Sorry, Who Got in Before Us?

[A reflection on the Gospel reading for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 27, 2026. The whole group of readings may be found at https://lectionary.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary-post/89?date=2026-09-27&year=Year%20A%20%2F%20II ]

By now, anyone who has heard of Jesus should know that He and the religious authorities of Judea did not get along. Usually, the interactions involved them throwing loaded questions or heavy insults at Him, and in turn, He told weighty parables and teachings that showed up every shortcoming they had. To call the relationship adversarial would be understating the issue. That is not to say it was universal, for the record shows that there was a teacher/disciple relationship among some of them with Our Lord (for example, Nicodemus).

The passage from St. Matthew's Gospel today, however, is of direct challenge and response. The chief priests and elders flat out demand that Jesus tell them by whose authority (because everyone had to have a greater authority on which to base their teaching) He taught Rather than get into a quarrel of "Are not! Am too!" Our Lord asked them by whose authority John the Baptist preached.

This was a landmine, and the priests and the elders knew it. They had a quick, panicked conference where they pondered their options. They knew that if they denied that John preached without authority, then they would lose all face with the people, who were convinced John was a prophet cut from the same cloth as Elijah. Likewise, if they admitted that John was a prophet from God, then they would also lose all face with the people because they had roundly ignored and/or belittled his call to repentance. So, in their wisdom, they demurred and said that they had no idea, sorry, they could be of no help in that determination.

Rather than call them cowards, Our Lord told them if they could not figure out John, then He was not going to help them, a roundabout way of calling them hopeless and willfully stupid. He then told them the parable of the two sons: the one who professed obedience, but did not obey, and the one who professed defiance, but eventually did obey. This was another pointed parable, where Our Lord squarely planted the chief priests and elders as the son who said the right thing but did not do it, and then told them others who were not the "right people" had turned back from their disobedience to do the thing the chief priests and elders failed to do. Then the Lord bluntly told them it was the crooked tax collectors and the prostitutes who were listening to the message and amending their lives and inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven, unlike the chief priest and elders, still standing outside the gates.

That leaves the question for us: are we like the chief priests and elders, professing faith but failing the repentance test? Do we say the right things, go to Church, show up at the right times and places, but are we stingy with our resources, free with other people's things or spouses, truthless and untrustworthy? Or do we own our shortcomings and work toward truly bettering the lives of others and not succumbing to selfish pursuits, or cease from these same selfish pursuits and seek restitution for those we have wronged? Will we in humility enter the Kingdom of God, or watch people we looked down on enter the Kingdom of God ahead of us, or even instead of us? Do we believe and act, or demur and fail?

By whose authority did Our Lord teach? We know the answer. Let us be brave and respond in kind.