Genesis 2:15-20a

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field.

When I was a kid, maybe six or seven, my aunt and uncle got a golden retriever puppy. We did not have a dog at the time, so I was so excited to go over and play with it. When we got there, my dad asked, “what’s his name?”. Not yet having one, we made suggestions throughout the night, but nothing stuck.

On the way out of the door, my dad turned toward the puppy and said “see you later champ!” and walked to the car. And don’t you know they named that dog champ! We were shocked.

My dad had inadvertently named their dog.

It wasn’t until many years later, when Champ crossed over the rainbow bridge, that I reminisced with my dad about Champ and how he accidentally named him. To my utter shock, my dad said, “that was no accident… I called him champ before we left because I knew they would name him that. I’ve done it twice in my life and both times it worked like a charm!”

It wasn’t inadvertent at all. My dad, cunningly, slyly, named not one but two dogs that didn’t belong to him! I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or horrified.

After all, naming involves both power and intimacy. As one theologian put it, “naming reflects values and character. Naming reflects hope for who you want a child or an animal to be.” At its best, to name is to honor, to show respect, and to be in relationship with that being, human or animal. At its worst, naming inflicts a lot of harm and damage. In Genesis, I think we see the former.

In the first creation story, we get the famous line about humans having dominion over all the animals. Over the centuries, we have taken dominion to mean do as we wish, hurting that which God created and called good. But in the second creation story, we get an entirely different picture of the human-animal relationship.

Instead of speaking animals and humans into existence, God uses God’s hands to create life, pulling dirt together, giving it CPR, and up from the humus comes the human. God saw that the human shouldn’t be alone. So God did an experiment, and formed every creature, every animal, every bird, out of the ground, just like we were. So it shouldn’t shock us when we continue discovering all the ways we are similar to our animal friends.

And after comes what must be one of the most joyous, yet bizarre scenes in all the Bible.

God brought each one of the animals to Adam so that he could name it! Picture it, with a parade of animals lined up, God handed Adam a large feathered bird and said, what will name it. Adam looks at it and declares, Chicken! God, filled with delight, hands Adam another creature, “And what about this funny looking mammal”, “Aardvark!” How joyous. And whatever Adam named the creature, that was its name!

One of the very first things God gives humans the power to do is name. The question then is how does God intend for us to use that power. Is it to dominate, divide, and do what we please? Or is it to be in relationship with, to care for, to respect, to know the other creatures who walk the earth.

In the garden of Eden, I see Adam’s naming as an act of love and joy that builds relationships. However, we aren’t in the garden anymore. And nowadays we face a near irresistible urge to name each other in other ways, ways that divide and denigrate: conservative, progressive, traditional, modern, evangelical, liberal, young, old, Buckeye… We give huge groups of people one name just so we can fix them into the same box and judge them all the same way.

It is our task now to reclaim the power of naming, not to divide but, as Adam did and build relationships. This is not easy! If you have ever been in a relationship of any kind, name calling comes pretty naturally and quick!

So when you are struggling with that temptation to use other names, like we are so quick to do in our current culture, Think of the names God not only gives you, but also gives to everyone else: child, beloved, forgiven, friend. Even the people you can’t stand, God calls you both by the same names. And those aren’t just titles, but promises of how God sees us and how we can see each other, too.

When you come forward with your animal friend for a blessing, you will tell us their name. By your naming them, caring for them, respecting them, being in relationship with them, you are fulfilling the same call and command that God first gave to Adam back in the garden. So tell us their name in all it’s glory: rover, fluffy, stevie, sadie, tank, rex, sparkles, or even Champ.

We will bless them and the relationship you share.

But even more so, be blessed by the relationship God has with you. For not only does God call you by name, but all throughout Scripture God names us, names you: light of the world, salt of the earth, royalty, friend, child, co-heir with Christ, and most importantly, beloved. Amen.

Matthew 21:23-32

When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

Back in February, one of my favorite artists, David Whimbish, released a song called Almost Who I Am. It’s been on repeat in my car since. The chorus goes, “Well if you used to know me, I am sorry. I have not been myself for most of my life. Don’t worry. You're not crazy. I’m almost who I am but still not quite.” (warning - if you have children there are a few choice words so perhaps the car ride home is not the best time to listen to it.)

Sometimes there are lyrics that ring like gospel truth from the moment you hear them. Such was this song for me. If you used to know, I am sorry. I have not been myself for most of my life. If you knew a 10 year old Cogan, you would have known a talkative, husky (at least according to my pant size), boy who loved football and thought he’d never move away from home.

