The Rev. Dayle Casey
The Chapel of Our Saviour
Colorado Springs, Colorado
September 28, 2008

Proper 21-A
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Philippians 2: 1-13
Matthew 21:28-32

Why do we do the things we do? And why do we not do the things we don’t do, so that we must confess that we have sinned against God “in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and what we have left undone,” and that “we have not loved God with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves”?

Our hearts, Jesus reminds us, are where our treasure is. This is another way of saying that, in this experience we call life, our hearts are found with what we really believe in, with what we treasure, with what we truly love, with our beloved.

What we really treasure, in other words, is what we really love and what we really believe in. Our believed is our beloved. And we find that that’s what the word “believe” means when we check out its history. “Believe” is a workhorse word that has stumbled along for centuries, coming to us from Middle English, and before that from Old English and Aryan, connecting somewhere to the Old Teutonic word “gelaubian,” which meant to hold estimable or valuable or dear. Its Aryan root, lubh, from which we get the “lief” or “lieve” part of our English word, meant “to like” or “to love,” as in the German lieben, to love, to hold dear, or to cherish.

“I believe in reading; I love to read,” someone says, “but I don’t have time.” But Kate’s mother says that at least one part of this statement is not true, because if one believes in reading, if one loves to read, if one treasures reading, one finds time to do it. Our hearts turn us toward the things we love, toward the things we believe, and makes the time. We turn our hearts and our minds – and our time and our energies and our commitment – toward our treasure, toward what we cherish or hold valuable or dear.

“Love God,” said St. Augustine, “and then do what you want to.” Because if one truly loves God, one will want to do what pleases God, and will seek to do it. Our hearts turn us to do that which we really believe.

This is why it was the second son who did what pleased his father.

“What do you think about this?” Jesus asks the chief priests and elders. “A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘My son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will, sir,’ the boy replied. But he did not go. The father came to the second son and said the same. ‘I will not,’ he replied. But afterwards he changed his mind and went. “Which of the two sons did what his father wanted?” Jesus asked. “The second,” they replied.

Then Jesus said to the priests and elders, “I tell you truly, tax-collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For when John came to show you the right way to live, you did not believe him. But tax-collectors and prostitutes did believe him, and even when you had seen that, [even when you had seen what John had done for them], you did not change your minds.

Both sons acted on their beliefs; both revealed what they cherished. And the one who went to work in the vineyard, even though he said he wouldn’t, pleased his father, while the first son, although he spoke the words of a faithful son, did not act on his words.

Throughout the Scriptures we are brought face to face with the inescapable connection between faith and works, brought face to face with the hard fact that what one chooses to do or not do reveals one’s real belief, because it reveals one’s love.

And that’s why faith without works is dead, as the apostle James reminds us. “What good is it, my friends, if someone says he has faith when his actions do nothing to show it? If faith does not lead to action, it is, by itself, a lifeless thing.... Someone may say, ‘Well, one person chooses faith, another chooses works.’ To which I reply: ‘Show me this faith you speak of with no actions to prove it, while I, by my actions, will show you my faith.’”

Faith without works is dead. Belief without works is dead. But if we are not careful, we can make a wrong turn here and miss a crucial point. If we are not careful, we can begin to put a lot of stock in the works themselves. We can begin to think, as millions of Christians do think, that it is the works themselves that carry the power and that with them, therefore, we can build up an account of good works so great that we can storm heaven by writing a check against the works themselves, a check so good that God can’t help but cash it.

But that is an illusion. Our works may be good. They may, in fact, be great. But was it really the work in the vineyard that pleased the father? Or was it the belief – the lief, the lieve, the love, the change of heart and mind that turned the young man toward home – which pleased the father? Is it our actions themselves that make the difference in our relationship with God? Or is it the turning, the turning toward God, that does it? Isn’t it the belief, the cherishing and the loving, which are demonstrated through the works, that makes the difference, to us and to God?

Isn’t that why, in Jesus’ other more famous story, the father welcomes his second son, his prodigal son, home with open arms? The father welcomes his son home because his son has turned his heart toward home; he has followed his heart, his belief, back to what he truly treasured.

