Go with God's Authority

 9-27-20

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We all live under some sort of authority, whether we are aware of it or not. Some kinds are obvious – traffic laws, taxes, phone contracts, mortgage and loan agreements, state and local mask mandates. Some of the systems we comply with are less noticeable – who bullies and gets bullied on social media, who is more likely to speak in a zoom meeting, how much the same house is appraised for based on the perceived skin color of the owner, among others.

We have been very well trained. We all know how to navigate the rules of this world, both consciously and unconsciously. We know what scripts to recite and what patterns to follow, from what we see in TV commercials and online ads, from newspaper fliers, from what we see from our neighbors and classmates, from the conversations and interactions we have with our family and friends.

And for some of us, following the rules WORKS. Because some of us were born the right color or with the right biology, or in the right country to the right family. Following the rules of the world comes much easier for some than for others. This is what is called “privilege.” We didn’t earn it or do anything special to deserve it. But it is the air we breathe.

But one wrong move, one misstep, and we will find ourselves with those people, on the outside looking in. There is no room for failure. There is no room for nuance. When a white female Methodist pastor in the Midwest is outspoken for justice, her bishop reserves the right to fire her without recourse. This particular pastor will find out later this week if she will be fired, effective immediately, just because she said “Black Lives Matter” in a sermon.

But, rules are rules, I guess. (heavy sarcasm) 

And when they DO work for us, it can be hard to change them. Those people are those people for a reason...right? We who have done everything right, like those have worked in the vineyard from dawn until dusk from last week, we feel we DESERVE to be first in the kingdom of this world, and perhaps also in the Kingdom of God, don’t we?

How dare this Midwestern pastor take a stand on something that is so clearly at the heart of the Gospels? Like, where does SHE get off, living into what it means to follow a first-century Palestinian Jewish man? … a man who had the audacity to hang out with the wrong people and heals the blind, who rides into town on a donkey in an impromptu parade and kicks the economy of the empire in the teeth… like does she even KNOW who Jesus IS and what he PREACHED?

It turns out she does. And that is making the authorities over her uncomfortable.

Jesus makes us uncomfortable because he reminds us that we are as broken and hopeless as THOSE people seem to be, the tax collectors and sex workers, and people left behind by a broken health care system. These are exactly the kinds of people Jesus chooses to hang out with. He reminds us that we can follow all the “rules” to a tee and still be on the wrong side of history.  

Jesus makes us uncomfortable because he reminds us that there is another kingdom out there, a kingdom with a very different kind of authority. This is the authority of God, shown to us in Jesus.  To live under this kind of authority REALLY makes no sense to the world. This is not a kingdom where rules completely go out the window. This is a kingdom where the rule of the realm is love, condensed and concentrated into the living, dying, and rising of Jesus.

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave his followers a great charge: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… and I WILL BE WITH YOU.”

And in this text for today, instead of arguing with the smarty pants religious authorities of his day, Jesus told them a story instead – about a man with two sons and two different responses to his charge for them to “Go.”

Our vineyard, where Jesus commands us to go and work, could be far away among those “all nations.” More likely, though, our vineyards are the zoom classrooms we attend, our place of work, the people we sit in the yard with, who we attend worship with and greet in the comment section, and drive on the same highways with. Sometimes our vineyard is right in our own homes with our own families, especially now that many activities are taking place online.

And the work that we do there is not always easy to figure out. God has not left us with a book of easy-to-follow instructions on “how to successfully make disciples of all nations 100% of the time.” In fact, we may not want to go into the vineyard at all! It’s so hard, and I’m not very good at it, and what can I even do, anyway? Especially now, with a pandemic on! We’ve never done this before!

The good news is that we are not alone in this work – we have the whole church on earth, past, present, and future.

The bad news is, the church in a human institution.  Seventeen centuries ago when the church suddenly found itself with authority instead of being on the margins, we lost a potent opportunity. Instead of showing the world a different kind of power and authority, the kind of servant heart exhibited by Jesus, the church instead chose to tread the path of hierarchy and supremacy, copying what already existed in the world. In other words, the institutional church told Jesus “Yes,”… but then we didn’t follow through.

But it is not too late. There is hope for us. While we cannot undo the wrongs of the past, we CAN and SHOULD stop them from happening in the present. We can confront injustices in the name of Christ. As a church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be a servant to those in need and a witness to where the Spirit is at work the world.

As I learned from the board retreat of LAMPa this week, this year is the 500^th anniversary of the most revolutionary essay that Martin Luther wrote called “The Freedom of a Christian.” In this essay, Luther writes about how we as Christians are “perfectly free…. subject to none.” BUT ALSO:  Christians are “perfectly dutiful servant[s] of all, subject of all.”

Luther wrote: "Christian[s] … do not live in themselves but in Christ and their neighbor, or else they are not Christian," "They live in Christ through faith and in the neighbor through love. Through faith they are caught up beyond themselves into God; likewise through love they fall down beneath themselves into the neighbor — remaining nevertheless always in God and God's love."

We don’t serve the world. We don’t serve the economy. We don’t serve institutions, even if it is the church. We serve Jesus, and we do that be serving our neighbor. We serve our neighbors Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, the trans teen kicked out of their home by their parents, the foster child that who has never known a home, Savanna and other the indigenous and native women who have gone missing, singles moms who use SNAP, the two-hundred thousand people who have contracted and died from Covid-19, including members of this congregation. How are we serving them?

These people were made in the image of God… just as we are made in the image of God. We are chosen and anointed in our baptisms and then we are called out – under God’s authority - into the vineyard where the work of justice is always taking place. God is always at work in turning us into God’s people. God is always turning bad news into good news…. God is always turning “nos” into “yesses.” And whether today is a yes day or a no day, at the end of the day we are still God’s children. God still says YES to us. Thanks be to God. Amen.