October 1st sermon

MERCY AND PITY

        The collect today says God power is in Mercy and Pity. People desire mercy but don’t like to be pitied.

        I like Philippians wording better—compassion and sympathy.

        It is what we need to feel toward every person—“compassion and sympathy”.

        That is to be our work in this world—to have compassion and to show sympathy.

        That is how God wants us to be.

 

        Things in the Exodus lesson aren’t much different than last week’s lesson—the Israelites are still whining to Moses about leaving Egypt.

        Last week it was because they were hungry. This week they are thirsty.

        Last week God sent quail at evening and the bread of heaven ever morning.

        This week He pities the Israelites and has mercy on them by making water flow out of a rock in the desert.

        God’s people are so annoying that it’s a wonder He doesn’t send them back to slavery! Just showing compassion and sympathy, I guess.

        The Psalm today puts it like this: “He worked marvels in the sight of the forefathers and foremothers….He split the hard rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink from the great deep.”

        Mercy and pity, compassion and sympathy—all from our God.

       

        Today’s Gospel also has conflict: the chief priests and the elders confronted Jesus when he entered the Temple.

        “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” they demand of him.

        Jesus comes back with his own question: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”

        He’s got them there. Matthew continues, “they argued with one another, ‘if we say, from heaven, he will say to us—‘then why did you not believe him?’

        “If we say of human origin, we are afraid of the crowd because all regard him as a prophet.’”

        Jesus put them between a rock and a hard place and they did not answer his question. And Jesus refused to answer theirs and told a parable instead.

        The parable is about a man who has two sons who he asks to go work in the vineyard.

        The first son said he ‘would not’ but later changed his mind and went to the vineyard to work.

        The second son said he ‘would go’ but he didn’t.

        Jesus asks which son did the will of his father and the chief priests say, “the first”.

        Jesus then compares them to the second son and tells them ‘tax collectors and prostitutes will go into the Kingdom of God ahead of you.”

        The meaning of the parable is that our actions speak more about us than our words. We must ‘act’ as God wants us to: with compassion and sympathy.

        That is our role—to act with compassion and sympathy at all times: not just ‘talk the talk’

Amen and Shalom.