“I have grown tired of people speaking of God
as if God were a deed folded in their coat pocket,
creased and signed…
I don’t understand these folk,
the ones who carry God
the way (people) carry canes they do not need –
less for support than for pointing….
And always so sure.
That is the wearying part.
Not the speaking.
The sureness….”
~ Matt Moberg (May 20)
Poet Matt Moberg is weary of the “sureness” of people who view God as already signed and settled. I get it. As a child at Our Lady of Peace elementary school in Marshfield, Wisconsin, I thought the Christian life was mostly about getting the answers right. The pedagogy of the Baltimore catechism, with its memorized responses, emphasized shalts and shalt-nots, mortal and venial sins. We knew the rules; we had no concept of a relationship. This left me – as it likely left many of us – with the discomforting equation: “If I do the right things, God will love me. If I don’t, God may withdraw that love.” The language of relationship was secondary to the language of certainty.
But across today’s readings, three voices, centuries apart, remind us: God’s abiding love does not depend on our getting it right. Ezekiel tells us that God’s love is always inviting us to new life. Paul shows us what that life looks like when it takes flesh. Matthew reminds us that there is no expiration date on saying yes to God’s love. Moberg writes, “Maybe the holiest thing is not loud certainty. Maybe the holiest thing is the quiet softening.” God’s love is steadfast; we do not have to cling to loud certainty. We can soften. We can turn. Today: come, be unsure.
In our first reading, Ezekiel speaks to people who felt imprisoned by their past. The people had a proverb: “The parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” This is what we’ve inherited. This is who we are. God will have none of their excuses: “This proverb shall no more be used by you.” Through Ezekiel comes one of Scripture’s most tender and hopeful invitations: “Cast away from you all the transgressions …. Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit…. Turn and live.” The Hebrew word here, shuv – “to turn around to a right path,” appears 62 times in Ezekiel and over 1,000 times in the Hebrew Bible. Unlike repentance, which focuses on feelings such as regret, shuv is action oriented. A spiritual U-turn. Ezekiel reassures us: Our future is not chained to our past. We are not stuck in the stories we’ve been telling ourselves. Turn. Get yourself a new heart.
Our second reading, Paul’s letter to his Philippian companions, answers the question that Ezekiel raises: “Since we are to turn, toward what should we turn?” The Greek word that Paul uses — phroneo – describes a whole way of being in the world. Paul is not concerned with whether the community has the “right” understanding of Jesus; he is pointing to something deeper. He is asking the Philippians to work out their salvation by taking on Christ’s way of being – the disposition that led Jesus to relinquish status, embrace humility, and give Himself for others. The verb implies an ongoing practice: the heart of the Christian message is that we are continually being shaped in Christ’s likeness. Shaped in ways that change how we live with one another. Turn. Get yourself a new heart.
Today’s Gospel returns us to the vineyard, where Jesus tells what appears to be a simple little story. Two sons. One says no and goes. The other says yes – and doesn’t. Jesus tells this story to religious leaders who are experts in the language of shalts and shalt-nots. The language of right answers and loud certainty.
Moberg captures what happens when the certainty of right answers hardens into judgment.
“…The gavel in the tongue.
The courthouse in the ribs.
The witness chair
where the heart was meant to be.
Everybody wants the truth now,
but nobody wants it
to lay a hand on them….”
The answer to Jesus’ question to the Pharisees: “Which one did the will of his parent?” is obvious. The Pharisees are sure they are the first son. They look at Jesus from their place on the catbird seat, secure in their identity. Then, Jesus cuts the limb off, and they tumble from their perch. “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the reign of God ahead of you.” Everybody wants the truth now, but nobody wants it to lay a hand on them. The tax collectors and the prostitutes believed John and they changed; they understood something that the religious leaders, despite their claims and their confidence, missed: Accepting God’s invitation can change a person. The Pharisees illustrate the danger of a certain kind of pride: Not just arrogance, but the conviction that they were already right. The contrast here is between those whose hearts can be moved – and those whose hearts are not (yet) open. The tragedy is not ignorance, it is refusal. As Karl Barth put it, “Grace is not scarce; it is our hands that are closed.”
The Greek word that Matthew chooses to describe the first son is metamelomai. Not merely intellectual reconsideration – the word evokes regret that stirs the heart. Something happened inside the first lad. His resistance softened. His pride loosened. He experienced an inward reversal that was expressed in his actions. A change of heart that became a change of direction. His obedience was not the reward for having the right answer; it was the fruit of being open to God’s love. Maybe this is the holiest thing: the quiet softening that comes from trusting that God’s love is not exhausted by our first answer. Not exhausted by the worst thing we’ve ever done. God’s love is always there.
Scripture is full of these “again and again” moments – second and third chances that are always the next invitation. Moses began by protesting his call and insisting he was unfit. Jonah ran in the opposite direction before eventually turning to Ninevah. Peter denied Jesus three times – and yet was entrusted with care of the community. Again and again, God writes “next” into our stories; “next” is where grace enters. Moberg asks, “Who told you you had to be right in order to be good?” The question is not, “Have you always done the right thing?” The question is, “What are you doing next? Not “Why didn’t you turn years ago?” But “How about turning now?” Every now, every next is another beginning.
Ezekiel says, receive a new heart. Paul says, take on the mind of Christ. Jesus says, be like the son whose no became a yes. Each Sunday, we come to this table not because we have “finished” becoming disciples, but because we have not. We come unfinished. We come unsure. We come with our half-formed faith and our own hard edges – into a world replete with certainty, hardened positions, and dehumanization. We come to this table asking for transformed hearts – the capacity to honor another’s humanity even when their convictions conflict with our own; the humility to say, “I need to listen some more;” the willingness to see what we would rather not see and to allow that reality to challenge and to change us.
Maybe that is the quiet softening, the deeper invitation of this table today: not to leave here more certain but more open. Hearts open enough to listen. Minds open enough to change. Lives open enough to trust in the one sure thing: in God’s love. And to follow where that love leads. So come to the table. Come as you are: unfinished. Come. Turn. Get yourself a new heart.
We welcome your comments on our blog posts below. All comments are reviewed manually before they appear on our website to maintain a respectful, safe, relevant discussion and to filter out spam. Comments usually appear within 24 hours, Monday-Friday.