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When Matthew chapter 18, Jesus has perhaps one of his most tender moments.

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The disciples come to him and say, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

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And Jesus brings to them a child and sets the child in their midst and says, "Truly

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I tell you, to enter the kingdom of God, you must become like a child." But then

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this morning, in Matthew 21, again, Jesus says, "Truly I tell you." And again,

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he says, "Here is how you enter the kingdom of God." But this time, instead of

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saying, "You must become like a child," he says, "You must become like a

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prostitute."

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And so the question is, why? Why does God want us to become like the tax collectors

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and the prostitutes that we might be with him? And the first answer is honesty.

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Because this morning, at least the prostitute and the tax collector are honest.

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This morning to set the stage, Jesus is now in the temple.

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He's in Jerusalem, where he will soon die, and so we are listening in on one of his

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last conversations between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, the Jewish leaders.

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And he tells them a story about a father who had two sons.

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And the father goes to both and he says, "Son, come and work with me in my

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vineyard." But the first son says, "No, I will not." But then later he goes.

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While the second son says, "I will go," but then doesn't.

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And the truth is, neither son wants to obey the father and go into the vineyard,

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but it's only the first son who is actually honest about it.

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The second son never wanted to go. I mean, he says, "I will go." And he even adds

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the word sir. "I will go, sir." You can hear him being over-polite,

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overcompensating, sort of feigning obedience, when in reality, his heart is far

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from God. But listen to what the first son says.

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When the father calls him into the vineyard, he says, "I will not." In the Greek,

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literally, "I do not want to. I do not feel like it."

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And that is the type of response God can actually work with.

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Because at least it's honest. At least it's someone who knows they are sick.

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After the parable, you'll notice that Jesus switches from the third tense to the

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second tense, and he says to the Jewish leaders, "You, you are the second

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son. You are the one who on the outside appeared obedient and appeared

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righteous while your hearts were far from me." And it was them.

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It was the tax collectors and the prostitutes who were the first son, those who had

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no choice but to admit, "I do not want. I do not feel.

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I have not. I will not."

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And this is what makes our liturgy every Sunday so important and so vital

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because slowly but surely, it forces upon us this type of honesty.

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Because the reality is, as we go through our weeks, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

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Thursday, with each day that passes, we have a greater and greater tendency to

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become like the second son. Prone to overestimating our

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own righteousness and our own willingness to obey God.

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And we get better and better at pretending and saying, "Yes, Lord, I will go.

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Yes, Lord, I will serve you and follow you." But then we come here, and

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every word of the liturgy sort of squeezes us and forces us to ask, "Is that really

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true?" And, "Do I really mean that?" Every word, every song, every

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prayer is this mirror held up to our hearts, forcing us to confront our

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desires, so that by the time confession rolls around, we do not need a priest to

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tell us to be on our knees and to confess our sins and say, "Most merciful God,

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I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.

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Like the first son, you've called me into your vineyard, and over and over again,

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I've said, 'I will not. I cannot. I do not want to.'"

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So that's the first reason we must become like the prostitute, is because at least

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they're honest. But the second is faith.

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Because four times in our passage, you'll hear this repetition of the word believe.

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Jesus says, "For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not

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believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.

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And even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him."

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So what Jesus is saying then is that the second difference between the two sons,

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the second difference between the Jewish authorities and the prostitutes and tax

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collectors, is faith.

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That when John the Baptist came to them saying, "You are sick, and the doctor is

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here," only the prostitutes believed him.

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And so when Jesus says it was the first son who did the will of the father,

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what exactly is that will? What exactly is it that God this morning wants from

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us and expects from us? It is not for us to be perfect.

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It is not for us to perfectly follow some laundry list of rules and expectations,

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but it is simple faith. He just wants simple faith from us to simply

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believe the message of John and the message of the gospel.

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That, one, I'm sick and need a doctor.

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But that, two, the doctor is here, and now through Christ's life and

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his death and his resurrection, I can be made well.

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And that's the third point, which is repentance.

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This morning, we see the third difference between the two sons, between the

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prostitutes and the religious leaders, is that only the first group repents.

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And we hear this in the language of changed their mind.

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The father goes to the first son and says, "Son, go and work in the vineyard

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today." And he answered, "I will not." But later, he changed his

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mind and went. And then later, Christ says to the Jewish leaders,

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"You did not change your mind." And so that is the language of repentance.

