Day 14 • The Week of Peace

Scripture Readings:
Psalm 126
Habakkuk 3:13-19
Matthew 21:28-32

In 2020, someone asked me why I thought people were leaving Christianity. I started to respond, then my heart started to break, and I couldn’t. Later, I wrote a “Letter of Lament to Evangelical Christianity,” which listed several reasons I heard from people who had left Evangelical Christianity during the course of my ministry as a pastor. This letter resonated with so many people online. The essential message was, “We are not seeing you live out what you taught us to be as followers of Jesus.” One of the top reasons people gave Pew Research when Americans were surveyed about why they left Christianity was “too many Christians doing very un-Christian things.”

We are living in a time where religious abuse and church hurt have become a mainstream conversation. Many people have found themselves outside of the Christianity of their past and are not sure where they currently stand, let alone where they might be headed. Much of this is having to do with “too many Christians doing very un-Christian things.” Especially on the national political stage. So many have experienced the harm caused by those who claim to know God and even claim to have the authority of God, yet does not live out the ways of God.

This is actually one of the main threads all throughout the gospel of Matthew. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches that the disciple’s most urgent task is not merely to know God but to embody God’s will in the world, which is to love all others, including their enemies (5:43-48). Then Matthew goes on to describe in the rest of the gospel how Jesus’ authority was recognized by the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized but constantly questioned by the religious leaders and teachers (example 21:10-11).

Jesus then goes to the heart of Jerusalem into the temple, only to find out that it, too was claiming to be a house of God but was not embodying the will of God. Quite the opposite, in fact. The temple was embodying exploitative practices against the poor and the vulnerable. So Jesus cleared it out (21:12-17). This causes the religious leaders to become deeply enraged at Jesus, for he had disrupted the status quo of their base of power and control. Jesus then goes outside the city and curses a fig tree that wasn’t producing any fruits (21:18-22). The fig tree for Israel at that time had the same symbolic power as a bald eagle sitting on top of an American flag pole. Jesus was displaying yet another symbolic act of confronting those who claim to know God, even on a collective level, but do not produce the fruit of God.

In contrast, those who were looked down upon by the religious leaders and teachers, like tax collectors and prostitutes, were embodying the love Jesus was calling for in his sermon on the mount. Jesus later even acknowledges that the religious leaders know God’s law and teach good things, but they simply don’t live it out. Matthew 23:1-3 says, “Then Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it, but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.’”

In our reading from Matthew 21:28-32 today, Jesus says this theme in the most simple and clear terms through a parable of a father with two sons. The first son is asked by the father to work in the vineyard, and the son says “no” but later changes his mind and does the work. The second son is asked to do the same thing and says “yes” but never does the work. When Jesus asked the religious leaders who did the Father’s will, they responded, “the first.” Jesus then says something remarkable, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” All because they changed their minds and embodied the love of God.

This message is so needed within American Christianity. There has often been such an emphasis on knowing Jesus, knowing the Bible, and believing in God above all else. This emphasis on knowing God rather than doing the work of God results in things such as an unhealthy preoccupation with what people “believe” while disregarding their lived realities. This approach also impacts our politics, such as policy measures that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the same schools where so many Christians have opposed lunches being free for hungry, impoverished kids. All with the backdrop of so many Christian leaders condemning our culture for turning their backs on God. We have become the very religious leaders and teachers that Jesus would be confronting about how our work isn’t lining up with the God we claim to know. The God we claim we want others to know.

Yet, just like in the time of Jesus, there are many others who are doing the work of God. Even those who the church would count as “outsiders,” like the tax collectors and prostitutes of Christ’s day. Advent provides us an opportunity to not only see who is embodying the radical love of God in our world today, but it also invites us to seek out ways we can better participate in the work of God ourselves.

Reflection Steps

In our culture, where beliefs and ideology seem to be paramount, what do you personally find to be the most challenging thing about embodying the love of Jesus? Spend some time today thinking about this question and give some intentional effort towards breaking through any barriers you might discover that distract you from making the work of God’s love a greater priority.