Matthew 21:28-32; September 27, 2026; Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
A good friend reminded the folks of Bible Study that when I preached on this text three years ago, I said that this lesson on prostitutes was my favorite passage in all of scripture.
Which sounds like something I would say, even if I can’t remember saying it.
Memory is funny like that, isn’t it?
I remember my favorite author, Julian Barnes, once writing that “[As you get older] memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches. You might recall things at the beginning or end, but you’ll often experience a large hole in the middle.”
And just how true that is!
Though now that I’ve said it, I’m not sure that’s the quote at all, but only my memory of the quote, likely cobbled from several quotes across all his works.
But memory is not the point of this sermon, my friends, prostitutes are!
Well, that doesn’t sound quite right either…
Though now that I’ve said that, I think I do remember telling you all that we might be more like Christ if we change our sign out front to say: “Grace: Where Even Prostitutes Are Welcome!”
That might draw big numbers, good for stewardship season… or perhaps that would just draw angry numbers and be bad for business.
But maybe that’s the point after all, as Jesus used the same marketing technique when preaching the Gospel, angering the establishment with shocking parables and scandalous statements so to correct them and better society as a whole.
“What do you think?” Jesus asks them. Which is the third time he asked this exact question over the last four chapters of Matthew. See, every time scripture repeats itself, the Holy Spirit is driving home a point that we’d be unwise to forget).
“What do you think?” “What do we think?” Or put another way, “Just what are we thinking?”
As in, we all know what we should be doing. How we should be acting. And yet, we so often don’t. We so often aren’t.
Oh, we can remember to say the right words, alright. But remembering to follow up on them… yeah, not so much.
So “just what are you thinking?” is the right question that Jesus is repeating back to us, over and over and over again. Just like again and again I’ve preached on this same theme recently: hypocrisy. Hoping that one day it might all click.
You might recall that earlier in this very same chapter of Matthew 21, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, upsetting certain people who were hoping for a king to appear on a warhorse.
You might also remember that a bit later in this same chapter, Jesus flipped over tables in the temple upsetting the hoi polloi who were trying to turn a buck.
And here, in this very same chapter, Jesus decides to upend expectations again, reminding everyone that his ministry pulls no punches, and that it will annoy even the religious authorities by calling out their false piety.
Remember how the parable goes? “A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” — Matthew 21:28-31
I just love that the first son at first is like “nah… I’m not going.” Lol. That sounds like something I would have said as a kid. Seth does this sometimes too; to be funny, I think. But then eventually he comes around, which I find the much better alternative as a parent.
Show of hands though, how many of us have been more like the second son in our lives, saying “I will,” but then not?
Yeah, I suspect it was the same for the authorities Jesus was addressing; able to recite all the laws but forgetting them in practice.
Heck, they even solve Jesus’ parable correctly! They answer his question “which of the two did the will of his father?” with the right answer: “the first.” Yet, even though they know the right answer, they still get it wrong, because don’t believe it. As in, they don’t follow up on it.
As our friend Rodger put it in Bible Study this week: “talk is cheap, and faith shouldn’t be.” Or at least, that’s what I think I remember Rodger saying.
My friends, Jesus gets most upset with people who claim to know, who should know, who should be able to remember to do what is right, but then don’t. Who are in other words: hypocrites.
And here Jesus is making the case that even those who have lived a life full of destitution are better positioned than them.
Because at the very least the prostitutes remember John’s words and his baptism of repentance, which means they turned back from their ways and changed, re-membering their lives after Christ rather than saying, “nah, I’m not going to, I’m good enough as is…”
Friends, if I remember correctly, I said in the podcast this week that hypocrisy is the adversary of faith; not questions, nor doubt, not even a past life of impropriety. But hypocrisy.
And if I indeed said that, then I stand by that, because here Jesus is saying the same.
For as someone much smarter than me once said, whose name I can’t recall: “What expresses the will of God is not a history of righteous deeds, but rather an embrace of repentance and an actionable need for mercy.”
And I like that!
Yeah, let’s finish with that.
And remember to remember that tomorrow.
Amen