At 16, you would have known a teen who longed to be popular and well liked, who held strong beliefs about folks who are queer, and believed racism was a thing of the past. At 22, all sorts of those beliefs had changed, for the better I believe. I got married, said I’d never have a dog, and, not yet having any kids of my own, was an expert on parenting. At 32, I stand before quite different than all of my previous selves, shaped by a past of bad decisions, wrong beliefs, and the harm I’ve done and had done to me.

If you used to know me, I am sorry. I have not been myself for most of my life. And I have to believe I am not the only one who feels like that in this life; like you have never been quite the person you’d hoped you would be.

Perhaps that is what Jesus is getting at in this deceptively simple parable about two brothers. A father tells his first son, go and work in the vineyard. The first son replied "No, I am not doing that” and later changed his mind. The father, not knowing that his first son would change his mind, goes to his second son and asks the same thing. The second son said, “yes, I’ll go.” But he didn’t.

It is easy to hear this story as a simple choice between two options. You are either the second sons, which represents the religious leaders. They believed they were doing God’s will in what they taught and how they lived. But then John the baptist and Jesus came and proclaimed something new, and they rejected it and them, and chose not to follow where God was leading. In other words,they knew how to say yes to God, but they never went into the vineyard.

Others though, namely tax collectors and prostitutes, the worst sinners of the day, grabbed ahold of it with all they had. The invitation for us then seems simple: be like the first son. Repent! Don’t just talk about faith; go work in the vineyard. But I don’t believe this parable comes down to, “Which son will you be?” The hard truth is that we are both.

We are the second son whenever our confession doesn’t live up to our discipleship. We say yes to God all the time. We confess our sins, say we’ll repent, and promise to love our neighbors. We talk about welcome and service, justice and forgiveness. We call ourselves Partners in Mission at Cross of Grace. That is a whole lot of yes to God. And inevitably, we don’t always go into the vineyard. So let’s not be too quick to judge the chief priests and elders. They aren’t obvious villains. They are religious people who know how to say yes to God. Sound familiar?

But thank God we are also the first son. We’ve said no in a thousand ways. We’ve been selfish. We’ve hurt others and ourselves.

We’ve failed to become the parents, spouses, friends, Christian, and church we imagined ourselves becoming. There are things you believed, that we believed, twenty years ago that make us cringe now. Things we’ve said that we wish we would have swallowed. Things we’ve done that cannot be undone. “If you used to know me, I am sorry. I have not been myself for most of my life.” There is confession there. Grace does not take all that away. It happened. It was you.

And yet, “afterward he changed his mind and went.” Just like the first son, our no was true, but it wasn’t final. Our past happened, but it doesn’t dictate our future. “Don’t worry. You’re not crazy. I’m almost who I am.” In other words, I am still becoming. The grace in the parable is that the first son’s “no” didn’t preclude him from working in the vineyard. The future was still open.

And perhaps the same is true for the second son. Jesus says the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom “ahead of you”; not instead of you. Their failure need not be final either. Grace is the promise that neither our first answers nor our failures are the final word. Rather God is always at work in us.

Maybe you are sitting here as someone who has more life behind you than in front of you. You’re thinking, “Pastor I am 86. My future is not open and it is too late to repair all my no’s.” Sounding an awful lot like David Whimbish, Luther says, “This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road.”

Our becoming isn’t finished before death. The Christian promise isn’t merely that you still have time to become a somewhat better version of yourself before you die. Rather, it is after this life, God will finish what grace has begun and we will be made new, complete; the person God intended for you to be. But in this life, you are almost who you are, but still not quite. And to me that is good news. Because like David Whimbish sings, I’m afraid that I am the mistake that I’ve made.

I want to change, or really be changed. I want to be a different person than who I have been, than who I am today. Maybe that's true for you, too. Jesus tells me, tells us, that by the grace of God, our future is open. The problem is not that we have messed up in the past. The problem is believing your past must determine your future.

This parable and its teaching isn’t about being the religious leaders or the sinners, the second son or the first. It’s announcing the terrifying and wonderful reality that God is still at work in us. We are not yet who we will be. Sometimes we can see it happening. A no becomes a yes. We meet people who change us. The tight grip on a conviction we held so tight begins to loosen. We apologize. We forgive. We finally walk into the vineyard.

And sometimes the work remains painfully unfinished. There are noes we will never have time to repair and wounds we cannot heal. But even then, God is not finished. Death does not close the future God has opened. In the resurrection we will finally become who God has been making us to be all along.

In this life, though, I’m almost who I am, but never quite. Amen.