Have you ever made a promise you shouldn’t keep?  I’m not asking about promises you couldn’t keep.  Those are different.  Like when you promised your kids you’d take them to the lake one Saturday but your boss called and rearranged your schedule for you.  Or, a husband promised his wife they’d finally spend time together in retirement but a stroke or a heart attack got in the way.  Or, you promised your kids a college education but you lost your job.

We’ve all made promises we later couldn’t keep for reasons beyond our control.  But, have you ever made a promise you shouldn’t keep?  Like when a little boy promised his abuser he wouldn’t tell.  Or, a wife promised her husband, “until death us do part,” but never dreamed that it would be his daily beatings that might bring about her death.  There are some promises people shouldn’t keep.  Have you ever made a promise you later discovered would be worse kept than broken?  Are you keeping a promise like that now? 

In the setting for the text we read this morning, Jesus had just cleansed the Temple.  You know the story.  The Temple had once been a place where people went to meet God.  But, over time, those responsible for its spiritual upkeep, the chief priests and the scribes, also discovered that it was a great place to make money.  It’s a long story, but making money soon became more important than meeting God.  The Temple still had all the religious trappings.  It just didn’t have any life anymore.  Kind of like what happens to us.  When we’re young and passionate we promise to serve God with all of our heart, soul and mind.  But, somewhere along the way, what we need and what we want get confused and what we want gets in the way of what we need. 

It happens so easily.  I remember when I first started out in the ministry I didn’t care what I was paid.  Some of my first churches didn’t, either.  But, it didn’t matter.  All I had was me, my passionate dream of serving God and what I could pack in the trunk of my ’74 Impala.  I woke up one morning and the kids needed braces, both boys at the same time, their friends had very competitive lifestyles (Dad, how come we don’t have a pool?) and there was college to think about.  Now, keeping what we need sorted out from what we want has become a daily struggle that too often leaves too little energy left for things like passionate dreaming. 

Sometimes I’m so busy getting to the next paycheck I look up and realize it’s been days, or longer, since I spent time alone with God thinking about the condition of my soul.  (Something it seemed easier to do that when it was just me and what I could pack in the trunk of my Impala.)  I can usually tell when I’m reaching that point.  I’m busier than ever, getting a lot done, but there’s a deadness inside and joy is hard to come by.  I’m driving down the road listening to Michael W. Smith sing, “You’re all I want, you’re all I’ve ever needed, help me know you are near,” and wondering where the tears are coming from.  Life still has all the religious trappings, but the Temple of my heart has become so overcrowded with anxiety about this or that, the place where I was meant to meet God has actually gotten in the way of doing just that.  But, Sunday’s coming and I’ve got to get ready to preach.  That’s when I find myself listening to Jesus tell me a story. 

“‘A man had two sons.’”  Whatever Jesus says next, he’s got my attention because he’s just tapped into the source of my greatest dreams, fears and anxiety.  Jesus wants to tell us about God; he’s got to get our attention first.  So, he tells us about a man who had two sons who was also having a difficult time getting them to do the right thing.  Is there any parent not listening, yet?  Get a group of parents together (no matter how old) and ask them what gives them the most joy, hope and anxiety.  You’ll soon find them talking about their children.  “‘A man had two sons.’”  Jesus has my attention. 

Except this parable is not about parenting.  It’s a parable that asks us to think about what kind of children we are, no matter how old.  It’s about promises we’ve made to our heavenly Father, promises we’ve broken and promises we’ve yet to keep.  God is in this parable.  So are we.  God is easy to spot.  A man had two sons.  Finding

ourselves won’t be as easy.  A man had two sons.  We’re one of the two.  Which one are you?

Let’s stay focused.  Jesus cleansed the Temple.  Those responsible for its spiritual upkeep who had let other things get in the way by confusing what they needed with what they wanted questioned his authority to challenge a system that was, in their opinion, working so very well.  As long as things work well, why fix what isn’t broken, right?  Except, things were very broken because people who needed God couldn’t find him in the very place they were meant to.  Jesus challenges any system that ever represents itself as the place people can meet God but then gets in the way of being just that.  That’s one reason we’ve done all this work on values and mission.  We want to be sure we are always the kind of place people meet God.  It’s not something we can ever take for granted.  We have to keep focused.

