The Rev. Canon Gregg Riley will lead the congregation of Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, in Holy Eucharist Sunday at 10am October 4 and 18, 2020.
Beginning in November 2020, Father Riley will no longer serve as Priest in Residence at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph. Information regarding our plans for November and beyond will be made available as soon as possible.
Online Morning Prayer services Sundays at 10am are available from Bishop Jake Owensby on the diocesan Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/
11am Sunday Morning Prayer services and daily 6pm Evening Prayer services (Mon-Sat) are available from The Rev. Garrett Boyte, Church of the Holy Cross, Shreveport on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/
An Invitation From Bishop Jake Owensby:
I hope you’ll join me for a series of in-person Zoom conversations called “A Love Shaped Life” Thursdays (6:00 p.m. CDT) in October. This coming Thursday (Oct. 1) we’ll be talking about letting go as a spiritual challenge.
No charge. No registration. All you need to do on Thursday is click this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81224620632?pwd=V1V1dmJGQW12djZmb2hDVWp0a1lZZz09
PROPER XXI - A - 20 - EZ. 18:1-4, 25-32; PHIL. 2:1-13; MATT. 21:23-32
Today’s gospel reading begins with a question from the chief priests and elders to Jesus. They want to know by what authority he is doing the things he is doing. Moreover, they want to know who gave him the authority.
Before we get into Jesus’
response, we need to back up a bit in Matthew’s 21st chapter to what
caused the elders to raise the question in the first place. Prior to Christ’
encounter with the priests and elders in the
Following his triumphal entry into the
Thus, the chief priests and elders confront him. The people crowd around him and listen intently to the exchange that takes place between Jesus and his inquisitors in today’s passage. They raise the question of his authority to do such a thing because their authority has been questioned, as it were, by Jesus’ actions.
Jesus is not ready to reveal his identity as Messiah to his scoffers. Rather, he confounds them with a question about John Baptist. Their question and Christ’ question of them requires the same answer and would lead a person to confess that Jesus has come from heaven.
Whether they know the right answers or not, the chief priests and the elders waffle on Christ’s question, and end up by saying they do not know about the origin of John’s baptism. Any answer they might have given would have brought them trouble.
If they could not, or were not willing to admit who John was, they are not willing to admit who Jesus is. Jesus responds to their refusal to answer his question by giving them a parable of the two sons who were asked by their father to go and work in his vineyard.
It is an interesting story, which I would imagine that most of us could relate to. We have all said “yes” to something or someone and then did not follow through. In addition, we have all said “no” and then later changed our mind. However, here, Jesus is zeroing in on the religious leaders.
The priests and elders may not have believed that John was a prophet; but supposed he was, what follows? Some people did what John said, even though in the eyes of the elders they looked like they were rebelling against God.
Other people refused to do what John said, even though they looked like God’s chosen ones in rejecting John. Just like the two sons in today’s parable, one of whom said “no” to his father, but then did what he was asked to do, the other who said “yes” but then did not do it.
In Jesus’ parable, the tax collectors and prostitutes stand for the first son. The way they were living their lives was a “no” to God; but when they heard John, they changed, repented, confessed their sins, and were baptized.
The second son who said “yes” but did not fulfill his mission, refers to the chief priests and elders who stood in the Temple and seemed outwardly to be doing God’s will. However, they were merely keeping up appearances. They refused to believe John’s message, not only about repentance but also about messiah who was standing unknown in their midst.
Sometimes we are the son who says “yes” and then we go our own way. At other times we are like the one who at first says “no” then we have a change of heart and go and do what God has asks us to do. It has to do with being obedient.
Christ is our example of one
who accepts the divine will with complete obedience, trust, and love. As
The challenge of this parable for us today is to make sure we are responding to Jesus, allowing him to confront us at every point where we have been like the second son saying “yes” to God and yet continuing in our ways that lead us away from God.
Change is possible. One is not bound by his or her past unless one chooses to be. Repent and live! As the prophet proclaims, for the Lord has no pleasure in the death of anyone.
It is not enough that outwardly we strive to “keep up the appearance” that we are Christians. What is needed is a new heart and a new spirit as the prophet Ezekiel proclaims that will not only make us want to give our “yes” to God but to follow through with it.
In baptism, we said our “yes” to God. In baptism we took on Christ by dying with him and being raised to new life in Him; a life we are to live to God with complete obedience, trust, faith, and love. Jesus Christ is the source of that new heart and spirit.
Once we get our response to Jesus as Lord of our Life in order, then as his followers we are to go out into the market place of life to challenge the world. We do this by the way we live our lives in love and service as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord, so that we are asked “by what right are you doing that?’
To which the proper answer would be not to confuse them with riddles about John the Baptist, but to tell them about Jesus the Christ. How His coming into our life has changed who we are, the way we think, and the way we act.
For now, our life is hide in Christ in whom we live and move and have our being; to Him be the glory forever and ever. AMEN+
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