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That is what repentance is, is changing our mind.

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In the words of our Ezekiel passage, it is turn then and live.

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To see that I've been walking in the wrong direction.

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I've been walking in the path of death, but even now, today, I can turn around and

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change.

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And that is easy for the prostitute and the tax collector to see because their

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lives as they were, were not working.

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In the words of Alcoholics Anonymous, their lives had become unmanageable,

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and they had no other options. They had nowhere else to go.

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But for the rest of us, repentance is extremely difficult because we have not

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yet bottomed out.

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We're still left depending on our own willpower, our own devices.

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And so Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, "Even when you saw the prostitutes and the

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tax collectors go out to John and be baptized and have their lives changed by the

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power of God, you wouldn't repent.

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Even when you saw all the evidence in the world, you would not change your mind."

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And here we get to the real reason why the Jewish leaders would not repent.

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Because that would have meant becoming like them.

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It would have meant becoming like the people they hated and despised the most.

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Repenting would have meant getting baptized like the tax collectors and the

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prostitutes. It would have meant going down and sharing the bathwater with

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them, and that was all just too much.

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It was all just too lowbrow.

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But that is what the gospel is. It is so lowbrow.

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It is for tax collectors and prostitutes. It is for sinners and slaves.

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It's about a son who Paul tells us in Philippians becomes like a slave.

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Who though he was in the form of God, emptied himself and took on human flesh and

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became like a slave. Who had no problem going down into the waters

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of the Jordan River with tax collectors and prostitutes, becoming like them in

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order to save them.

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So why must we become like the prostitute?

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Simple honesty. I'm sick. Simple faith.

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The doctor is here. Simple repentance.

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I can still turn and be made well.

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Speaking of lowbrow, as I was thinking about our passage this week, I was reminded

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of two different children's stories.

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The first is that poem we all read as children called "Sick" by Shel Silverstein.

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Do you remember this poem? It's about this little girl named Peggy Ann McKay, who's

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lying in bed one morning and dreading the thought of going to school.

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And she makes up all these excuses about why she won't and why she cannot.

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I will not. She says, "I cannot go to school today," said Little Peggy Ann McKay.

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"I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash and purple bumps.

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My tonsils are as big as rocks. I've counted 16 chickenpox.

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My leg is cut, my eyes are blue, it might be instamatic flu." I don't even know

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what instamatic flu is, but you get the point.

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But then suddenly Peggy Ann is interrupted, and her parents call out to her and

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tell her it's Saturday. And so she gets out of bed, and she goes out to play.

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And for all the parents in the room, this is a very familiar story.

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But there's this other one that's almost the exact same concept.

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And it's called "Thomas' Snowsuit" by the author Robert Munsch.

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You may not know this story, but it's a good one.

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"Thomas' Snowsuit." And it begins like this.

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One day, Thomas' mother bought him a nice new brown snowsuit.

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When Thomas saw that snowsuit, he said, "That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen

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in my life. If you think I'm going to wear that ugly snowsuit, you're crazy." The

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next day, when it was time to go to school, the mother said, "Thomas, please put on

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your snowsuit." And Thomas said, "No." And in the book, it's like that.

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It's like four Ns and then an O. No. So later, when Thomas is at school, it comes

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time for recess, and so his teacher says, "Thomas, put on your snowsuit." And

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again, Thomas says, "No." And so then they call on the principal, and the principal

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tries to get through to Thomas. And it says the principal gave his very best

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principal look and said, "Thomas, put on your snowsuit." And Thomas said, "No."

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But then what happens? It says,

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from far out in the playground, someone yelled, "Thomas, come and play."

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Thomas ran across the room, jumped into his snowsuit, got his boots on in two

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seconds, and ran out the door.

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And so what are these two stories revealing to us?

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And what is being revealed to us by Jesus this morning?

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It is that if we are ever to go outside, if we are ever to obey and

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follow God into his vineyard, we must be wooed.

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We must be wooed. We need good news.

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We need to hear that we are not our past, that our sins can be forgiven,

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that like the first son, we can still change.

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That although we have said no to God our whole life, we can still say yes, even

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today.

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In order to repent and to believe, we need to hear that life with God

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is not a chore, it is not a burden, but with God, it is always

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Saturday. It is always recess. It is always time to play and turn

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and live.

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Child, son, daughter, come with me and work in my

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vineyard.

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And the son said, "No." But later, he changed his mind, and he went.

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In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.