You might need this link too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvSO5KEnaVE
We call it wavering. Wishy-washy. Uncertainty. Doubt. “Make up your mind!” We say to politicians on TV and children at the candy store. My mom, albeit in more colorful language, says, “It’s time to go to the bathroom or get off the toilet!” Or it reminds me of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the knights are trying to cross the bridge and they come up to this troll and have to answer three questions. And the first knight goes through easily, so the second knight comes up, all sure of himself, gets an answer wrong, and gets thrown into the abyss. So the third knight comes up with much trepidation and he’s asked, “What is your name?!” He answers “Sir Galahad of Camelot.” And the troll asks, “What is your quest?” “I seek the Holy Grail,” he says. So far, so good. Finally, the troll asks him, “What is your favorite color?” And Sir Galahad responds, “Blue! No. Yelloaaaahhhhhhhh” and gets thrown into the The Gorge of Eternal Peril for changing his mind. Then, not to be swayed, King Arthur comes before the troll. “What is your name?” The troll asks. “Arthur, king of the Britains.” “What is your quest?” “I seek the Holy Grail!” “What is the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?” And the troll, thinking that he’s stumped the king, awaits his answer. But the king responds with his own question, “African, or European swallow?” And the troll says, “What? I don’t know that!” And, in the dry absurd humor that only Monty Python can do, the troll is catapulted into the air and sent off into the abyss. Ahhhhhhh!!!
Such is the power of being sure. Know the right answers, and you can go further, you can cross the bridge, you can make the decision, and you can make something of your life. And even if you’re wrong, as long as you stick to your guns, you can still win the election, you can still sell the product, you can still win the war. As long as you’re sure. If you’re unsure, well, too bad for you. Off to the The Gorge of Eternal Peril you go. Ahhhhhh!
We humans love to be sure. We want answers. Guarantees. Promises. We thrive in the either/or. The this or that. The black or white. Make a choice, hope it’s the right one, and God help you if you change your mind. Heaven help you if you’re not sure.
Now, for sure, I want my neurosurgeons, my pilots, my Subaru technician, and my dentist to know some right answers. Precision has its place. Science is important. But we’ve all met that pastor who refuses to say, “I don’t know.” We all know that teacher who made something up, or learned it wrong, and refuses to change her mind. We all have that fear of being tossed into the abyss if we get something wrong. And some of us are so hardheaded that we’d rather live in the abyss than admit that we’ve been wrong. We’d rather live in our wrong than change our minds. We’d rather make something up than say, “You know, I’m just not sure.”
So what do we do with a Savior who doesn’t give us the answers? What do we do with a Savior who answers questions with more questions? What do we do with a Savior who seems to not only praise repentance - literally - to change one’s mind - but who requires it?
Now I haven’t personally gone through and counted, so this could be wrong, but it is said that Jesus asks 307 questions in the Gospels. That 183 questions are asked of him. And that of all those questions, Jesus answers, sort of, 3 of them. We get three answers. That’s it. Three. And one of them is about paying taxes.
It’s important to know what has happened right before the chief priests and elders confront Jesus in our reading today. He’s thrown a huge temper tantrum. He’s flipped over the money changer’s tables, he’s freed the doves from their cages, he’s made a giant mess of the temple, upending and criticizing a system that has rested in its “rightness” for centuries. And the priests and scribes who take pride in all their rightness, who have all the answers, who know all the things, and would never find themselves in the abyss of the unknown come up to Jesus and ask him, essentially, “Who do you think you are?” “What right do you have to do this?” “Where does your authority come from?” Like the troll from the Holy Grail, Jesus had better have the right answer here, or else he will be thrown into the abyss.
And Jesus doesn’t reply, “Oh. Easy question. I got this. My authority comes from God. Or from the scriptures. Or from my dad. Or from my eight years at yeshiva.”
Nope.
Jesus doesn’t give us - or the scribes - an answer.
Instead, in typical Rabbinic fashion, he answers their question with a question of his own. Like King Arthur, he turns the tables, and he asks the question. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
And like the troll who has been beaten at his own game, they’re stuck. They don’t know the answer. “We do not know,” they say. Ahhhh!
And I mean, we’ve got to give them some credit here, even if the motivation for their “I don’t know” is to keep themselves out of trouble, at least they’re willing to say it.
But instead of Jesus catapulting them into the abyss for not knowing the answer, he gives them a story instead. A story full of more questions.
A man had two sons. He asks them both to go out into the vineyard to work. The first one says, “Nope. Not gonna do it,” but then “changes his mind and went.” The second one says, “Sure, Dad, I’m on it,” but doesn’t go. “Which one,” Jesus asks, “does the will of the father?” The priests and the elders know the answer to this one. Obviously, the first kid, the one who changed his mind, the one who went into the vineyard and did the work, he’s the one who did the will of the father.
But before they get their A pluses and their gold stars for the day, Jesus tells them that they’re not the ones who have it all right. It’s not the ones who have all the right answers that get to cross the bridge and continue on their faith journeys. No. It’s the prostitutes. It’s the tax collectors. It’s the ones who have changed their minds who will enter the kingdom before all those folks who insist that they have the right answers. And to emphasize his point, Jesus repeats the same exact word to the leaders in the temple that he uses for the first son. Metanoia, in the Greek, usually translated “to repent,” more literally means “to change your mind.” And this is Jesus’s critique. Not that they didn’t know the answer. Not that they had the wrong answer. But that they didn’t change their minds. He says, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it - even after you saw me - you did not metanoia - you did not change your minds and believe him.”
I cannot emphasize this enough. I will preach this until my dying day. Jesus isn’t looking for right answers from us. He’s not going to throw us into The Gorge of Eternal Fire if we change our minds or if we get it wrong. Jesus is literally asking us to change our minds. Again and again and again.
As kids we used to joke that the right answer to every question the Sunday School teacher asked was “Jesus.” If we answered “Jesus,” to whatever question that was asked, we’d be praised. “Who parted the Red Sea?” “Jesus?” We’d answer. And somehow the teacher would do theological backflips to assure us that yes, it was through the power of Jesus that the Red Sea was parted. Or, she’d ask, “what was the sign to Noah that God would never flood the earth again?” “Jesus?” We’d answer. And, well, ok, I guess, in some way, Jesus did send the rainbow.
All jokes aside, though, maybe this wandering questioner in first century Galilee is the answer to all the questions. Because Jesus doesn’t let us land on one solid explication, one clear solution. He’s not looking for answers; he’s longing for metanoia, he’s begging us to change our minds, to be transformed, to see the world differently than we did before. And this is a never-ending, life-long process. Change is inherent to the Christian life. The mark of a Christian is that we change our minds. This is what the first son does. This is what the chief priests and scribes refuse to do.
Christians aren’t the ones who have the right answers. We’re the ones who ask the questions. We’re the ones who are changed by the questions. Jesus is always turning the tables on us. There’s always more to learn.
Change your mind and go. Welcome to the Kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God.
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