At the Head of the Line
Matthew 21:23-32[1]
You probably know that I take airplane flights
on a regular basis. With a son in Washington, DC, a son who now lives near New
Haven, CT, and a daughter in Houston, it makes sense for me to fly to see them
rather than drive. But I can’t say I enjoy flying. One of the things I dislike
most is the lines. Because I fly so much, several years ago I paid for TSA
“pre” status. At the time, I did it because it meant I didn’t have to take off
my shoes and my belt and unpack “half” of my carry-on bag in order to get
through security. That doesn’t include keeping track of my phone, my wallet,
and anything else in my pockets. I think you may be getting the idea that I
found it stressful. I know things have gotten easier for everyone with airport
security, but I still like the shorter line!
I’ve tended to fly Southwest Airlines. I liked
the fact that they had open seating. Of course, that meant you had to check in
exactly 24 hours before your flight if you wanted any chance of getting a good
seat. How early you checked in determined how early you got to board the plane.
You would be assigned a letter and a number to determine your boarding group
and your place in line. That meant “lining up” to get on the plane was fairly
simple. You found your place in line based on your number. Now they’ve done
away with all that. You choose your seat ahead of time just like any other
airline, and you just have a boarding “group.” So these days, everyone seems
more anxious about being at the front of their boarding group. We may all have
assigned seats, but there’s still the problem of snagging space for your
carry-on bag in the overhead bin. Everybody wants to be at the head of the line
when it comes to getting on the airplane.
There are other aspects of life where we want
to be at the head of the line. It should come as no surprise that this can be a
part of some people’s religion. Most religions have some kind of “hierarchy” by
which some are treated as more “worthy” than others. That was very much the
case in Jesus’ day, as we learn from many of the stories in the Gospels. As in
our lesson for today, Jesus often clashed with the Jewish religious leaders.
They controlled the Temple and the Synagogues, which means that they controlled
who was considered “righteous” and who was branded a “sinner.” But Jesus saved
his strongest criticisms for the religious leaders. Much of what he said
suggests that they weren’t even very good people, let alone worthy of the
“honors” they claimed for themselves. In fact, on many occasions he called them
“hypocrites,” people who were only putting on a show of devotion to God.
In our lesson for today, Jesus tells a parable
to illustrate the point. In the parable, a father asks his son to go work in
the vineyard and he refuses, but then changes his mind and goes. The father
asks his second son to go to work and he says yes, but then doesn’t go. The
clear implication is that it’s not always those who make a show of being
righteous who actually practice what they preach. In fact, Jesus told the
religious authorities point blank that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes”
were actually “going into the kingdom of God” ahead of them (Matt 21:31)! In
those days, “tax collectors and sinners” were the “worst of the worst” of the
sinners. And Jesus was addressing people who thought they were the “best of the
best” of the righteous. They most certainly believed they were at the head of
the line!
In fact, however, the authorities had already
betrayed their false character. When they asked Jesus about the source of his
authority, they were clearly not being sincere. Jesus exposed that by asking them
about John’s authority to baptize. In the process, it became all too obvious
that they were anxious to conceal their true opinion from the crowds. They were
more worried about maintaining their power and prestige than practicing a way
of life that actually followed the will of God, a way of life that Jesus called
“the way of righteousness” (Matt. 21:32). It would seem that the so-called “righteous”
people weren’t so righteous after all.
The truth is that the whole system of their
religion at that time was an elaborate justification for their
self-righteousness. Unfortunately, that can still be the case. “Leaders” who
are often deceitful and malicious get to designate themselves as “righteous,”
whereas people who may be guilty of nothing more than being poor or destitute
are designated as “sinners.” But designating them as sinners only gives the
“righteous” a convenient way to avoid facing their sins. Scapegoating the
people they look down on only enables them to keep up their sham religion. This
kind of behavior is not exclusive to the self-righteous in Jesus’ day.
Religious leaders throughout the ages have exercised a great deal of control
over people by their power to determine who gets branded “sinners” and who gets
to be “righteous.” And religious people of all levels have used that power to
justify themselves. But whenever we use our religion to make ourselves look
good at the expense of others, we’re really only deceiving ourselves. We label
them “sinners” just so that we can avoid facing our own hypocrisy.
Our gospel lesson confronts us with the hard
truth that our religious devotion can turn into something harmful. It’s another
reason why many people don’t go to church these days. We turn our religion into
a competition where the only way “I” get to be at the head of the line is by
making sure “you” are at the end of the line. It can all too easily turn into a
way of simply making ourselves look good. It’s as if people have always viewed
the prospect of “heaven” as a competition. And like any other competition, what
matters is getting to the head of the line and staying there. It doesn’t matter
how we get there, just that we’re “first” and not “last.” But Jesus said that
kind of hypocrisy will not do in God’s sight. There’s no room in God’s kingdom
for making yourself look good at the expense of someone else.
More than that, Jesus pointed out that those
whom we often label “sinners” can be way ahead of the so-called “righteous” people
when it comes to actually practicing the compassion and kindness that defines
the way God wants us to live. After all, Jesus did say that he came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Matt 9:13). More than that, he said
there will always be more rejoicing in heaven over one “sinner” who repents and
returns to God than over 99 so-called righteous people who think they “need no
repentance” (Lk 15:7). The kind of people Jesus was looking for to follow him
were those who would truly and sincerely follow his way of living. That meant
actually practicing his teachings, which he said amounted to “doing to others
what you would want them to do to you” (Matt 7:12, NIRV). As it turns
out, none of the “show” that self-righteous people put on to make it look like
they’re godly counts for anything. What counts is what St. Paul called “faith
working through love” (Gal 5:6).
[1] ©
2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/27/2026 for Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
