The Problem with "Yes"

(Matthew 21:22-32) – When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, 'Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, 'I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, 'I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

It's hard for me to hear today's gospel without thinking of my roommate before Kathy. Bubba. I remember the time I had something heavy and bulky for our apartment. It was in my car trunk. I called for Bubba to come out and help me bring it in. "I'll be right there, Lowell." I waited a while. Nothing. "Bubba. Come give me a hand." "On the way. I'm coming." More waiting. "Bubba, are you coming to help me bring this in?" "Yeah, Lowell." (I think I hear a repressed chuckle.) "I'll be right there." More time. "BUBBA?!" Now there is unsuppressed laughter, "Just wait Lowell. I'm on the way down." ...He wasn't coming. And the only question was how long he could pull my string, and how mad I was going to get about it. He was having a great time.

So I just learned to shrug it off. Go get a buddy from a neighboring apartment. And as soon as we would start dragging that thing out of the truck Bubba would be there Johnny-on-the-spot, laughing heartily and pitching in with exaggeration, "Here, let me get that for you. I got it. Okay." While he barely laid a hand on it.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression. Bubba was truly an instrument of grace for me. Even in this story he was an instrument of grace. Because, you see, I was one of those people who was taught that I needed to meet other people's expectations, especially teachers and parents. I was taught to be a good boy and to excel. And if I didn't meet those expectations, I was taught that in some way I was a failure. If I didn't please others, somehow I hadn't measured up.

Bubba wasn't taught that. Or at least he didn't absorb it if others tried to teach him. And so Bubba had a freedom and happiness and spontaneity that I lacked. He lived with far less pressure and much more grace than I did. When I made a "C"... Well, I couldn't make C's. When Bubba made a "C", he chortled, "Look Lowell, I passed."

Bubba didn't have to make A's. Bubba didn't have to please other people in order to feel okay about himself. And except when he was having fun, his "yes" was "yes," and his "no" was "no."

But, you see, it's hard for people like me to say "no." People like me are eager to please and eager to help. We mean well, but we sometimes say "yes" in too great a hurry. Soren Kierkegaard had an essay about us "yes-people." He says this:

When you say "Yes" or promise something, you can very easily deceive yourself and others also, as if you had already done what you promised. It is easy to think that by making a promise you have at least done part of what you promised to do, as if the promise itself were something of value. Not at all! In fact, when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way back to the truth.

Beware! The "Yes" of promise keeping is sleep-inducing. An honest "No" possesses much more promise. It can stimulate; repentance may not be far away. He who says "No," becomes almost afraid of himself. But he who says "Yes, I will," is all too pleased with himself. The world is quite inclined – even eager – to make promises, for a promise appears very fine at the moment – it inspires! Yet for this very reason the eternal is suspicious of promises... We do not praise the son who said "No," but we need to learn from the gospel how dangerous it is to say, "Lord, I will." ¹

One of the things you can say about Jesus is that he didn't try to please people or to meet other's expectations. His words and actions were self-referent. He acted out of his own integrity. And whenever others challenged him to authenticate himself with reference to something else outside of himself, something that would please them, he refused. Sometimes he said "no." Sometimes he just asked them questions that turned the inquiry back upon them. He was frustratingly slippery.

Jesus insists that people respond to him based on who he is, not on what he can prove himself to be. He will not justify himself to others. So when these inquirers in today's gospel story try "to decide whether they can find room for him in their minds," (in the words of Bob Capon), "he continually frustrates them by being what he always was, a fox, a rebel, a bad boy who refuses to answer except with questions of his own."²

He treated the disciples the same way. "Grant us to sit one on your right and one on your left in your glory." It is not mine to grant. "When will you restore Israel?" It is not for you to know, or the Son of Man or the angels. Jesus refuses to argue his case, then and now. He's not going to prove himself to us. Instead, he's going to challenge us to trust him and trust the God of unrelenting loving acceptance that he points to.

But when you see one hurricane where the helpless left behind in a hospital die by the scores, and another hurricane where a bus full of nursing home residents being rescued blows up, it gives you pause. Where is God? What kind of God? And it is so tempting to slide away from that scary abyss and recite our comfortable platitudes of "yes," lest we disappoint the God who expects us to believe or the church that offers us identity or, more threatening, lest we look too deeply into our own gaping fear of not-knowing.

Frederick Buechner writes of an eccentric theology professor from my own General Seminary, who comes to preach to the new students gathering in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.

... it had been his intention to preach on the Genesis account of the call of Abraham, on the commitment of faith as it concerned the young divinity students who had crowded into the chapel in their black gowns to hear him. But, as usual, he had found himself leaving his outline so frequently that at last he had left it altogether and stood there with his hands trembling on the heavy leather bible, his voice now almost inaudibly low, now strident, saying. "If anybody starts talking to me about religious commitment, I may listen politely, but what I'd like to answer him with is a few monosyllables that don't bear repeating here in the midst of the holy community. If you tell me Christian commitment is a thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you're either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your beds and ask yourself: 'Can I believe it all again today?' No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read The New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human [orig.: a real man] in case you should ever doubt it. And then, if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and ... great laughter. Not a beatific smile, but the laughter of wonderful incredulity." ³

There are days when it seems like this whole God-business is just a projected wish-fulfillment. When that happens, Jesus does not come roaring into our doubt with justifying proofs that will comfort our anxiety and fulfill our expectations. No. He remains agonizingly slippery, as much for us as for the disciples and the chief priests and elders..

It is an inflated and devalued faith that faces the unknowing and grins with a crowd pleasing "yes" at the cost of deceiving yourself with promises you may not be able to back up. Sometimes you have to answer "no" or "I don't know" and then go on as best you can hoping without hope that something true may break through.

But every once in a while, it happens. Sometimes in a hymn, or in the face of one we love. Sometimes in an intuition or in the presence of great beauty. Every once in a while it comes over me. "You know. You know. It all really could be true. It really could be." And then choked with confession and tears and great laughter, we say "Yes. Yes. Yes." And we really mean it. "I'll be right there, Lord... I'm on the way... I'm coming... Be right there!"