Matthew 21:23-32 (NRSV Updated Edition)
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.”
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"Okay so Jesus is doing something really very subtle, I think, here, because he's asking them to go back into their own experience of what it was like trying to interpret whether a sign is real. It's only in as far as they sit in that experience that they're going to be able to tell whether he Jesus is doing these things with divine authority. You need to go back and think how did we do this when it was John, and here I think there's a point which is in a sense difficult to bring out.
"When we hear the words, “Repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand,” if you're anything like me, we hear this in a 'bully headmaster' mode. In other words, someone is coming along and saying, “You're an awful bunch and unless you repent there is going to be a terrible wrath. It's going to be terrible punishment, but if you go along with what I say and repent then I'll consider to be kind to you.” That's the old moralistic, emotionally blackmailing form of relationship which many of us imagine to exist between God and ourselves.
"And yet, curiously it's that world that Jesus is going to undo, and knows he's undoing, and realizes that John was merely the first step in the undoing of that world. Because how about if “Repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand” is not the bullying word of a headmaster but much more like a friendly invitation to softening of hearts. Because the one who is going to make possible that softening of hearts is coming into your midst, and that's the condition of surviving and getting into the new world that's being born, is having a soft enough heart that you're able to reach out and live and share with other people. And as far as you're able to do that you're going to be on the inside of the new project.
"In as far as you choose not to repent and not to allow yourself to have your heart broken, to allow yourself to understand what you've been caught up in, in as far as you decide not to go that route, then you're exposing yourself to all the wrath that is in fact going to come as the world changes. The world changes precisely because once the kingdom of God has come into the midst of people, immediately all the rules and forms of goodness that used to hold people together - forms of sacrifice, temples, strict rules, all of those - start to be corroded, because we start to learn to live. Those of us who were previously ashamed, we learn to live, creating humanity amidst our shame.
"Those of us who are tax collectors or prostitutes, or the modern equivalents, or any of the equivalents of people who have been considered outsiders and therefore living in shame, once the good news has arrived that we can repent, that our hearts can be softened, we no longer need to be bound by our shame, and that therefore we can reach out and be human to each other. One of the spin-off effects of that is terrible wrath for people who don't get with the show, but it's not the terrible wrath of someone who's threatening in a headmasterly way, it's simply the effect of what happens once sinners are able to get into the kingdom.
"That, I think, is what's going on here. Jesus is saying to them: if you didn't really understand what John was opening up when the old headmaster voice thing was just about possible - and John himself was a bit surprised at the lack of vengeance in the one who was coming, in the one whom he later recognized as the Lamb of God - if John himself had to undergo the change in his understanding of what was coming into their midst, and he was the one who was from God, and you haven't even been able to recognize him, then how are you going to understand the one who is coming into your midst as the one who is going to undo all false goodness and open up the possibility of the kingdom of God being dwelt in by humans."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 26 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHpBJR_qlLI)
[For analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper21a/]
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