Sunday, September 27, 2020

Muffled Voices

 Matthew 21:23-32

You know those moments when you can’t say anything right, so you don’t say anything at all?


When a friend is angry, or grieving, and I can’t tell them that I understand – because I don’t! – but anything else I can think of to say would just make it worse.


When you see something going wrong at work, or in a family member’s life, but you know how much trouble you’ll be in if you suggest that the boss is making a really stupid decision, or that the “love of my life” is untrustworthy. 


This week – in an online discussion among friends – I created and deleted the same comment four times, because I couldn’t find a way to say what I thought that wouldn’t upset people I basically agree with.  


Sometimes you just opt out of conversations, because it feels risky to speak your mind. Sometimes I worry that sharing a truth I’ve learned, or a belief I deeply hold, will be dismissed as “political.”


I don’t know if you’ve felt that, too, but I’m pretty sure the Temple leaders were feeling it in the story Matthew tells us today.


The chief priests and the elders have come to talk with the radical rabbi who was throwing tables around in the Temple yesterday. He’s become something of a celebrity, and he seems to be teaching people that they can ignore and challenge a lot of customs and rules and carefully-constructed plans that keep religious life going smoothly in an occupied country.


“By what authority are you disrupting things?” they ask Jesus. “Who told you to do all this?”


It’s a reasonable question, but it’s also an attempt at a trap, and Jesus turns that right back around. He asks the leaders where they think John the Baptist got his authority, and they flounder. 


John’s got wide acceptance now as a prophet – a man “from heaven”, who speaks on God’s authority. The people aren’t going to stand for it if you say he was just a kook. But John claimed that Jesus had that same divine authority – actually even more divine authority – and the leaders are going to get in trouble with everybody – the Roman government, other rabbis, and lots of people – if they call John, and therefore Jesus, a heavenly prophet now.


There’s nothing right to say, so they don’t say anything at all.

Which, of course, undermines their public authority and doesn’t satisfy anyone, including themselves.

They’ve been caught in the trap of “politics in church”, and it’s a lose-lose situation for them.


So Jesus tells them a story.

Two sons are sent by their father to work in the family business. One says no, the other yes; both do the opposite of what they said. It’s entirely obvious to everyone in the Temple that day, like it is to us, that actions matter more than words.
It’s easy to read that as Jesus condemning the priests and elders as hypocrites for saying one thing and doing another.  But I think it’s possible that Jesus was actually telling them a story of hope.


He recognizes that they are trapped in silence by the politics – the everyday power dynamics – of the Temple. No matter what they actually believe, they can’t speak their minds, or tell their truth. No matter what they say, they are at risk; they have too much to lose. 


But Jesus’ story reminds us that there’s more to who we are than what we say – or what we don’t say. That our relationship with God, our salvation, the wholeness of our faith is not based on saying the right thing, or on staying out of trouble. Our relationship with God, the faith that sustains our life, our part in salvation, is about what we do with our hearts and hands. The opportunity to recognize the work of God in Jesus, to learn from him, imitate him, follow him is still open to every one of the chief priests and elders, even as they deny him right now with their words and their silence.


That’s true for you and me, too. 

For any of us who feel like there’s no safe place or way for us to speak our faith, our trust in God and commitment to Jesus.
It’s very often risky – to our relationships, our sense of security, our sense of place – to say out loud a truth our faith teaches about what justice means, or peace. Risky to say out loud that our allegiance is to God, rather than any human leader; risky to say that we hear God’s truth in the words and actions of someone who isn’t popular with our friends.

Jesus hears that.  I believe Jesus would prefer if we could claim those truths out loud and without hedging. But Jesus still tells a story that offers hope when we’re trapped in uncomfortable silence.


We might not speak the truth of God, but there’s still space to act it. 

You don’t have to win an argument about how God’s justice should be done in our world – you can buckle down and spend your time, talents, and treasure to make God’s justice happen, one person or a whole system at a time.  

When any and every single word you might say will upset a family member or get you in trouble with a friend – you can use your hands and heart and physical presence to love beyond measure. 

When you can’t speak without losing your authority, you can use your authority to protect others, or free someone else to speak and act the truth.


This story Jesus tells does not mean that nothing we say actually matters. Words are actions, sometimes. Any time you have the power to make your words true; when you have the ability to decide who belongs, or what is acceptable; when a listener can’t tune you out or ignore what you say, then your words are actions. 

It also doesn’t mean that doing our faith, doing God’s work, is ever easier than saying we believe, or speaking the truth.


But Jesus does offer this second way, and he offers a model to follow. The tax collectors and prostitutes – the folks of his day with the least religious and moral authority and acceptance – are way ahead of the religious leaders in the kingdom of God.
The ones without authority are already acting on God’s truth revealed in Jesus, while the authorities in the Temple have too much to lose to say God’s truth or their own beliefs out loud.


It’s a hint that we may be more free to speak and act when we let go of all we have to lose. And a nudge that we, too, may hear God’s truth in the voices and actions of those without authority. A caution that looking to authority – our own, or others – for answers may block our view of God at work. 


Whoever we are, whatever fear or hope makes us speak or keeps us silent, the story Jesus tells reminds us there is still and always room to draw closer to God. 

The story Matthew tells us today contains a challenge – a challenge to act God’s truth in our lives, now and always. 

And it also contains a promise – that whatever is muffling our voices – yours and mine, the Temple leaders or the tax collectors – God hears our truth in our hearts and hands, our actions and our love. And God responds to it all.

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