Proper 21 (Ordinary 26)

From Inherited Guilt to New Hearts

Ezekiel rejects the proverb about sour grapes, insisting each person bears responsibility for their own sin and may turn. Preach the pastoral weight of this: no one is doomed by a family's past or by past failures. God's call is to cast away transgression and receive a new heart and a new spirit. The sermon might explore what repentance looks like when it is not a transaction but a turning toward life, grounded in God's own desire that the wicked live.

The Mind of Christ in Community

Philippians moves from the comfort of shared love to the pattern of Christ's self-emptying. Preach on how humility is not merely an attitude but a practice: counting others better than oneself, doing nothing from selfish ambition. The hymn of Christ's descent and exaltation grounds this in God's own action. The sermon could ask how a congregation can work out its salvation together, trusting that God is at work in the ordinary life of the community.

Authority and the Second Yes

In Matthew, the temple leaders question Jesus' authority while the parable exposes a gap between saying and doing. Focus on the two sons: one says no but later goes; the other says yes but does not. Preach on the authority of a changed life over religious credentials. Jesus points to tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John as those entering the kingdom. The sermon might challenge hearers to discern where their own actions, not just words, reveal whose authority they obey.

Grace

“The baptism which Peter administered was the baptism, not of Peter, but of Christ; that which Paul administered was the baptism, not of Paul, but of Christ.”

— Augustine, Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1

Knowledge vs. practice

“Their life is spent in playing the part of the son in our Lord's parable, to whom the father said, "Go, work in my vineyard: and he answered, I go, sir, and went not.”

— J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion

Forgiveness

“There is nothing contrary to the mercifulness of truth, or inconsistent with Christian faith, in a harlot leaving fornication, and becoming a chaste wife.”

— Augustine of Hippo, Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 4