Thank you for joining us here at Resurrection Parish for the fourth week of our message series, “Cornerstones.” In this series we are looking at some of the foundations of our Catholic Faith and how we try to implement them in our parish.
The first week we looked at the most fundamental aspect of our faith, namely love. St. John writes in one of his letters that “God is love.” So love is not just an action that God does, it is what God is. Being made in the image and likeness of God, we are all called to a mission of love: love God, love our neighbor, and make disciples. We also noted that a parish is not loved because it is great, rather a parish is great because it is loved.
Two weeks ago we looked at another foundation of our Faith, grace. Grace is a completely gratuitous gift from God. We cannot earn it, we cannot win it, we cannot pay it back but we all need grace. We are all sinners, and by God’s grace we have all been forgiven and saved through Jesus Christ. While we cannot earn grace, we can pay it forward. We do that through extending mercy and forgiveness to the people around us. In fact the Church was established to be the instrument for paying grace forward.
Last week we looked at a foundation that many of you may never have heard of before. When Jesus established his Church, he used an unusual Greek word: “Ecclesia.” Up until Jesus used it, ecclesia was never used in the Bible, mostly because it was not a religious word. Typically in Greek, ecclesia referred to something like a town-hall meeting to address an issue for the good of the larger community. So when he established his Church, his Ecclesia, Jesus was not creating a building or a monument, but rather a movement. As a growing movement, the Church is actually an organization whose chief purpose is to its non-members: it is for proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ so as to make disciples of all people. As members of the Church, we all share in that mission. We are all called to reorient our lives to be centered on the person of Jesus Christ, so to grow as a disciple, and to attract others so that they become disciples of Jesus.
That leads us to the topic for this week. Again, we are going to look closely at the today’s Gospel reading. It is from the 21st chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel. A little lead into today’s passage; Jesus has made a spectacular entrance into Jerusalem, and the crowds have treated him like a rock star. They were laying their cloaks or palm branches on the road before him and shouting “here comes of the Son of David.” When Jesus got to the Temple, he kicked out all the money changers and vendors, insisting that his Father’s House is meant to be a place of prayer, and not a den of thieves.
Now it is the second day that Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem, and he is back in the Temple, and the chief priests and elders want to know, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” (Mt 21:23). Kind of typical of Jesus, he doesn’t answer their questions directly. First he said that if they answered his question, he would answer theirs, and Jesus asked, “Where did John’s baptism come from, heaven or of human origin?” They did not want to answer that question because any answer they gave might cause them trouble. Since they would not answer his question, Jesus did not answer theirs, but he did tell them a story.
“What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went” (Mt 21:28–29). In that culture, sons didn’t say no to their father’s request. So, would have been somewhere between funny and shocking to his audience. But even though the son defies his father in word, he changes his mind and goes out to the vineyard. He has a change of mind that leads to a change of action. This is called repentance. That’s all repentance is – a change in mind that leads to a change of action. The son recognizes that he was wrong to defy his father. And he gets to work.
Then Jesus says, “The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go” (Mt 21:30). Then Jesus asks the Pharisees a question, “Which of the two did his father’s will? They answered, “The first.” (Mt21:31).
It is a pretty obvious answer. Then Jesus says something that would have been incredibly offensive to the chief priests and elders, it probably made them furious.
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him” (Mt 21:31–32).
You remember John the Baptist, he sort of went ahead of Jesus preaching a message of repentance. It turns out the churchpeople didn’t pay any attention to him, just as they would subsequently ignore the message of Jesus.
But, some very unlikely people did pay attention, people who were not at all churchpeople, people who weren’t even believers. Jesus called them “lost” people, because they were lost when it came to knowing God in their lives.
People who were mixed up about God and had plenty of good reason to be turned off when it came to church. In one way or another, lost people try to find a life outside a relationship with God, they go it alone and on their own. They miss out on God. And, in the process, they miss out on a lot else too.
Jesus made lost people a priority. And he went out of his way (way, way out of his way) to do it. He spent time where they spent time. He recognized their worries, fears, sorrows and sins. He understood their hearts, and he loved them by making an investment in them. Jesus found lost people and made them into his followers.
For Jesus, evangelization was his commitment to bring good news of God’s kingdom to everyone, starting with lost people. And he asked us to do the same.
You know, the Church isn’t for churchpeople. In fact the Church is one of the few organizations that exists for its non-members.
It was the people whose lifestyles were at most at odds with the laws of God, who were well aware that their ways were not working who jumped at the opportunity to embrace Jesus’ message.
Look at St. Matthew himself, whose Gospel we read today. He walked away from his life of legal thievery as a tax collector and became an apostle and an author of the Gospel.
There are people in your life who you would think would never be open to an invitation to church. Their life styles seem so far from God, you can’t imagine them accepting. And, you may be right. But, you may be wrong.
Our commitment is to work to be a church that unchurched people will want to attend. We want to be welcoming and accessible to outsiders so that eventually they become insiders. And that means as a church, we are going to challenge those of you who are insiders over and over again to help us create an environment that is accessible and inviting to outsiders.
We’re going to challenge you to give so we can reach more people with the Gospel. We’re going to challenge you to serve so that we create an environment that is welcoming. We’re going to challenge you to invest in friends and family members who don’t have a church, and when the opportunity arises We’re going to challenge you to invite them to join us. We’re going to challenge you to smile and sing (well, wait on the singing until the pandemic is over) and help shape a loving and joyful environment. We’re asking you to find a Small Group to find the fellowship and friendship you need to meet these other challenges.
People who were nothing like Jesus liked him. They should like us too.