“I won’t work in your old vineyard!” said the prodigal; “that isn’t living!” His young heart had told him that his treasure was in dad’s money. So he had demanded his share of his father’s inheritance, and he took it off to a far country and squandered it, living life the way life’s meant to be lived. Or so he thought.

But when his account ran dry, his more experienced heart saw treasure back home that he hadn’t realized was there before. And he turned his heart toward home, leaving a record of works in that far country that was anything but enviable. And when he got home, his dad threw the biggest party you ever saw. Not because of anything his son had done, except to recognize his true treasure. Not because of anything he had done other than to want to come home.

“Make your mind the mind of Christ,” says Paul. “Take to heart among yourselves what you find in Christ Jesus.” In other words, cherish Christ. And then, do what you want to, because the heart leads one to what one cherishes.

What is the mind of Christ Paul urges us to cherish? Why did Jesus do what Jesus did? How did Jesus live, and why did Jesus die?

Well, on one level, we can say that Jesus died because nonbelievers – people like the priests and elders – did not believe him, did not love him, so they killed him. He died because he was a pain in the political neck to people who arrested him and turned him over to the Romans for execution.

But we can also say that Jesus died because other nonbelievers – people like his friends who called him “Lord, Lord,” but did not follow him – did not believe him either, did not really believe him. And when the guards came to arrest Jesus, his friends, too, saw no treasure there, so they deserted him. We can say that when Jesus needed them the most, his friends denied him and betrayed him and turned tail and ran and left Jesus weak and alone against the forces of terror.

So it can be said that we killed Jesus, because we weren’t there for Jesus when he needed us. And so we ask God to forgive us our unbelief, to forgive us for what we have done and for what we have left undone, because we have abandoned the one we said we believed, abandoned our beloved, because our real treasure lay elsewhere. That is, we have not loved God with our whole heart and have not loved our neighbor as ourselves, because if we had loved Jesus with our whole heart we would have followed him all the way to the Cross.

On still another level – on a theological level, a level that tells us something about God and Jesus, about what God does, and about why his Son Jesus does what Jesus does – we can say that Jesus died because he chose to die, because he believed his Father. And Jesus believed in his Father’s world. That is, he loved the world his Father had created the way his Father loved the world, so that when his Father sent him into the world to love the world the way his Father loved the world, the Son loved it so much that he willingly chose the Cross in order to show us the divine way of sacrifice for those you believe in, that is, for those you love.

This relationship of love – this mutual love among the Father, the world the Father created and cherished, and the Beloved Son whom God sent into the world to cherish and care for it – this relationship of love between God and the world God made and cherishes was, for Jesus, the truth, and the life, and the way. And Jesus cherished this way – the way of the Cross – because he believed – that is, he loved – both his Father and the world his Father had made.

So Jesus chose to die because of his belief. He died because of his beloved, his treasure. Jesus believed God. That is, he loved God. And he believed – that is, he loved – those whom God had made, his friends, you and me. So Jesus died because giving up his life on a cross demonstrated his love for his Father and his friends, both of whom he treasured. Jesus’ heart, in other words, was where his treasure was, with God and with us.

This, I think, is what we mean when we say that Jesus died for me, and for you, and for the world. He did what he did because he wanted to, because he believed in us, cherished us, held us dear. He did what he did because he cherished the truth of love, and therefore he chose this truth, the truth which sacrificial love is, over a few more years of mortal breath, so that we might cherish the truth and the love he knew. Because we are where his treasure is.

Here’s the way Paul puts it: Christ Jesus was in the form of God himself. He enjoyed the privileges of God himself. And that’s the truth. But he did not count the privileges of God something to be held on to graspingly. He meant to protect the treasure he held dear. So he made himself nothing, a slave. And he came to live with those he treasured, with us human beings, which is where his heart was. And taking our nature and likeness, he shared our human lot, and he humbled himself and did what was pleasing to his Father, not because he had to, but because he believed in us, his beloved, and hoped that we, his beloved, might believe – that is, might love – as well.

