had said he’d do is a familiar one. Most people know the parable; I’ve used it a lot in school assembly - and most people will know it also I guess from their own personal experience. Probably most of us who are parents, anyway.
It’s great when your child says, “Right, that’s fine, just leave it with me,” when you’ve asked them to do something. Not so good if you come back later and find they’ve not done it after all. In the world of work there’s the sycophant who sucks up to the boss and always presents himself as keen and eager - but in actual fact he’s idle and useless, and as soon as the boss isn’t looking he’s doing his best to offload the work on someone else or to come up with an excuse for why it hasn’t been done.
But then again there’s the sort of experience I had the other week. I’d been trying to find someone to help me out with something, but everyone was too busy, had something better to do. I just had to find the time to do it myself, which was hard. But when I came to it, I found the job had been done after all. A couple of people had found some unexpected time to spare, and they’d thought of me and just got on with it. Brilliant!
Jesus told this story to make clear to the religious folk who were criticising him just where they really stood, and why it was he was speaking to the sort of riff-raff they didn’t have time for. They looked good, and they were making all the right noises, but were they really prepared to do the job? Were they really listening to God? Whereas these people who didn’t count, these people who were only one step up from the gutter - well, it didn’t matter how late in the day it is, if they start to listen and start to work and are prepared to get the job done, God will look on them with favour. You - the priests and elders - says Jesus, are like the younger son - you may look good, but inwardly you’re self-righteous and hypocritical.
Tax gatherers and prostitutes will get into the kingdom before you, he tells them. For they listened to John the Baptist and repented, when you refused to hear. So that’s the context. But how does this story relate to us? Which child in the story am I - the one who said yes but didn’t do it, or the one who said no and changed his mind and did it after all?
Well, I suppose I’m either one at different times, and that’s probably true for all of us. In fact sometimes we say yes and we do do it. And probably at times we say no and keep to that no, without changing our mind. We vary in the way we respond, but maybe that’s the point: one thing this story can do is to encourage in us a spirit of self-awareness.
And maybe also a readiness to follow-through . . . by which I mean that anyone can look good by reciting the creed, singing the hymns, joining in the church fellowship, but what about the rest of our lives? Does what we do here, where we say to God, “Yes, I’ll do it, leave it with me!” - does that promise follow through into our everyday world?
I’ve spoken before about the distinction between religion and faith; you could say it’s something of a bee in my bonnet. But here’s one distinction that occurs to me : religion can (it shouldn’t but it can) be practised with a clear and sharp boundary around it, so that it has to do with this churchy bit of my life but doesn’t really impinge on the rest. But faith has to do with what’s going on all the time in our hearts and our heads, and what forms and guides our attitudes and actions.
If our religion is more about style than substance, we may well find some of those who started off saying no to God, or maybe even saying there is no God, coming past us. People with unsavoury previous lives but who’ve seen the light, heard the call at last. People who started by saying, “I’ve no time for this stuff, but who then changed their minds.
The reality is that one day I’m this son, another I’m the other one. God probably despairs at my fickleness. But that’s the point of the story: it prompts me into asking who I am, it prompts me into self-awareness.
The good news is that it’s never too late to change our mind, if we started out by saying no to God. Now Jesus says that an awful lot in the Gospels: that God loves us whatever we say to him, yes or no. That God is the father who watched and waited for his prodigal son.
So God is forgiving and gracious, he wants to include, not exclude, to save, not to condemn. On my bad days, when I’m not very God-minded, well, I may not be thinking of God, but he’s still thinking of me. But this story also makes clear that God’s not going to be fobbed off by displays of piety that don’t lead anywhere. “I am among you as one who serves,” said Jesus. “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” says Paul, in our first reading this morning. Our faith is proved in where it leads us, how it directs our thinking and our actions.
If we’re truly open to God’s power and will, we’ll be building within ourselves a servant spirit that reflects what we see in Jesus, that’ll be revealed when we make the most of the chances we have each day to show care and kindness to those around us. That’s the vineyard God is calling us to work in, when he calls us to be his people, his church.
I love this church building, and I hope it stands here for ever. But if the building wasn’t here, the church still would be, so long as God is honoured here in Leighton by people who pray to him and care as he cares. Religion requires buildings, faith doesn’t, however much it may value them and however well it may use them. What faith does is to seek to know the mind of Christ and to do the work of Christ; and where that is happening, even if it’s in the day, we’ll be building his Church.
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