"A New Heart and a New Spirit"

[Our lessons today were Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Psalm 25:1-8, Philippians 2:1-13, and Matthew 21:23-32.]

Ezekiel was a prophet of the Babylonian exile in the Sixth Century B.C.E., and he speaks in a time of change for the people of Israel. The Temple in Jerusalem—where God lived—has been destroyed and the people scattered, with some of the elite taken away to Babylon. When they are forced to worship without having the Temple and in a place far from God’s Promised Land, major changes in their thinking result.

Until now, Israel, like other Middle Eastern cultures of the time, believed in tribal responsibility for wrongdoing. This concept of holding all members of the tribe personally responsible for the acts of its members is exemplified by the proverb quoted here: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

Ezekiel, speaking for God, establishes a new principle: because all life belongs to God, it is unfair to punish others for one person’s wrongdoing. This principle of personal responsibility for one’s actions leads to a statement of the importance of repentance. If you are being held responsible for the sins of others, your personal repentance of sin isn’t too useful. However, God says through Ezekiel that if you turn from your transgressions and get “a new heart and a new spirit”, you will live.

We aren’t very big on personal responsibility these days. “It’s not my fault; it’s because of where I was born or my social status or something that takes the responsibility for my actions off my hands.” I read a column this week about the proposed bailout of the financial system, where the author said that he wanted the bankers and others who lost this money to simply say “I’m sorry” and mean it, because their recklessness has had a horrible cost. They were horrified at the very idea—one even said to him, “I guess you want us to grovel”—of accepting any degree of responsibility for their actions.

Our Gospel lesson from Matthew could stand some context. This takes place during Holy Week. Jesus has already attacked the moneychangers and sellers of animals in the courtyard of the Temple, not, by the way, because the moneychangers and sellers were bad per se. The moneychangers were necessary to convert the Roman coins with the emperor’s likeness on them to more acceptable Jewish coins. The animals needed to be sold to serve as sacrifices in the Temple worship. Jesus wanted to stop the moneychangers and sellers to stop the Temple worship as a protest against the way that the Temple authorities had become a part of the domination system and had become a “den of thieves.” When the chief priests and the elders ask by what authority Jesus is doing “these things,” they are referring to his actions in Holy Week.

Jesus tells this parable of two sons (which is found only in Matthew’s Gospel). The father asks his two sons to go work in the vineyard. One says he won’t, but then changes his mind and goes to work. The other says he will, but doesn’t. The Pharisees correctly say that the first son is doing his father’s will, but they obviously missed how the parable applies to them.

When Jesus says that the tax collectors and prostitutes will go to heaven before them, it isn’t because their answer to Jesus’ question is wrong. It is because they are saying the right things, but not doing them. When God, speaking through John the Baptist, asked the Pharisees to do His work, they might have said they were, but they clearly didn’t do it. They were like the second son. The tax collectors and the prostitutes, like the first son, changed and got themselves “a new heart and a new spirit”. The Pharisees instead remained focused on the laws that secured their own power.

What about us? Are we giving God the right answers with our mouths, but not living up to what we say? Do we say one thing here in Church on Sunday and live some other way outside? A critical point to take away from this parable is that truly being a follower of Christ is not about we say, it is about what we do and how we live. As Paul tells us in his letter to the church in Philippi, we are called to be of the same mind as Jesus—a mind of love, humility, and reconciliation.

We often hear that if we posted the Ten Commandments in public places or had public prayer in schools, things would be better and people would change because of it. But, isn’t that relying on what we say to cause change? Rather than saying prayers in schools or seeing the Commandments on the wall, let’s try living the Greatest Commandment—to love our neighbor as we do ourselves.