20th Sunday after Pentecost
When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?' Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?' And they argued with one another, ‘If we say, "From heaven", he will say to us, "Why then did you not believe him?" But if we say, "Of human origin", we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.' So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.' And he said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today." He answered, "I will not"; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, "I go, sir"; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?' They said, ‘The first.' Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
That was a story about a father and two sons; here's another about a mother and two teenage daughters.
SARAH + ALISON: It's just not fair!
SARAH: She never does a stroke of work around the place. And Mum always looks at me to help, because I'm the good one. But I'm sick of always being the good one around here. Why is it always me who has to stop what I'm doing and peel the potatoes? Why can't she take a turn? So this time, when Mum said, ‘Who's going to help me with supper?' I sort of mumbled Yes, but for once I didn't mean it. I wanted to watch Merlin instead!
ALISON: She's always the goody-goody, she's always been Mum's little helper. I wasn't trusted to do anything round the house, ever since I dropped that bottle they gave me to hold on the ferry. Well, how was I to know it was single malt? I was only little! So I've just about given up trying to be helpful, because I can't get it right if I do try. And I have to admit, getting out of it gracefully is my speciality. But for once, I felt sorry for Mum. Always having to beg us to help, when it's our house too. So when she came in and asked for someone to do the potatoes, out of habit I said, ‘No way!' But then I felt like a rat, so I went out and helped her after all.
SARAH: How was I to know she was getting an attack of conscience, for once in her life? Or that Mum was going to have a seizure, and she'd have to phone 999? When the paramedics came in, guess who was the centre of attention, who got the credit for being sensible and not panicking? You've guessed it. And it was me who'd done my First Aid with St John's Ambulance and knew all about it, so I could have helped Mum much better, if only I'd known. It's not fair!
ALISON: I never felt so scared in all my life. Thank goodness it came out all right. But of all the nights for Miss Perfect to decide she wanted to watch Merlin instead, when I could really have done with her help. Now she's going to take ages to forgive me for getting it right for once. And now I've shown I can be responsible, Mum's never going to let me get away with skiving again. It's not fair!
Sarah: Life isn't always fair, and it doesn't always turn out the way we expect it to. It's easy for us to split people up into doers and dodgers, goodies and baddies, but life's not as simple as that. Sometimes people do good things because they want the credit. Sometimes people do bad things because no one expects they can do anything good. But in the story we've heard, Jesus doesn't ask us to judge other people by what we think we know about them. Instead, he asks us to take responsibility for what we say and do, rather than worrying about other people and how we think they should be living. And that's why we're going to sing our next hymn, each of us, as a prayer for ourselves - because it's not the woman sitting in front of us, or the boy in the next chair who needs to ask God for strength and courage to do what's right - it's me standing in the need of prayer.
It's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer
R&S 99: Morning glory, starlit sky
R&S 520: For ourselves no longer living
‘It's not fair!' is something children learn to say pretty early on in life. It's not fair that she got more sweets than me, that he's allowed to stay up later than I am. But it's not just children who say that, or mutter it under their breath. It's not fair, adults might well add, that in the credit crunch when banks threaten to go under, some people lose their homes while others go off with huge bonuses. It's not fair that some people lose sleep worrying about their winter fuel bills while others get a big dividend from their shares in energy companies. It's not fair that a woman like my mother, who's exercised and dieted all her life, and never smoked a single cigarette, suddenly has a massive stroke which renders her paralysed and speechless. It's not fair.
I don't know what you say to children who complain about unfairness - not being a parent, I've never been put in that position. But when my father said it last week about my mother's stroke, all I could think of to say was that life isn't fair. He agreed, but from a very different point of view. He is agnostic - from his perspective, bad things happen to good people, but there's no reason why we should expect otherwise from an impersonal universe. I am Christian - from my perspective, believing in a God of justice, it feels harder to say that life is unfair without feeling as if I'm letting the side down.
