We're immersed now - and will be more so for the next five weeks - immersed in political ads and candidate debates. Whatever else we're seeing and hearing, we are also seeing and hearing candidates talking about themselves in such a way that they strive to be role models. Our political system demands that sort of peacock approach for the candidates. You won't go very far in politics if you take the hangdog attitude, "Please vote for me. I know I haven't done very much in the public sector nor the private sector but c'mon, give me a chance." Humility is not a virtue on the political stage.

Now preachers by-and-large, don't need to sell themselves. They need to promote the faith and point to Jesus. Our politicians and our preachers should be role models ... by example, and not by self-proclamation. Now, having said this, I have to share a story in which I am the role model. And with this story I hope to help make more clear the story Jesus tells this morning.

It was almost exactly twenty years ago that I traveled by bus from Tel Aviv to Cairo. I've made that long journey several times, but this one was the most memorable. The visa form necessary to enter Egypt from Israel was so straight forward and simple it was hard to realize I was at a very tense border crossing where such forms tend to be more complicated. Simple as the form was, the Egyptian army officer in the booth was having difficulty with the way the lady ahead of me filled it out. He said to her, "You did not put in your religion." She said, "I have no religion." He said, "But you must put in something. You are a Christian, or a Jew or a Moslem." She said, "I am nothing." He said, "Everybody is born something!" She said, with some anger in her voice, "I was born nothing!" and she walked away. She was wrong; she was born stubborn. The Egyptian was still shaking his head in frustration when I showed him my papers but he smiled when he read "Christian" because after what I had witnessed, I had added a big exclamation point after the word "Christian." I haven't come to the role model part.

About two hundred of us milled around a barn-like building for a couple hours waiting to catch the bus to Cairo. It was hot; tempers were short; the journey to Cairo would be long. Finally about fifty of us were called to board the first bus. Among the group was an Arab lady with a black dress and a white scarf, two young kids and a large suitcase tied with a rope, which broke and the kids were crying and clothing was strewn and I walked quickly to the door of the bus and grabbed a window seat at the front of the bus, grumbling to myself how that woman was going to delay our departure.

I looked out my window and bam! I got hit right between the eyes with ... my own exclamation point! "Christian. Exclamation point." What I saw on the hot tarmac was the stubborn, "born nothing" lady picking up clothes and helping to re-pack the suitcase. This woman would not know Jesus Christ if she bumped into him on the street. But on her knees on the tarmac, she played the role of Jesus to a person in need. From my seat on the bus I witnessed a sermon. She talked "no" and walked "yes," while I only talked "yes" as I found a seat on the bus. In a nutshell, that is me as a role model. At least in this instance, it is a model to learn from - but not emulate!

My point, and the sharp point of Jesus in the parable, is this: there are people in the vineyards of this world who would never claim to be Christian. People who are giving a cup of cold water to their thirsty neighbor. And there are Bible pounding religious leaders and people sitting in the pew who never even get around to the task of turning on the water tap! Fortunate pastor that I am, even while I sometimes grab my seat on the bus, I am surrounded by people like you who are in partnership with Jesus as you work in the vineyards!

Here's a bit of context to the parable. Jesus and his disciples have arrived in Jerusalem. Only yesterday it seemed like the whole city turned out to give a parade in his honor and wave palm branches wildly in his face and throw articles of clothing in his path. It was like a big old suitcase had burst its seams! Only yesterday Jesus had healed the blind and the lame in the temple courtyard - much to the anger of the religious leaders. And now it is early Monday, the last Monday before the Cross, and Jesus is teaching in the temple courtyard and some scribes and Pharisees (religious leaders who ought to have known better) came to Jesus and asked about his authority to teach and to heal. Strange, is it not? Good things are being done in God's name and the religious leaders called by God, for Heaven's sake, to minister to the people ... these religious leaders are hassling Jesus!

This is the context for today's Gospel reading. Jesus just does not go around like old Uncle Remus telling stories ... there is always a situation in life (the German theologians call it sitz im leben) which Jesus is addressing ... and a specific audience: in this case it is Jewish religious leaders, the scribes and Pharisees! The point of all this is that the religious leaders and self-righteous people in the pews are those who often say "Yes!" to God in their prayers and piety and "No!" to God when it comes to putting creeds into deeds. The other side of the coin then, are the tax collectors and prostitutes who have no correct creed about God - but nonetheless, do the good deed for their neighbor. And God seems more pleased with perspiration than with prayer. But truth be known, God cannot be well pleased with either of the sons - for both are far from perfect. But they are still his "sons." God loves those "sons" and thus God must deal with them appropriately.

William Willimon makes the claim that "in this church, or any other, whenever Jesus comes to town, he meets mainly two types of people: scribes and Pharisees who know the Bible backwards and forwards but don't often act on their beliefs; tax collectors and prostitutes who don't always know what they believe, but whose actions in real life sometimes mirror the very best of our beliefs."

To be sure, our Heavenly Father cannot be overjoyed at a stubborn woman who will not acknowledge God but still works in the vineyard on behalf of her neighbor. To be sure, our Heavenly Father cannot be pleased with those of us who say "Yes," to a vineyard ministry and then forget the commitment as soon as we hit the light at Route 6. But our Father is - our Father - and will deal with us appropriately. And the way God found appropriate to deal with we first and second "sons" is to give God's only Son, God's Perfect Son! We deserve nothing from God - and from God, we get everything. And from the arms of the Cross echoes the voice of God's Son: "Father forgive them." And the Father indeed does.

Why? Well, in God's eyes, everybody's born something! At the very least, everybody's born a child of God ... a heavenly Father who urges us talk the talk at worship and then walk that talk right into the vineyard!