Sermons
August 30, 2026 (Proper 17)
“Everybody talkin’ ’bout heaven ain’t goin’ there”
Matthew 7:21-23
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I find buzzwords—terms that get overused to the point of meaninglessness—to be pretty irritating. Today’s text brought up another one, one which actually defines a lot of what Jesus teaches throughout the Sermon on the Mount: Authenticity.
A political commentator I occasionally watch on YouTube encourages folks to subscribe by describing himself as authentic. I always understood authentic to mean something was real, not fake—like a diamond as opposed to a chunk of glass. Ethnic restaurants will often put on their signs that they offer authentic Mexican or Chinese or whatever food—which isn’t totally accurate since many ingredients commonly used in other countries aren’t necessarily available here,[1] and even if they were they might not be palatable to the average white American’s tastes.
But it’s come to mean something different when it comes to human behavior, and while I think the word has become overused, it really does encapsulate what Jesus teaches throughout the Sermon on the Mount.
When I first began my preparation for ministry, Mike and I were having a conversation in the car one day. He said, “Do you want to do this because you genuinely want to serve, or do you just like being on stage and the center of attention? You need to make sure you’re clear about that before you go any further.”[2]
I’m sure it made me mad at the time, but he was right. And what he was arguing for was authenticity. It’s what Jesus was talking about early on when he urged his followers not to make a show of praying, giving alms, and fasting. And it’s what he’s talking about in our reading for today.
It’s hard to hear, especially to us Disciples. We teach that the only requirement for becoming a follower of Jesus is to make the “Good Confession”: “I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and I accept him as my Lord and Savior.” Yet Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
So are we wrong to teach only the Good Confession? Are we misleading people into believing they’re going to heaven when they might not be?
I don’t think so. Our emphasis on the Good Confession is about distinguishing us from other traditions that might require a person to agree to a long creed, the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, for instance, in order to be welcomed into the church. We aren’t turning the Good Confession into the be-all and end-all of Christian discipleship. It’s a starting point.
If we were to stop there, we would be in the wrong. Start by calling on the name of Jesus, but continue by figuring out what God’s will is and doing it.
But Jesus continues, and here’s where we might get even more confused.
There are places in the Gospels in which Jesus promises that his followers will be able to do great deeds of power, healing, miracles, prophecy, and so on, through the power of the Holy Spirit.[3] Yet here he says on Judgment Day people who have done all those things will get sent away, “I never knew you; get away from me, you evildoers.”
What?
This brings us back to the issue of authenticity. Did we prophesy in Jesus’ name, and cast out demons in Jesus’ name, and do many deeds of power in Jesus’ name because that’s what God was calling us to do? If so, then terrific. But did we do those things instead just to draw attention to ourselves, to make people exclaim about how great we are?
Back in the antitheses in chapter 5, Jesus took what the Law said and carried it a step further. “You have heard it said… But I say to you…” What he was saying there was that it isn’t just our behavior that matters; even more important is the condition of our hearts.
When he talks about praying, fasting, and giving alms, the issue is motivation. Are we doing the right things for the wrong reasons? Are we saying long prayers in public to impress people? Are we making a show of fasting so people will be in awe of our spiritual maturity? Are we giving in such a way that people will admire our generosity?
Or are our prayers quiet conversations with our Father in heaven, our fasting just between God and ourselves, our giving meant to do some good without worry about whether we get any attention for it?
And the same goes here, in today’s reading. The important thing is for us to figure out what God’s will is.
If a person isn’t called to prophesy, but they’re out there prophesying, then they might have some trouble on Judgment Day. Maybe I’m called to a more behind-the-scenes ministry of encouragement or hospitality, but I’m ignoring those things because I want to be out in front of people doing great deeds of power. In that case I’m not doing the will of Jesus’ Father in heaven; I’m doing what I want and slapping Jesus’ name on it as a stamp of approval that I have not earned.
Similarly, if a person is called to prophesy or some other public ministry, but they opt to ignore that call in favor of something less public, well, that’s a problem, too.
It takes discernment, and discernment is something that ideally happens both in our private prayers and in discussions among fellow Christians. Sometimes we don’t see in ourselves gifts others can immediately discover.
Years ago I was meeting with the nominating committee of our church, and in the course of our discussion one of the folks on the committee was asked whether she would serve as an elder. Her immediate response was, “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” She had never had a role that was so public.
But I and the rest of the committee felt like God might be calling her to be an elder. So we sent her home to think and pray about it. And at our next meeting she agreed to serve as an elder, and she was a good one.
Similarly, there are times when a candidate for commissioning or ordination comes before the appropriate church bodies, and it becomes evident in conversation with them and through prayer that their gifts and calling lie elsewhere.
A great many of us choose to follow Jesus’ example at the beginning of his ministry, and spend some time alone with God getting our heads on straight, making sure we’re hearing God’s call correctly, discerning what exactly our service should be like. And we speak to commissions on ministry, groups within our congregations, friends and family, maybe even a “clearness committee” after the Quaker tradition; and we all work together to make sure we know what God’s will is.
The hope is that when we come to the last judgment, we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” not “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoer.”
[1] For instance, in Mexico oftentimes an ingredient called huitlacoche is included in dishes. In this country we typically don’t eat this fungal growth that occurs on corn, and I have never been to a Mexican restaurant that offered it. (I don’t have any allergies to foods we typically eat in the U.S., but I am allergic to corn smut, which is the Anglo name for huitlacoche.)
[2] This conversation happened nearly three decades ago, so I can’t necessarily vouch for the precise words he used.
[3] See, for instance, John 14:12.