So Almighty God ceased being almighty. And that’s the truth too. And he became a babe in a manger, helpless and dependent, and took on human form and suffered cold and want, privation and sorrow, and finally death, because he knows that we, his beloved, his believed, suffer cold and want, privation and sorrow and death. And that’s also the truth, also the mind of Christ.

And he died – because God knows we will all die – and he went before us into death, so that we might not have to journey down our own way of sorrows without the support and strength of our beloved, our believed, so that we might not have to die at our own private Golgothas, alone. Though he enjoyed the privileges of God, Christ Jesus chose to die so that he could walk with us who are his treasure, his believed, his beloved. And that’s the truth, also the mind of Christ, as well.

Under the circumstances, under our mortal circumstances, which are the circumstances he chose for himself, Jesus died not because God made him do it, but because of Jesus’ own love for us, because his belief in us is as great as love of God who created us for the truth of love in the first place.

So we come back to our question: Why do we do what we do? Or, to ask it another way, what is our belief? What is our truth and what is our love? What or who do we cherish? Specifically, do we believe God? That is, do we cherish God?

Is our belief in the Creed, in what we say we believe? Is our belief in our affirmation that Jesus was who they say he was, in our affirmation that Jesus did all those things the Creed says about him? Is that what we believe? Or is our belief in the life the Creed reflects, in the turning of minds and hearts toward the One we speak of in the Creed, in the turning of minds and hearts that so cherish Jesus – hold him so dear, so love him and treasure him – that we cherish and love the world God loved and believed into being the same way Jesus loved and cherished it? Is our belief, in other words, in the turning of our hearts and minds to the way of the Cross after the pattern of Jesus, there to live and die ourselves the truth that Jesus lived and died, not because we have to, but because we love him – that is, because we believe in him as he believes in us, because we hold him dear as he holds us dear, because a life and death lived after the pattern of the life and death of Jesus is what we cherish as well, because, in Jesus, we cherish the truth we see in God?

“What do you think about this?” Jesus asks. “A man had sons. He went to some and said, ‘My sons, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘We will, sir,’ the priests and the elders replied. But they did not go. The Father came to others and said the same. ‘We will not,’ replied the tax-collectors and prostitutes. But afterwards they changed their minds and went. “Which of these did what their Father wanted?” Jesus asked. What response pleased the Father? Then Jesus turned to the priests and the elders, and added, ”I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to show you the way to live, and you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

Here’s a parable.

There once was an elderly doctor in a small village in France. For years, the doctor had served the village sacrificially. For years, he had delivered the villagers’ babies. For years he had healed the peoples’ illnesses, often without pay. For years he had sat at the bedsides of the dying.

But the doctor grew old, and the time came for him to retire. And when he announced his retirement, the villagers decided they would throw a big party to say thank you, to show their appreciation for his sacrificial life among them, to show their gratitude for the life of service and love and care he had devoted to them.

They decided they would place a large barrel in the middle of the village square, and each family said they would bring a portion of their very best wine and pour it in the barrel. (This would be a wonderful blended wine!) And then, when the barrel was full, they would give it to the doctor as their gift of thanks and gratitude. And they would have a celebration.

So they did. And for days people were seen bringing their gifts and pouring them into the barrel.

Finally, the big day came and the people gathered at the village square, and in a grand procession they marched with the barrel to the doctor’s house. They called the doctor and asked him to come outside. He was overcome with emotion, and at the people’s invitation the doctor went to the barrel and dipped his cup into it, and he took a taste of their gift.

But then the doctor’s face fell, and he turned and, heavy with sadness, he walked back into the house.

Puzzled, the people went to the barrel. And someone dipped a cup into it and took a sip, but what he tasted was water. For all the people had said to themselves, “I don’t have much for myself, and what little I could offer won’t be missed.” And just so, each family had poured in water rather than wine, and what was to have been a happy and grand occasion of thanksgiving and gratitude became an event of shame.

Christ did what he did for me, and for you, and for the world, because he believed in us; he loved us, cherished us, because we are where his treasure is, and because the truth of the way of the Cross, the truth of giving up one’s life for those he loves, trumps the truth of a creed.

So the question of belief is: Now what am I going to do? And the answer is: Love God. Then do what you want to.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.