Nothing Left to Prove

“How old are you? Where are you from, really?
Is that your real hair — and can I touch it?
When are you due?
Are you gay?
Are you in the right bathroom?”

Have you ever been asked an inappropriate question? A question that feels a little too invasive, too personal? A lot of the time, those questions arise out of innocent naivety. People don’t intend to be rude and might not realize they are asking something awkward. Plus, we’ve all been guilty of speaking before we think. It happens. But you have to pause with questions like those because sometimes it’s not naivety that drives it. Sometimes those questions come from a place more ugly and we have to take a moment to assess the situation. It’s not the question itself that’s the problem, it’s more about who’s asking it.

In our gospel reading today, Jesus is asked an inappropriate question. The chief priests and the elders of the people come up to ask him “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Now by itself, there is nothing wrong with the question. Jesus was doing amazing signs, teaching amazing things, just radiating amazingness. It’s fair to want to know where it’s all coming from. Jesus even asks a similar question of his own disciples when he says, “who do you say I am?” The foundational commitment to be a follower of Jesus to confess that He is Lord, Son of God. Our Apostles’ Creed proudly answers the question by whose authority:

“I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

That’s whose authority it comes from. That’s under whose authority he reigns. What’s the problem with a question that we answer with every profession of our faith? Why doesn’t Jesus just say? What made the question inappropriate?

It all comes down to who’s asking and why. This isn’t a question coming from fishermen on the seashore, or a woman by a well, or even a Nicodemus arriving in secret by night. This is a crowd, in the temple, interrupting Jesus’ teaching with “just asking questions.” It’s a heckle, intentionally confrontational, asking a question that they know will spark more conflict. The source of the question isn’t genuine. These are hecklers in the temple crowd.

There are times in our lives when we are asked questions that are not genuine questions, questions that are meant to spark argument. You can often assess that immediately by its tone. Does someone really want to know where you’re from, or are they waiting for an excuse to attack immigration? Are they asking your sexuality because they want to ask you out on a date, or is it just an excuse to ridicule? Do they really want to know why you believe what you believe, or are they just looking for someone to make fun of? These are inappropriate questions because the other person was never genuinely seeking knowledge. They had already decided how that conversation was going to go. And how it would end.

When confronted like that, how should we respond? While every situation is different, maybe we can take encouragement from Jesus’ example. He responds in a really smart and politically crafty way. He says he’ll answer their question, if they answer a question of his own: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” To understand what’s so smart about that, you need to know that John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, was an incredibly popular leader. He had been executed by Herod. Some saw Jesus as the continuation of John’s ministry. Now the hecklers are in a bind. If they say that John’s ministry was from God, then Jesus could ask why they’re not supporting him. If they say John’s preaching wasn’t from God, then they’ll upset the whole crowd. There’s no good answer, so they say nothing. Jesus quiets them.

When we are asked inappropriate questions, by which I mean questions that are veiled attacks, I think you have Jesus’ approval not to answer. Or to answer with a question of your own. We don’t have to entertain questions from people who aren’t listening for our answers, who don’t have our best interests at heart, who just want an excuse to tear you down. They will challenge by whose authority you operate, where do you get off; they will make you defend yourself and call you an idiot no matter your response. Don’t let those questions in. You can reject the premise of the question, to quote Jason Kenney.

But here’s the real challenge and the heart of what I want to talk about today: we don’t reject the questions. Even if we don’t answer them, they linger, bouncing about in our minds, infecting our spirits. When our authority, our personhood, is questioned, it exposes an insecurity that runs deep within us. Echoes of childhood taunts and parental disappointment. Questions about your ethnicity, your weight, your manliness, carry with it questions of where we really belong, questions of our sense of beauty and worth, questions of our self-expression and personhood. We can reject what the hecklers in life throw at us, but we don’t. We carry it around like another tomato to add to the rotting basket on our shoulders. Even though we know the hecklers are wrong, we keep their words with us, as ammunition to throw at ourselves when we’re feeling down.

Ah, it’s the imposter syndrome, isn’t it? Perhaps I’m thinking of this today because we had the Induction Service last week. Here I am, speaking to you from a pulpit that I have dreamed of preaching from, for years. And all that echoes in my mind is, who do you think you are? By whose authority do you dare to preach to those who are older and wiser and far more educated, whether by schooling or the lessons of life? Officially, I preach by the authority of the Presbytery of the Northwest — there’s a genuine answer to this; but I’m not asking myself a genuine question. I heckle myself, the way that these chief priests heckled Jesus. But unlike other hecklers, when the attacks come from within, it’s harder to respond with a joke.

What hecklers are within you? What inappropriate questions bounce about in your mind? No matter how old or wise you might be, I know we never outgrow those childhood taunts. And I know there’s no greater critic than the one who throws tomatoes from the inside. Have you been listening to those voices? Have you, like me, been guilty of giving those inappropriate questions too much space in your heart? While we want to laugh them off, it’s hard to do once those negative thoughts have burrowed inside. The internal heckler says, Prove that you belong here. Jesus says, Stop proving yourself. Go into the vineyard.

I think this is why the gospel of Matthew connects the temple hecklers with this story from Jesus about two sons. The dad asks his sons to work in the vineyard. One says no, but does it anyways. One says yes, but doesn’t do it. As I said to the children, in this illustration, actions speak louder than words. It matters what you did, not what you said.

But there’s another layer to this. Jesus is comparing the religious leaders to the second son, the one who said all the right things but didn’t do anything. He says that the first son is like the tax collectors and prostitutes that Jesus did so much of his ministry with. They might say the wrong thing, they might have made mistakes, but in the end, it didn’t matter what they said. The truth will be in their actions, and the fact that they saw in Christ, the Son of God.

You see, I think Jesus would have been insecure too — he is God, yes, but also fully human, and being human means that words can hurt. Being questioned, dismissed, mocked, and misunderstood hurts. It would hurt Jesus as much as it would hurt us. And here Jesus says to all of us who have been hurt by those heckles, that it doesn’t matter what your credentials might be, it doesn’t matter how many degrees you have, or even how well you can quote your Bible. Your worth does not come from your credentials, your accomplishments, or even your ability to get everything right. But the truth of your faith will eventually be revealed in the way you live.

Some people might look, from the outside, like they have it all together, like they know what they’re talking about. In comparison, you feel like a pile of rags. But God isn’t judging on that criteria. God sees your heart and how you really live. Maybe you complained and whined about following Christ, maybe you resisted at first, maybe your life is a complete mess right now, but God’s not looking at that. God sees how you really act and who you really are.

You don’t have to answer every question that is thrown at you. You don’t have to defend yourself to every heckler. You don’t have to prove your worth to people who have already decided not to see it. And remember that the voice that heckles from within has no real authority. It may sound like us. It may have been speaking for so long that we assume it must be telling the truth. But it isn’t God.

The voice says, “Who do you think you are?”
And the gospel says, “You are mine.”
The voice says, “You aren’t good enough.”
And the gospel says, “I know you. And I love you still.”
The voice says, “You don’t belong here.”
And Jesus says, “Come into the vineyard.”

“Come,” the voice of true authority says, “There is work to do in my vineyard. Come as you are. Come with all your doubts and failures and insecurities. Come, because you are my beloved child. And you have nothing left to prove.” Amen.