“Are you deaf?” That’s what my dad would say when I wasn’t quick enough to do what he said. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” That’s what my mom would say if she discovered that I had not yet done what she told me hours before to do. “You got mud in your ears?” is what my six grade teacher, Mr. Montgomery, would say when students weren’t quick to perform.

I grew up in a world in which it was assumed that kids would do what their parents and teachers told them, without whining, backtalk or hesitation. Since adults could not imagine a child NOT doing as he or she was told, they assumed that every failure of doing was a failure of hearing. “Are you deaf?” “Didn’t you hear what I said?” “You got mud in your ears?”

I was the typical middle child, compliant, never overly rebellious. Yet I did develop a few passive-aggressive tactics. Sometimes when a parent or teacher said, “Are you deaf?” “Didn’t you hear me?” “You got mud in your ears?”, I would respond with something really clever like; “Oh, you were talking to me?” or “Oh, you meant take out that trash can.”

Well, we grow up and become our parents. I became my parents when I had my own kids. But, I was not an exact carbon-copy. While, like them, I equated my giving orders to my kids’ immediate obedience (silly me); I developed a more modern, sarcastic approach, as in, “Exactly what part of ‘unload the dishwasher’ did you not understand?” But the point is the same: to hear is to obey.

Jesus gives us a simple tale about hearing and doing – and not doing. He’s in conversation with the usual antagonists - the Chief Priests and Elders. These righteous uprights are out to discredit him, and he’s out to show how far they actually are from being in a right relationship with God and others. Two brothers are told by their father to go to the vineyard to work. One says “Sure thing, Pop, you can count on me!”, but does not go. The other says “No,” but later changes his mind and goes. Jesus poses the question: “Which of the two did the will of the father?” Obviously the latter one. And the application: tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners may have turned their backs on God at first, but they later repented and turned their lives around. Meanwhile, the Chief Priests and Elders have spent their lives professing obedience to God’s will, saying yes to God; but have never done any of the works of love and mercy to which God calls them.

It is one more story about hypocrisy, which has always been the number one charge leveled against religious people – that we say one thing and do another; that we say Yes but live No. We promise to love each other on Sunday and find a dozen ways to slander, cheat, or just ignore each other on Monday. We name in the sanctuary our common humanity with all people, we rejoice at the amazing variety of races and cultures, then, leaving here, we quickly wrap ourselves in the warm blanket of our majority status, taking up again our narrow categorizations and biases.

But it’s probably not the obvious calculated pretense that is so much our problem as it is the unconscious way we might substitute our beliefs about God for our obedience to God, as if it were enough to say, “Yep, you can count on me, God!” without ever getting out of our recliners.

Does this ever happen to you? You imagine that you actually have done good things when in truth you have only thought about doing them? Have you ever thought about working on your prejudices, letting Sunday morning charity lead you into intentional encounters with those of other races, cultures and faiths? Have you rehearsed what you wanted to say - but that was the end of it? Have you ever considered visiting a church member whose plight you became aware of from our intercessory prayers, but then decided on sending a card instead, thought about what a nice gesture that would be, congratulated yourself on our thoughtfulness, and let it go at that? I’ve done it. And later I have a hard time remembering whether I visited or called or sent the card or not. I believe in doing things like that. I even believe I am the kind of person who does things like that, but sometimes I do not do them. I just roll the ideas around in my mind until I have sucked all the sweetness out of them - and then swallow them – without following through. I say yes and live no.

It’s easy to let beliefs and good intentions substitute for actions. We all know people who believe they love their families but spend very little time with them. We know folks who believe in protecting the environment but drive cars that get less than ten miles to the gallon. We know hundreds of people who believe they are against violence but can’t wait for the next death and destruction video game to come out. We know people who believe in the American way but are not registered to vote.

We say yes to the Gospel that calls us to serve the poor and needy of the world. We say yes to the truth that “if we do it for the least of these,” we have done it for Jesus. We say yes to the belief that God is “the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth,” and yet how do we treat that which God has made?

We say yes to the truth that all that we are and all that we have are gifts to us from God. We say yes to the idea that we own nothing but simply take care of it on behalf of God, and pay it back to God by spending it sacrificially on the needs of our neighbors. We say Yes, and then worry about whether our percentage of giving is to be calculated on our gross or net earnings. We question whether or not the Christian is really expected to give a tithe. “Oh were you talking to me?” We say Yes, but find a way to live No.

I have to tell you about Gloria, from a previous congregation. Gloria’s life was a living parable of giving with pure joy: her actions, her words spoke eloquently of gratitude to God and a profound sense of responsibility to neighbor. She told me once how this had come to be. “I wasn’t always this way,” she said. “I grew up in the church. As a kid, I wouldn’t think of missing Sunday School, worship, youth group – I was always there. This didn’t change when I became an adult. And when I was asked to chair the Stewardship Committee, it was a no-brainer. Of course I would. We put together a good team. We said all the right things. But more and more I realized that when it came to my personal stewardship, there was a great incongruity between what I was saying and what I was doing. I was saying Yes, but living No.”

And then she told me this wonderful story of her conversion. She was at the mall one day and got a craving for something sweet. So she bought a little bag of cookies, put them in her purse, and walked to the food court and found at a small table. She sat there reading a magazine. The place was crowded, and another shopper sat down at the same table. Gloria kept reading. She reached over and took a cookie out of the open bag. To her surprise, the man sitting across from her reached in and got one too. “Of all the nerve,” she thought to herself, but didn’t say anything. She took another cookie. The man took another. Now Gloria was mad. This went on until there was only one cookie left. The man reached for it, broke it in half, offered half to Gloria, and ate the other half. He then smiled, stood up, and walked away.

Gloria was steamed! She folded her magazine to put it in her purse – and when she opened the purse, she discovered her own unopened bag of cookies! All the time she had been helping herself to the cookies of her gracious host!

Gloria saw this as Divine intervention, to help her bring her actions in line with her words. The message was clear “All my life I had been saying Yes and living No with my personal stewardship. Up to that point I had been taking from God. Now I saw that all of my cookies, all of my life, came from God and belongs 100% to God. I promised God that from then on I was going to say and live Yes.

Barbara Brown Taylor has written: “It’s a peculiar thing, this gap between what we believe and what we actually do. The theological word for it is sin. We know it tears up our families, our friendships, our communities when we say “love” and do indifference, or say “right” and do wrong. What we believe has no meaning apart from what we do about it. There is not a creed in the world that is worth as much as a single meeting that allows you to see someone as an individual rather than a “category.” There is no mission statement more important than one visit to a sick acquaintance or one cup of water held out to someone who needs it.

There is no shortage of people who say, believe, and stand for all the right things. What God is short of are people who will do what God gives them to do.

Whether we say yes or no to God is apparently less important to him than what we actually do. Which brother are you today? Well, look in the mirror. What’s moving, your mouth or your feet?”

Amen.



St.Paul's Directory Family Portrait Sign up HERE!!! Click on the Portrait Sign up Link above to schedule a Family Picture time here at St.Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church from May 8-12, 2012!!!!!

As We Are Fed … We Feed Others

Food - Approximately 200 families per month receive food assistance through Brenham’s Faith Mission. The food is purchased from the area Food Bank or received through local donations (from churches and others.)

St. Paul’s members can increase their support of this vital ministry by bringing canned goods to worship each Sunday that we are fed at Holy Communion. Place these donations in the basket provided in the narthex. Children will bring the basket to the altar at the offering that prayers of blessing might be spoken over these gifts.