Jesus is at it again. This time he is in the temple, saying things that anger, confuse, and frighten the chief priests and elders. Those men of power who later find a way to be rid of him for good, but for now they are just trying to find out what Jesus is up to. So they ask him the question, "by what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority" –They what to know who gave Jesus the authority to teach, to disrupt their lives! They are, after all, the highest authority in Israel. They need to know by what authority is Jesus challenging their leadership and how can his authority exceed theirs. I am sure they’re hoping that Jesus would claim his kingship in which case they could turn him over to Rome or maybe he would claim his messiahship which they could denounce as heresy and have only to worry about the crowds who saw him as prophet. Jesus attempts to answer their question by asking them another, "did the Baptism of John come from heaven or was it of human origin".

Jesus’ question puts the chief priest and elders in a dilemma. If they say that John’s baptism is from heaven, they are faced with John’s witness to Jesus and their own failure to respond to John’s teaching. If on the other hand they say that John’s baptism was not of heaven they fear the people, which believed John to be a prophet.

So, the priests answer, "we do not know" – this is a weak answer for a people responsible for the religious life of a nation. They are supposed to know who is a false prophet and who is not and protect the people from them. When they don’t answer, they compromise their own authority.

Jesus alarms these elders. Why, what is it? Fear, fear kept the chief priests and elders from listening to what Jesus was trying to tell them. Fear kept people for hundreds of years from sailing beyond the horizon because they just knew they would fall off the earth. Fear keeps us from doing all kinds of things; it is paralyzing. We fear what we do not know.

But what could be so scary about a day laborer from Galilee who hangs around with all kinds of common folk? After all they are the leaders in the community, they are well educated, they have the power, and they believe what they do is right. They have also all the advantages of privilege -- respect, status, places of honor in the community, and security. They are comfortable and Jesus is making them uncomfortable. What could he want them to do? Could he ask them to give up all those advantages of privilege, their titles and power? What if they don’t have all the answers or what if, they aren’t right; then where would they be? That is scary stuff, to think that they might not have answers, that their lives could change and what about the possibility that they were no different in eyes of God than those people Jesus was hanging around town with.

Jesus wants them to understand about real authority and to recognize an authority larger then what they represent. He wants them to know their authority can no longer be used to serve only them. To illustrate that he follows his question with the parable of the two sons. In the parable the father asks the first son if he will go, today, to the vineyard to work and he answers, "I will not", but later changes his mind and goes. The second son agrees to go and work, but later decides not to go.

The sons have something in common with the chief priests. Their answers have something to do with fear. The second son is afraid to tell his father the truth so he gives him the easy answer, sure, I’ll go. Maybe he says yes because he’s afraid of what will happen if he says no, maybe his yes means, leave me alone, or maybe it means, when I get around to it. The sons might be afraid because they have considered what they have to lose. They think they might lose love, respect, honor and their place of importance. How often have do we said yes --to please those in authority; God, our parents, employers, partners or spouses, because we fear what might happen if we say no. And when the first son says no to the father - it may be because he fears the unknown. He does not know what will happen, will he be found lacking, inadequate, not good enough, will he look foolish?

The chief priests are like the second son, offering to serve God but only serving themselves. When we hide behind our fear and disregard issues of justice and need; we are like the second son. When we try to impress others rather than God we are like the second son. When we refuse to allow Christ into the deepest part of our lives, we are like the second son.

Who is like the first son, who says no, and later finds the courage to say yes and go where his father asked? He may be, as Jesus says, the tax collector and the prostitute, or the recovering alcoholic, the homeless mother, folks we find hard to love, folks we find hard to believe that God loves as much as us.

Jesus then asks the chief priests, "Which son does the will of the father". The elders can answer this question! "The first one." Then Jesus lets them have it -- he says tax collectors and prostitutes (the most unclean of the unclean) are going into the kingdom in front of them and why?, because tax collectors and prostitutes heard and believed John the Baptist. John came in righteousness – feared and rejected by priests, but accepted by tax collectors.

Who comes to us in righteousness that we are unable to see because they look or act differently, saying things we do not want to hear? The t v evangelist, the street corner preacher, the drug-addict, the alcoholic on the bus, the republican, the democrat, the Muslim. They can all scare me – by what they say, or how they smell or what they look like or what they believe. But it’s more than that -- it makes me look at who I am, examine what I believe. It forces me to face my fear, my fear that it is not who I am or what I do that is important to God-- God loves me just the same as God loves everyone else. That scares me and it scared the elders. We are afraid of how that kind of world would look, what would change, what will we lose and what will be our place in it.

Jesus was asking the chief priests and the elders to have the courage to say yes to go work in the vineyard, yes to Jesus, to Jesus’ authority, to a different way of knowing God outside the confines of the law, ritual and comfort and to say yes in spite of their fears.

Six years ago I was in a single car accident and broke my neck. As I lay on a gurney in the hallway of the hospital waiting to hear if I would need surgery, if I would be paralyzed, if would I live, a man in a lab coat appeared at my side. I did not know him and if he introduced himself, I don’t remember his name. He asked me straight out, did I love my life, and did I love my husband, my children. Did I believe I had reason to live, he asked. His manner was brusque and his voice full of concern; he was calm; yet there was an urgency in his tone. He took my hand and I started to cry. I answered him in the affirmative, though I don’t recall saying anything aloud. And then he was gone. Within seconds, my husband appeared from around the corner to find me crying. I don’t who that man was or under whose authority he came to see me. I trust he was of God, and as time past, I realized that he ask me the same question the father asks of the sons in the parable, will you go, today and work in the vineyard. And although I was afraid, unsure of what was ahead or how my life would change I said, yes, I will, go.

There have been plenty of times in these last 6 years that I have been like the second son. Not doing what I should, losing faith, not seeing Jesus in others, and trying to take care of all my needs myself. Then there are times when I am like the first son, saying no and then finding myself choosing to go to work in the vineyard.

I am both sons. We, you and I, are both sons. The good news is that neither son is perfect. Each day we have the opportunity to acknowledge our fear, to go into the vineyard to be part of the kingdom. Each day we need to ask for courage to look honestly at our lives, take concrete action to change and turn our life from fear to God. Each day we need to meet our fear and join the tax collectors and prostitutes in the kingdom.

It is when we move beyond our fear and agree to do the work, that we stand with others in the kingdom. Nelson Mandela said in his inaugural address, "as we are liberated from our own fears our presence liberates others", -- that’s the kingdom where the tax collectors and prostitutes are going.

It is just for today that we are asked to go and work and just for today, I can answer without fear, yes.