"Thoughts and Deeds"

often as Christians we take a folk adage to heart without ever checking it to see if it is in line with what Jesus taught. The most common of these is "God helps those who help themselves." Nothing could be further from the truth Jesus taught. His teaching tells us that God is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. Our loving God is the hope of the hopeless and helps those who are unable to help themselves. This is the very center of God's message of grace.

Another common misconception is that God doesn't care about results; it is the thought that counts. Thoughts alone are not what God is looking for, even good ones. Jesus tells us a story about a man who had two sons. He asked both to go work in the vineyard. One son refused him to his face, yet later reconsidered and went and worked. The other son told him he would go but did not. "Which of the two did the will of his father?" (Matt 21:28) Jesus asks us. It is a question we need to answer as well. How often have we answered with good intention and then forgotten about it or had something else we considered more important come up. Jesus doesn't tell us why the one son did not go to the vineyard and it really doesn't matter. What mattered to Jesus was that the young man was faithless. Having committed himself to something he did not follow through. Jesus teaches us to let our yes be yes and our no be no (Matt 5:37). In other words we are called to be people who stand by our word.

The other son starts out rebellious and yet he reconsiders and goes into the vineyard. This son who at first turns away from the fathers will and then changes his mind ends up as the one who does the fathers will. Vineyard stories in the Bible are always about the people of God. In this story Jesus tells us that talk or thoughts do not count. What counts is doing the will of the Father. Faith is knowing for ourselves that God's way is the best way. And when we know that getting involved is only natural.

The purpose of the vineyard in these stories is always to bear fruit. When we get involved alongside God in the vineyard lives are changed, our life and the lives of those to whom we reach out. It is with the engagement, not the thought that this happens. Faiths, philosophies even Christianity are worthless unless they are lived. This understanding applies to our religious traditions as well. Taking communion, praying the Lords Prayer none of these mean anything unless they are given life by our actions. Paul makes this very clear when he tells us that the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
(Galatians 5:6)

For us at Resurrection this means that we need to take our faith to the streets, to spread the good news of God's love for us, and the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. The tri-valley area is our vineyard and God has asked us to work in the vineyard past as he called the people of Israel into the vineyard. Will we support the ministry that we have been called to? Can we dare to share our faith with others, telling them how God is active in our lives. Are we willing to go into the vineyard or do we want to just think about it.

Pastor Jim Bliss

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