“‘A man had two sons.’”  He called one to work one day and that son said, “No,” but later showed up anyway.  He called the other to work, too.  This one said, “Yes,” but never showed up.  Jesus asked, “‘Which of the two did what his father wanted?’”  The answer seems self-evident.  It’s not what we promise we’ll do but what we actually do that finally matters.  As we like to say, this isn’t rocket science.  The priests and scribes jump on it and answer quickly.  Let’s take our time.  Let’s ask ourselves which of the two we are. 

Why do we make promises to God we never keep?  Is it because we’ve made other secret promises to ourselves or others that mean more to us than our promises to God? 

Disturbing new research came out just this week about trends in teenage sexual behavior.  Most teenagers, it turns out, are having their first sexual experience in their own home or the home of their partner, often while their parents are in another room in the same house.  You may have made a promise to God that you’ll wait until marriage.  Keeping that promise will mean being very honest with yourself about other promises you’ve made, to yourself or others. 

Otherwise, what you want and what you need will get confused and you’ll likely find yourself keeping the wrong promises.

Maybe in the passionate, idealistic days of our youth, we made commitments to God.  But, at the same time, we were making promises to ourselves about how successful we’d be, about how far we’d get in life, how well and how widely we’d be known, like at age forty-eight, for example.  Somewhere along the line, what we promised ourselves got confused with what we promised God and a life that was meant to serve God now gets in the way of doing just that.  If we’ve promised God we’d show up but we never have because we made a bigger promise to ourselves, haven’t we made a promise we shouldn’t keep?

When I was in Jr. High, the church scheduled a revival.  The deacons were assigned the responsibility of passing out flyers all over town.  One of the more enterprising deacons, who also happened to be very wealthy, got a bunch of us boys together and promised us a steak dinner if we’d help him pass out his flyers.  Which meant that he drove us around town, let us out at strategic places and never left the air-conditioned comfort of his Lincoln.  When we finished his route he suddenly remembered a very important appointment so he couldn’t take us for the steak.  I’m still waiting on my steak, thirty-five years later.  You can let him off the hook if you want.  But, even then, I knew what he was doing.  He used us.  He made us a promise.  But, he must have made a bigger one to himself.  Maybe it was a promise not to ever embarrass himself by being seen as being too religious, as in walking a neighborhood with a fistful of revival flyers.  Maybe it was a promise to not ever let his religion cost him too much.  I’ll never know.  He’s dead now and it doesn’t matter.  Except to make me ask myself what promises I’ve made myself about never letting my faith embarrass me or cost me too much that keep me from keeping my promise to God. 

Paul wrote to the Philippian church, “My dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).”  He’s not saying that we work to earn our salvation.  He is saying that it is impossible to define a saving relationship with God apart from life-long obedience to his call on our lives.  Too often, in Baptist tradition, we narrowly define salvation in terms of a singular event that took place when we “received Jesus,” perhaps as a child, even if there is absolutely nothing about our lives now that give evidence of a relationship with Christ that transforms how we live, how we love, how we forgive and who we serve. 

In truth, salvation is a relationship, initiated by God in Christ, responded to in faith and lived out one day at a time.  If this parable teaches nothing else, it teaches us that it is not what we start with God but what we’re in the process of finishing that uniquely defines us as his true followers.  Not the promises we made years ago but the promises we’re in the process of keeping.

Some people made a promise to God they haven’t kept because they’re keeping a promise to themselves they shouldn’t keep.  Others never promised God anything.  He called, they said “No.”  Even “no” is it’s own kind of promise.  And, anytime we say “no” to God, we’ve made a promise we shouldn’t keep. 

Either way, this parable is about a God who works with people who’ve made promises they shouldn’t keep.  The “‘tax collectors and prostitutes’” were getting into God’s kingdom, Jesus said, not because they were better or worse, but because they made a promise they shouldn’t have kept, changed their minds and showed up anyway.  God’s kingdom is not full of people who got it right the first time, every time.  It is full of people who made promises they shouldn’t have kept, changed their minds and finally answered the God who never stops calling.  Nothing burdens us more than keeping promises that keep us from God.