It's some comfort to know that I'm not the only person of faith who's caught between belief in a God of justice and experience of an apparently unfair world. Ezekiel's audience evidently had similar thoughts in mind. As exiles in Babylon, far from their land, from God's temple, from everything that could give them comfort, they might well be sighing, It's not fair. Our parents got on the wrong side of God; they forgot about hospitality to the stranger and justice for the poor; their allegiance went to the gods of prosperity and success rather than the God of Israel. But that's not our fault! ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge' - do you call that fair? But through Ezekiel, God comes back to them with a vengeance: ‘Don't worry about what your parents did - think about what you're doing.'
This was a huge leap forward in understanding. Back in the times of Joshua, someone called Achan had been caught stealing from the plunder the Israelites had taken from Jericho, which was meant to be devoted to God's service. Not only Achan but all his family were killed for that transgression - his sons and daughters had played no part in his wrongdoing, but their lives were equally forfeit. Now Ezekiel is realising that God's people must take responsibility for their own deeds. Unlike Philip Larkin, he does not believe that someone can be damaged beyond repair by the actions of their parents, or even by their own past actions. On the other hand, no one can afford to rest on their own laurels, or rely on their family's good reputation to get them out of trouble. Yet God does not want us to get into trouble for our wrongdoing, but to take God's hint and change our lives. ‘I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways,' says God. ‘Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone. Turn, then, and live!'
That works fine for merchant bankers ready to admit their complicity in over-risky financial transactions, but it doesn't help my mother much. Her high blood pressure, inherited from her own mother, was being carefully monitored by her GP, and she was faithfully taking her medications. The innocent do suffer, as much as those of us whose faulty judgement gives rise to disaster, or more. Ezekiel's words on individual responsibility cannot be final, for that would let God off the hook.
And we believers do need to consider God's responsibility, or agnostics like my father can rightfully accuse us of ducking the issue in order to save God's face. If we as believers would answer the Pharisees asking Jesus where his authority to teach comes from by saying that his authority is from God, as is that of John the Baptist, where does God's authority, God's responsibility, leave off? David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, was apt to say that he did not believe in laser-beam miracles, fixing life for some yet ignoring the plight of others. Any theory of our God's authority, our God's responsibility, must take into account those who suffer and die, as well as those who are rescued and live.
And yet, and yet the picture of God we find in our psalm this morning, one who punishes those who stick to treachery yet chooses to rescue us and to forget our past sins, one in whose paths it is a joy to walk, one who is faithful to us, who is worth waiting for, such a picture of God still rings true in my experience. How can we Christians make sense of this puzzle with integrity?
How? By looking to Christ, the one we believe to be both God and human, and considering his life, as Paul does in his letter to the church at Philippi. Far from assuming that divinity would give him a smooth ride, Jesus chose to limit himself to the mess and frailty that is an inevitable part of being human: to birth inter faeces et urinam, as Augustine puts it, to toddler tantrums, teenage acne and toothache. Far from arranging a captive audience for his preaching, he let people decide whether to follow him or to walk away. He didn't avoid the conflict surrounding both religion and politics, even when its outcome was inevitable: death, deserted by his friends and cursed by God-fearing people who could not recognise God's leader nailed to a Roman cross. Yet the result of his chosen powerlessness was the utter vindication of God's new life in him. We are people who know Jesus' story and have made a commitment to following him. So when we, like the rest of the world, encounter unfair suffering, we, unlike others, can dare to hope for transformation, even if through death. As the body of Christ, moreover, we can support one another through such experiences, as many of you have already supported my family and me by your prayers and good wishes - please keep on praying for us, for it does make a difference.
Whose responsibility is it that we live in an unfair universe? That of others,
of ourselves and of God. Others we can safely leave to their maker and ours. Our own responsibilities we can shoulder, by God's grace; as Paul puts it: working out our own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for God's good pleasure.
And God's own responsibility? Jesus accepted that on the cross, choosing out of love to absorb the world's violence instead of passing it on. And because God gave him new life out of death, I believe no innocent suffering is ever in vain.
