Almost Who I Am

Almost Who I Am

Pastor Cogan

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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.

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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.

Why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Pastor Cogan

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

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I know I have said it, but I can’t say it enough. From all of my family, thank you for the generous gift of time you gave to us for my paternity leave. It was wonderful.

I thought it might be helpful to share a little bit about what our days were like. Yes, there were (and are) the diaper blow outs, the endless piles of laundry, the constant “Clive stop touching her”, and coffee, lots of coffee. But especially in those first few weeks, there would come a point nearly each day when Clive had had enough of being inside.

It might have been the running laps around the kitchen or chucking toys down the stairs, but something would tell us he needed to go outside. And since I am not a source of milk, He and I would go for walks, or adventures, as we call them.

There is this little path in our neighborhood that leads to a small pond behind some houses. It’s got tall grasses and wildflowers all around, with tall trees hovering above. I would tell him we were searching for turtles, knowing full well we wouldn’t see one. That wasn’t the point. We would walk, look around, but mostly Clive would ask questions.

Dad, why is that flower yellow? Why is there water here? Why are the clouds gray and not white? Why is uncle Chad taller than you?

Admittedly, I was more than a little tired on some of our walks and did not entertain this game well. On my better days though, I would do my best to answer. But when you get five or six why’s deep on any one question, you’ve got to be a wildlife biologist, an astrophysicist, or a mechanic to give the right answer.

For example: why does it rain? So that things grow. Why? Because most things need water and sunlight to grow. Why? At this point I remember something called photosynthesis, but that’s about all and we are only three whys in.

And lest you think I am exaggerating on the number of why’s Clive asks, one study from the University of Michigan found that on average, a 3 to 5 year old asks 107 questions a day! A day! Most of them being “why?”.

I researched a little bit more on why Clive asked why so much and there are a few reasons.

First, at age three kids have an explosion of neuron connections happening in their brain, more than three times that of an adult. Second, it helped me to know that kids ask lots of questions with someone they trust. They are thinking, “this person is helping me figure out the world”. And finally, kids aren’t seeking attention with the repeated why. Instead, they are just unsatisfied with the answers, which means Clive is unsatisfied with me most of the time.

Sadly, this barrage of questioning doesn't last forever. Tight at the time kids start school, ironically the questions start slowing down. By halfway through elementary school, they nearly stop altogether, perhaps because in both our schools and our society we’ve come to value correct answers much more than good questions.

In reading the gospel this week, I can’t help but wonder how this conversation between Jesus and Peter would have gone had Peter responded with a question. I wonder even more how Jesus would have answered… Instead, Peter thinks he has the right answer again. Just last week, Jesus praised him for his answer to the question who Jesus was. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”, Peter said. And he was rewarded with a title, the Rock, and keys to the kingdom.

Yet, today we see Peter had the right answer, but the wrong understanding of what that meant. For him and most of the Jewish community, the Messiah would be like David and Moses wrapped into one, but even greater. A military leader who would overthrow Rome and lead the Jewish people out of oppression and into a new kingdom.

So when Jesus says that he must suffer and be killed by the people Peter thought he came to defeat,

Peter can’t help but think he is right and Jesus is wrong. Can you imagine how the conversation would have gone had Peter simply responded why? Why must you suffer and be killed? Why must you be raised on the third day? Throughout the gospels, Jesus never scolds the disciples or others for asking questions. Think of Nicodemus and all his questions or the disciples wanting an explanation as to why Jesus taught in parables.

Questions don’t frustrate Jesus. Insistence that someone has the right answer, or the right theology, does… Especially when that right answer or theology harms someone else.So if Jesus welcomes our questions, why are we so hesitant to pose them? Maybe because we are afraid of what our questions will lead to or we’ve been told we shouldn’t.

Like our schools and society, our churches and denominations place a premium on having the right answers or believing the right thing. And it has harmed people, especially women and our gay and queer siblings.

My hope is that this community is a place where we create space for and encourage good questions.

As we start this new program year, there will be many opportunities to learn together. My prayer is that not only will you commit to coming to one of them: Wired Word, Giving the Sense, Graceful Parenting, or others, but that while you are in them you are not afraid to ask questions of your neighbor, your pastors, your faith, and the holy words of the Word.

When we do that, we’ll make new connections and gain deeper understanding about each other and our God. We will grow in trust, helping one another figure out our faith and the world around us. We will also be, and likely have already been, unsatisfied with some answers you get: from us, from popular theology, or from your past church experience. And that’s okay!

One of the best pieces of advice I read about Clive’s constant questioning is that he's likely unsatisfied with my answers because they are causal, not functional. In other words, I am explaining what causes something and not its function. He asks why the flower is yellow and I say because of the pigment in its petals. That is useless to Clive. But if I say, so that bees and butterflies can find it, now we’ve got something. Preschoolers want an answer that is functional, that explains what something does, not just what it means. And that’s beautiful, it’s also very Lutheran.

If you have asked “Why did Jesus have to die?” and someone responded with “because that was God’s plan” or “because of sin”, that’s a causal answer likely leading to many more whys. I am much more interested in a functional answer of why Jesus died and was raised. That answer is perhaps more simple, but no less profound.

Jesus died and was raised for you, and for me and for the whole world, so that we might receive grace and forgiveness here and now, and that all creation will one day be raised to new life, just as Jesus was.

That’s why.

Until then, ask all the questions you can about this faith we share, about this God we worship, and about this grace we’ve received. It will help us learn together, trust each other more, and above all, get a deeper understanding of this Jesus we follow. We might not be satisfied with all the answers we get, but I bet one day we will be.

Amen