Matthew 21:28-32

 In the Andy Griffith Show, Barney Fife is the assistant sheriff. He is desperately looking for a larger roll in life. It’s a small town and Andy is the sheriff so Barney has little chance for advancement. He looks for any opportunity to get famous. He acts official and wears too many police clothes and still can’t get recognized.

 Finally his chance comes. The first tenor in the community choir cannot sing for the state competition. Barney eagerly volunteers even though he cannot sing.

 Today, we are thinking about those moments in life when you promise to be more than you can be. So often we get started with a good intention. Barney promised to fill in a missing voice. Sometimes we break the promise to ourselves. I promise to stop smoking. I promise to stay away from dessert. My friend said to me, I’ve tried most diets and they are all good. The problem is that I added them to what I was already eating.

 We make promises to ourselves, to our loved ones, to our church, and to our society. What happens when you promise more than you perform? What happens when you cover up and then want to get things right again? We have strong words from Jesus today in the scriptures that help us get back to vital faith that helps us live out our promises. May God help each us of to have the courage this hour to see ourselves clearly and the faith to look more like Christ.

 The first thing that strikes me about this reading is its brutal honesty. All of us have favorite sins that we like to look down on. I may be stealing from my employer, taking drugs, or having an affair after church today, but at least I don’t – and then you fill in the blank. At the time of Christ, the two sins that people loved to hate were prostitution and tax collecting. You could feel better about your sins as long as the good old tax collectors and prostitutes were there. You could look at yourself comfortably and know that you had no dropped to the bottom. There was still some sin that you weren’t guilty of.

 Matthew calls us to look at ourselves with new honesty. I have referred several times to a profile that we use here at the church with new staff members. One half of what it measures is your ability to accept the truth about yourself. Once we fail to live up to what we have promised, we have a hard time accepting the truth about ourselves. Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ‘when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way back to the truth.’

 I want to commend a number of people who have shared your story and struggle in a small group or in a prayer request. I’m especially thinking of people who have shared that they are in a 12 step recovery group. I am not saying that everyone should do this, but I’m thankful for a church where you can do it. Perhaps not everyone needs to share the promise they didn’t keep, but I’m grateful to be around some who are strong enough to share ways they struggle.

 Its not that sharing one of our struggles is all we have to do. Life is a process where the eternal light of God shines on our lives. God’s light is mediated through the Holy Spirit like a diamond. At different times in life, you catch different rays of the light, different facets, which gives you a new area to open to faith and transformation.

 Remember that when Moses was given the 10 Commandments, the light of God was so intense that God had to cover Moses so that Moses could see the light and not be destroyed. Remember that Moses came off the mountain and his own face shone with so much light that people could not bear to look at him for days. He had to walk with a bag over his head.

 No one hear seems to have gotten to that level of honesty yet. We’re still all able to look at your without flinching. But if you have made promises you are not keeping and limping along in the Christian life, comfortably assured that at least you are not a prostitute or tax collector, then you are in danger. The tax collectors and prostitutes are likely to get to heaven and you are not.

 Actually, the tv evangelists and evangelical churches have made the two modern sins being gay and having an abortion. I may be having sex with my best friend’s wife, but praise God, I’m not gay. The Catholic Church decided this week to have no more gay priests. Lessee, no priests who are married to women, no gay priests. It will interesting to see if they can get anybody to pastor their churches.

  To the average non Christian in the USA and oversees, the Christian community in the United States appears mean. We should be the people who feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Christians historically started hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes. It is no longer what people think of when they hear the word ‘Christian.’

 The passage you heard today is a reaction to what Jesus just did. He was overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the temple. The Pharisees and Sadducees had turned Judaism into a money making relationship with the wealthy. Jesus said, you have come preaching faith in God and living a life of oppression. He stopped it.

 I was in Binghamton yesterday at the meetings of the Lao caucus. But there is also a court trial going on there. On March 17th , 4 Christians went to a recruiting center in Ithaca and made a statement and poured out their own blood at the entrance. Now they are on trial for conspiracy to overthrow the United States. Here is part of their statement – "Blood is the sacred substance of life, yet it is shed wantonly in war. As Catholics, when we receive the Eucharist, we acknowledge our oneness with God and the entire human family. We went to the recruiting center using what we have - our bodies, our blood, our words, and our spirits - to implore, beg, and order our country away from the tragedy of war and toward God's reign of peace and justice."

 If you want to promise to live the Christian life, you must live the life of a Christian. We must be the people who speak for peace, because Jesus spoke for peace. It is not to choose a scapegoat and say ‘I am not like them’, what God requires is that we live out the promise we choose to make. If you promise to live the Christian life, you must enter with Christ in the message of peace.

 What has God shown your heart in this hour? Perhaps you have made promises to yourself for health or spiritual disciplines that you now need to confess failure and then ask for a miracle of grace. If you injured your body this week, there is a fresh start waiting for you at the altar today. Have you made promises to parents or children that you did not keep? Have you felt today that you want the image of Christian, but you need to do something more to live the life of Christ before others?

 I ask now that God the Holy Spirit move among us, open our eyes in a new way and knock at the door of your heart. If you sense the Lord’s word to you, do not turn away. Tax collectors and prostitutes have already responded. Do not lose your chance to join too.