Keeping Up Appearances
Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
I imagine I’m not alone when I say that I can have a tendency to be a people-pleaser, and, as often comes with that territory, I sometimes have difficulty saying no. Occasionally, this can lead me to some wonderful opportunities. I’ve often found myself truly enjoying an activity, or truly growing in a situation that I might have been reluctant to participate in at first, just because I didn’t want to say no when asked or invited. On the flip-side, I’ve often found myself in the midst of experiences or situations, completely in over my head and asking, “How did I get here?” In those moments, I have to remind myself that it’s because of my own inability to set boundaries, to discern what is best, and to have the boldness simply to refuse things from time to time that lands me in those difficult spots.
Whatever the circumstances, and however these situations might turn out for me, I would be wise at every turn to explore my motives. Why do I say yes to things? Why do I agree to participate in activities or take on responsibilities, or engage in opportunities in the first place? This week’s readings in scripture invite us to wrestle with these questions in the context of both individual and communal righteousness and relationship to the one who calls us to righteousness, not just in words, but also in deeds and even in motivations.
The Gospel reading from Matthew chapter 21 unfolds in the familiar context of a conflict between Jesus and those arbiters of righteousness, the elders and chief priests in Jerusalem. The fact that this particular encounter takes place during the final week of Jesus’ earthly life, just after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem only serves to heighten the stakes of this conversation for us as readers, and the fact that the opposition of those in leadership to Jesus was reaching its fever pitch only intensifies the nature of this showdown between the two. Again, in a familiar turn of events, Jesus responds to their question about his authority with his own question, this one about the authority of John’s baptism. The nature of this question, and of the priests’ and elders’ response to it, serves to highlight the mixed motives that these alleged gatekeepers of what is good and right seem to be wrestling with. Rather than answer from a place of conviction, a commitment to what they believe to be true, they agonize over what the response of the crowd might be. They are trying to please the crowds; or at least, they don’t want to risk losing the support of the crowds, lest their positions of power and the benefits that come with those positions be called into question. Their response—“We don’t know”—is not a sincere expression of uncertainty, which might actually be admirable, but a calculated means of keeping up appearances, and of dodging any potential consequences that their convictions might bring down upon them. Those of us who are people pleasers would do well to acknowledge out own tendencies in this regard.
The parable that Jesus shares following this encounter, while puzzling in the way that many parables are, is also a powerful reminder that the God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of those chief priests and elders, is less concerned with the ways that we keep up appearances, less concerned with the face we show to the crowds, and more concerned with the motivations and attitudes of our hearts, and the fruit borne by our active response to the plans and purposes of God. The juxtaposition of the two sons mentioned here speaks to the wrestling match that so many of us face when faced with a decision about doing the right thing. The first son, presented with the unpleasant prospect of spending a day working in the hot, dusty fields of his father, most certainly doesn’t give his father the answer he desires. This first son is decidedly not the people pleaser of the family. Maybe the father expected this answer. Maybe he’d heard this answer, in just this situation, countless times before. Maybe this son wasn’t the type to jump at the chance to do things he didn’t enjoy or didn’t benefit from directly. Maybe some of us can relate. Nevertheless, in a surprising turn of events, this same son, the one who had likely incurred his father’s displeasure or even anger by his initial response, later changed his mind, went to the fields, and did the work that his father had requested. We don’t know why he changed his mind, or what prompted this reversal—whether guilt, shame, or just a genuine desire to help his father out. Jesus doesn’t get into that. He only points to the fact that this son, despite initial appearances, is the one who does his father’s will, and presumably, his father’s delight is all the greater for that fact.
The second son, of course, does the opposite. When the father approaches him, he jumps at the chance to say yes to his father’s request. It’s likely that the father expects this as well. Maybe this is the good son. Or at least the son whom everyone refers to as the good son. The son who always says yes. The people pleaser. Again, we don’t have all the details or all the history here, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that this is the narrative that this second son has embraced and settled into ever since he and his brother were little kids. And so, when he also reverses course, when he chooses not to follow through on his initial eagerness to do what his father wanted, one can assume that the disappointment felt by the father, and maybe by others, was all the more pronounced.
When Jesus pivots, as he so often does in his teaching, to get to the heart of the matter—this astounding, exciting (and, to some, infuriating) thing that was happening in the coming of God’s kingdom—it exposes, in the hearts of his hearers, all kinds of difficult questions about motives, about intentions, and about the fruit that is borne by our responses to God’s calling. The notion that the tax collectors and prostitutes who responded to John’s message of a kingdom righteousness, these unsavory latecomers to the purposes of God, might be entering the kingdom ahead of those who hold court in the religious spaces, the gatekeepers of righteousness, the chief priests and elders, was certainly shocking. It undoubtedly elicited the sorts of responses that Ezekiel mentions when he declares, “Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is unfair!’” At the level of appearances, there does seem to be an unfairness to all of this. Why would those who have consistently made bad decisions, those who have brought shame upon themselves, their families, and their people, be worthy of entering a kingdom that the morally upright, those in good standing, the proud presiders over the people’s religious life, had done so much to earn?
Because it’s not about appearances. It’s not about who talks the best game or who puts on the best show of pleasing others. It’s not about those who do the right thing because they want to be liked, or they want to be respected, or they want the positions of status, authority, and prestige that comes with being one of the good people. It’s about the fruit that springs from a life given over to God, no matter what that life might have looked like before. It’s about responding to God’s calling in humility and sincerity of heart. It’s about acknowledging that the only response of righteousness is the response rooted in love rather than personal benefit. Ultimately, it’s about allowing our actions to be dictated not by the need to please, the need to be validated, the need to be liked, the need to put. Rather, our actions should be guided by the same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, the Jesus who had no time for keeping up appearances, the Holy One of God who was content to empty himself and take on the form of a servant, even becoming obedient to death on a cross, in order to do the will of his father. The motivations that prompted the Son of God to humble himself in this way had nothing to do with being a people pleaser, or keeping up appearances. Jesus, the Word made flesh, didn’t just talk about fulfilling God’s purposes; he followed through, to an extent that most of us can hardly fathom, and in doing so, he made it possible for all of us, whatever our history—whatever our appearance, whatever story others might tell about us—to answer his calling, to fulfill his purposes, and to enter his kingdom.
