Here is a sermon that was printed and highlighted in yellow. It was originally preached in Seymour on the 18th Sunday of Pentecost on September 29, 1996.
Before the sermon is a scan of the readings for the day. I was also able to find the original sermon file on 3.5-inch floppy disk. The text from that file will follow the scanned version.
WORD AND DEED - 18PentA(RCL) - (9/29/96) - Mt.21:28-31a
WORD AND DEED 18PentA(RCL) (9/29/96) Mt.21:28-31a
Dear friends in Christ…..
I can’t think of anyone in American history who has a greater reputation for plain speaking than the late President Harry Truman. You may remember his sayings: “The buck stops here” and “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. During his presidency Truman was criticized for his frankness, and came to be known as “Give-‘em-hell Harry”. In his own defense, Truman said, “I never gave people hell: I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”
History is now a bit kinder to Harry Truman. These days presidents (and those who would like to be president) tell us whatever they think we want to hear. They have almost instant poll results to tell them what the public wants said. And what’s said has little relationship to what they intend to do. That makes us hunger for leaders (like Harry Truman) who speak plainly and back up what they say with what they actually do.
We get tired of words, especially in an election year. The words flow freely and promises come very cheap…and yet many of the problems of our nation, the things that involve real sacrifice, just keep on troubling us. It’s not easy to find someone who will do the hard work of making us a better nation. No matter what our political affiliation, we wish for some more Harry Trumans to help us out. Maybe our frustration with words can help us understand how God feels about words and deeds….that God puts more stock in what we do than what we say. That’s what the story of the two sons is about. One tells his father what Dad would like to hear, but disobeys. The other is a bit of a rebel, even seems disrespectful of his father, but in the end does what his father asks. Which one are we like most of the time?
For those of us who have been a part of the church our whole lives….one of our most familiar words is “AMEN”. It’s been said at our baptism, our confirmation and thousands of other times, too. The word “Amen” means, “Yes, it shall be so.” The word amen is a word of promise to God that what we pray for we shall also work for. But for many of us ‘amen’ means what it meant to the little girl….she said it was her favorite word because it means we can go home now. I agree that our ‘amens’ have everything to do with going home…they are our promise to God about how we will behave and what will have priority in our homes and all the corners of our life.
Saying ‘Amen’ can become more of an empty habit than a promise. This is why Jesus follows his story of the two sons with these harsh words: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Remember, he is talking to scribes and elders, who are faithful worshippers….amen people. But the ‘amens’ have gotten stale and empty, and so Jesus turns to people who are willing to let him change their lives…..sinners. And sinners turn to him and are saved.
Jesus turns sinners into holy people….set aside for a special purpose… not just hearers, but dedicated doers.
You know, this story of the two sons really stops me in my tracks as a preacher. I am in the business of words…I am a wordcrafter. Words are my tools, my bread and butter. I make my living by what I say. But as I preach, I’m also painfully aware of the things that words cannot do. I can describe the kingdom, but I can’t put people in it. (I’m like a sports announcer doing color commentary…It means nothing to someone who’s never seen a real ballgame). I’ve been getting into this pulpit for almost six years now, and I’d like to think that I am good at preaching….people say kind things at the door, like, “Good sermon, Pastor!” or “You gave me a lot to think about today.” But there are days I realize that hearing sermons and thinking about them is not enough. You know, we sing some hymns, hear the scriptures, pray some prayers, think some new thoughts, go home and watch the game and have some dinner, take a nap….and that’s all there is to it. Our faith has to involve more than saying ‘Amen’ and having some new thoughts each week. Jesus warns us that it takes more than words. He says that ‘not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord..’ will enter the kingdom of God.’ What it takes is real ‘repentance’…. actually turning our lives around to love what God loves and to do what God would have us do. A few words of promise and praise are not enough…it takes a life filled with doing to be a part of the kingdom.
A pastor hears a knock on the door at seven o’clock on a Friday night. A sailor stands their with a young woman on his arm. “Preacher, can you marry us tonight?” The pastor asks if they have a license, and the answer is no…the courthouse was already closed. “Then a wedding is out of the question. It can’t be done.” The young man was disappointed: “But pastor, can’t you say just a few words to get us through the weekend?” Just a few words…that’s what most of us are satisfied with. Many of you know that a wedding isn’t a marriage. As we sit there in the congregation and hear the beautiful words of promise, we realize that the marriage really hasn’t happened yet….it takes lots of repenting and forgiving and sleepless nights and dirty diapers and heart-to-heart talks to make a real marriage. At the wedding, all we have heard is some words (important, necessary, but still only words).
In the same way, saying “Yes, Lord, I’ll do what you want” does not make a Christian life. Like a marriage, a relationship with Christ involves a whole lot of changes for us, a whole lot of promises kept, a whole lot of repenting and being forgiven, a whole lot of putting our money and our time and our commitment where our mouth is. Not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom. This will always be a mystery for some, even those who sit in the pews on Sunday mornings and say “Amen”.
If I may ramble on for another moment; I sometimes wonder if we mislead those who sit in the pews by the way we worship on Sunday morning. What do we do each Sunday? Most of our worship is sitting and listening. I talk and you listen. The choir sings and you listen. Do we give people the wrong impression about the Christian faith?…that it is a kind of passive thing rather than a life filled with action directed and empowered by Christ. We have to put the words into deeds, or the job isn’t done.
As a preacher, my task is not to be interesting, informative, engaging or entertaining. I hope that I succeed at being all of those things once in a while. But none of those characteristics of preaching, as important as they may be, are the real test of Christian preaching.
God’s words must be transformed into deeds. Hearers must finally become actors. The faith we say ‘amen’ to in church must be lived out in the world. It is not easy. We must struggle with this truth like the two sons in Jesus’ story. May God take our “Amens” and turn them into deeds which make Christ active and alive and at work in our homes, in our schools, at work, and everywhere in our community and world. It’s a huge task…but the strength to do these things isn’t ours. It comes from Christ.