Matthew 21:28-32 and Psalm 33(34):2-3,6-7,16,18-19,23
This poor man called the Lord, heard him and rescued him from all of his distress.
[automatically transcribed]
In the name of the father and of the son of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
In today’s gospel, Jesus is turning the perceived justice of the time on its head. He talks about two brothers, one who says that he won’t do something and then goes and does it because it’s the right thing to do. And one who says he’ll do it but doesn’t do it. And what Jesus is talking about here is he’s returning to this theme of hypocrisy and hypocrisy that the that the elders and the leaders of his time were displaying was that whilst they did all the right things, whilst they nodded and said, yes, we’ll go to the temple, and they made their offering and they did everything the law required of them.
They didn’t believe it in their hearts and what Jesus is telling us is that’s what really matters, what really matters is that you believe it in your heart, not that you sit down and do some sort of tick box exercise. So far, so normal, this is a recurring theme of the gospel, and I preach about it a great deal, but it actually has to have an impact in your life. And one of the places where it has an impact, I find, is when you are distressed, when you are upset, when you think the world is being unfair, when you think you’re being treated unfairly or you think something is happening that shouldn’t be happening and the sense of justice in the world around you is all wrong.
The only thing to do in those circumstances is to trust in God and call to him and our psalm today sums it up beautifully. This poor man called and the Lord heard him.
This poor man called the Lord, heard him and rescued him from all of his distress. Sadly, that doesn’t mean that God is suddenly going to pick up the injustices of this world, turn them upside down and make it right as we think it ought to be right. That will happen in the end times, the end of days, but what he will do now is he will pick up our broken hearts in our distress and through that faith in Him, through that hiding in Him, through being in Him and Him being in us, we will be healed and we will be brought comfort.
This poor man called, this poor man called and the Lord heard him.
Amen
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