Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Posted on Sep 28, 2014 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen
In our Gospel text last week we read the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. You remember that, don’t you? That is the story that all of us find extremely unfair, because as someone pointed out, Jesus seemed to be advocating for a form of socialism when he said that it was perfectly fine for those who only worked one hour to be paid the same amount that those who worked all day got paid. Unfair, we all shout, when we hear that story. Then today, we start in with this story where the Pharisees want to know by whose authority Jesus is doing what he is doing. But a lot has happened in this story since we read the parable last week. Since that time, Jesus and his followers have traveled about 13 miles from Jericho to Jerusalem. In that same time, Jesus has healed two blind men, he has triumphantly entered Jerusalem on a donkey with people singing his praises as they sang, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" (Matthew 21:9).
Early in Jesus' ministry people recognized that Jesus taught with authority. Remember? "You have heard it said…, but I say to you..." (Matthew 5). As the people saw throughout his ministry, Jesus could heal with a single word. When Jesus forgave the sins of the paralyzed man and the argument broke out about whether He could do that or not, the issue was, the people wanted to know about Jesus' authority. Do you remember what He did to prove that He had authority to forgive sins? He healed the man. From the beginning, people wanted to know who gave Jesus the authority to do and say what he did.
Now a big reason the religious leaders are so upset with Jesus in this story is that the day before, not only had the people sang his praises, but Jesus went into the temple and condemned what was happening there. That caused quite a ruckus. They wanted to know, perhaps rightly, by what authority He claimed to do these things. But they also wanted ammunition to be able to have Jesus killed, so they need more on him, so they tried to trap him with this question. You seem if they could get him to say out loud that he is God, or he is God’s anointed, then they would have him because he would have been committing in the religious community a crime against Rome, because only Caesar was considered the anointed one. Both of these offenses were punishable by death.
Jesus had the authority to do what he did and to teach the way he did because he was God's own Son. Jesus had unique divine authority, as did John the Baptist. So, to avoid falling into their trap, he answered their question with a question about John’s ministry. Was John’s ministry from heaven, or from other men? You see, if they responded, "From heaven," then they would have validated John's ministry and they would have had to admit that John correctly pointed to Jesus. Jesus was not avoiding the question. No his question was intended to give them the right answer. Jesus’ authority came from God. The same God, by the way, that they proclaim as God with their lips, but that they deny by their actions. God’s revelation was clear. God’s word had foretold of this very situation, and yet, those that were the most learned of God’s word, denied God’s revelation. These followers were not mis-informed, they refused to believe God’s word. Their actions literally were contrary to their words of belief.
But, rejecting Jesus’ authority is not something that just happened in Jesus’ day, we do this all the time, don’t we? We reject him in ways that we do not even recognize, but in reality our actions do not match our verbal proclamation of faith. How many of us forgive as Jesus forgives? We don’t because we say it is too hard, or we are, too, hurt.
Jesus commanded us to pray and, yet, we too often don't, and we certainly don't do it daily, and, if we do pray, we often cram it in while doing something else. I often pray like that, don’t you? And when I do that, I realize that is like trying to have a conversation with Jill while I am watching the game on TV. We our lives with so many activities, hobbies, and events that it seems we have no time to spend with God. We have no time to pray. We have no time to read and study God’s word. We have no time to serve God’s children who are in desperate need of help. Or, if we do have a little time, we would rather give them a check, or a handout, instead of actually sitting down at a meal with them and building a relationship.
Last week we challenged God’s fairness and this week, and next week, we challenge his authority in our lives. We have become so anti-authority because of the shameful abuses that human authorities have done to us, that we include our disdain for human authority with God’s authority. This disdain for bad authority has fallen over into our lives even against those who exercise authority rightly. For example, most of our police are not corrupt, but when events like what happened in Ferguson happen, we tend to speak poorly of all police authority. All priests are not child molesters, but for many that stigma hangs over all men who where black shirts and white collars. In our reaction against the abuse of authority by others we reject even the authority of the one to whom all authority on heaven and earth has been given and we end up judging God.
Look at the language of the Old Testament lesson today. God has the same problem with His people in Ezekiel's day as in Jesus' day as today. “Yet you say, "The way of the LORD is unfair." Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? If truth be told, we are not actually anti-authority. No, we are in fact claiming all authority for ourselves.
Several weeks ago, we heard Peter proclaim to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Today, on that proclamation of faith, we gather here and we are Christ’s church. But, do our actions proclaim these words? Do we live our lives in such a way that everything we do points to God and the one who died for us. Do we live our lives to God’s glory, or are we living our lives to the ways of this world?
Jesus said, we are to love God with all our heart, and all our soul and all our minds, and to do that we must love each other. Do we live that way? Do we put God and God’s ways first in everything we do? Or, do we put our sports, our schools, our hobbies, our money, our careers, our… you name it, do we put those things first? Do we put our patriotism and love of this country before God and God’s ways? Do we really understand that God is not an American, God is not a Lutheran, God is not man or woman. No God is God and God is our King and our King has all authority over heaven and earth. When people look at how we live, do they know we are Christians by our actions, or do they know we are Christian because we wear pretty crosses around our necks or because we tell them?
Our actions speak far louder than our words. Our God has claimed all authority over us, but we have been set free to follow whatever authority we choose. But only one authority gives us true freedom and that authority is Jesus, the Christ. By whose authority do you live? May your actions tell the world the answer to this question! Amen