Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 9/27/2026
The Grace of the Second Thought
Matthew 21:23-22 Proper 18
St. David’s Episcopal Church, Southfield, MI
The Very Rev Chris Yaw
Have you ever said something...
And about five minutes later thought:
“Yeah.
That was stupid.”
Anybody?
You send the email.
You make the comment.
You snap at your spouse.
You tell your kid, “Absolutely not!”
And then five minutes later you think:
“Well...
…Maybe.”
There should probably be a special button on our phones that appears thirty seconds after we hit SEND and says:
“Would you like to reconsider that?”
Because sometimes our first thought is not our best thought.
Sometimes our first reaction is anger.
Sometimes it is fear.
Sometimes it is defensiveness.
Sometimes it is ego.
Sometimes it is something we learned years ago and have never bothered to examine.
And sometimes...
…we are just wrong.
Which is why I love this little story Jesus tells in today's Gospel.
A father has two sons.
He goes to the first and says:
“Son, go and work in the vineyard today.”
And the son says:
“No.”
Not, “Let me check my calendar.”
Not, “I'll circle back.”
Not, “Can we revisit this after lunch?”
Just:
“No.”
But then Matthew tells us something wonderful.
“He changed his mind and went.”
The father goes to the second son.
“Go work in the vineyard.”
And this kid says:
“Absolutely, Dad!”
“I go, sir.”
Yes!
Of course!
Anything you need!
What a wonderful son!
Except...
,,,he never goes.
So Jesus asks the obvious question:
“Which of the two did the will of his father?”
And everybody knows the answer.
The first.
The one who said no.
The one who initially got it wrong.
The one who had...
…a second thought.
And I want to suggest this morning that one of the greatest gifts God gives us is something we don't talk about nearly enough:
the grace of the second thought.
The grace to reconsider.
The grace to rethink.
The grace to admit:
Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I don't know everything.
Maybe there's another way to look at this.
Maybe that person I dismissed deserves another hearing.
Maybe that grudge I've been carrying, isn't doing me any good.
Maybe that thing I've believed for thirty years, needs another look.
Maybe God is trying to change me…
Because here's something I've noticed.
We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to be right.
And Jesus seems much more interested in whether we're willing to be changed.
And those are not the same thing.
In fact, this whole encounter begins with people who are very invested in being right.
Jesus is in the Temple.
The chief priests and elders approach him and ask:
“By what authority are you doing these things?”
Remember, this is right after Jesus has entered Jerusalem, overturned tables in the Temple, and caused quite a commotion.
So the authorities want credentials.
Who authorized you?
Who signed the paperwork?
Which committee approved this?
Jesus, being Jesus, answers their question with a question.
He asks them about John the Baptist.
Was John's baptism from heaven or merely human?
And suddenly they have a problem.
Because they're not actually asking:
What is true?
They're asking:
Which answer makes us look best?
If we say John came from God, Jesus will ask why we didn't believe him.
If we say John didn't come from God, the crowd will turn on us.
So they finally say:
“We don't know.”
And Jesus tells them this story.
Two sons.
One says no and changes.
One says yes and doesn't.
And then Jesus delivers the line that stings:
The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom ahead of you because they believed John.
And then Jesus says:
“Even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
That's the problem.
It isn't simply that they were wrong.
They didn’t / wouldn’t / couldn't change.
They had become so invested in their position...
their reputation...
their authority...
their understanding of God...
that even when new evidence appeared right in front of them, they couldn't reconsider.
And I wonder if that isn't one of the great spiritual dangers of our time.
Not that we disagree.
Human beings have always disagreed.
Not that we're sometimes wrong.
Human beings have always been wrong.
The danger is that we have somehow begun to believe that changing your mind is a sign of weakness.
We even use it as an insult.
“He flip-flopped.”
“She changed her position.”
“He used to believe something different.”
Well...
I hope so!
I hope all of us believe some things differently than we did twenty years ago!
Because if you haven't changed your mind about anything in twenty years...
…what exactly have you been doing?
We learn.
We grow.
We experience things.
We meet people.
We get hurt.
We heal.
We discover that some things are more complicated than we thought.
We read Scripture again.
We listen again.
We pray again.
And sometimes God says:
“Chris...
take another look.”
That's not weakness.
That's growth.
Richard Rohr has often described spiritual transformation as involving a willingness to let go of the ego's need to control and be certain.
Barbara Brown Taylor has written beautifully about the spiritual value of uncertainty, about discovering God beyond the tidy boundaries we've constructed.
And Brian McLaren has spent much of his work arguing that faith isn't supposed to be a fortress protecting us from new understanding:
Faith can become a journey into deeper understanding.
That's actually deeply biblical.
Because the biblical word for this is:
…repentance.
And repentance is much bigger than feeling guilty.
The Greek word metanoia carries the sense of a changed mind, a changed heart, a changed direction.
Repentance isn't:
“I am a horrible person.”
Repentance is:
“I don't have to keep going this way.”
That's the grace of the second thought.
And here's what makes Christianity such extraordinarily good news:
God does not require you to have gotten it right the first time.
Think about the people God uses in Scripture.
Moses?
Didn't want the job.
Jonah?
Ran in the opposite direction.
Peter?
Good heavens…
Peter could have founded the International Association of People Who Speak Before Thinking.
“I'll never deny you, Jesus!”
Hours later:
“Never heard of him.”
Paul?
Started out persecuting – killing! - Christians.
And then changed so dramatically that the man who once tried to destroy the Church - spent the rest of his life building it.
Christianity is full of people whose first answer was wrong.
And God said:
“Let's try that again.”
Maybe that's grace.
Grace is God's refusal to freeze us at our worst moment.
God keeps leaving the door open.
You can still change.
You can still turn around.
You can still become someone different.
And notice how beautifully our other readings reinforce this.
The Israelites are wandering through the wilderness in Exodus.
They have no water.
They panic.
They complain to Moses:
“Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
And honestly...
I have some sympathy for them.
If you're in the desert with your children and there is no water, you're allowed to become a little testy.
But their question is fascinating:
“Is the Lord among us or not?”
That's their first thought.
We're thirsty.
Therefore, God has abandoned us.
And then God tells Moses:
Strike the rock.
And water comes out.
The Psalm remembers it:
“He split the hard rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as from the great deep.”
In other words:
Sometimes the thing that looks like the end of the road...
…is just the place where God is about to open a spring.
Sometimes our first interpretation of what's happening isn't the whole story.
Sometimes we need another thought.
But then Paul takes us even deeper in Philippians.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
And what is the mind of Christ?
Not grasping.
Not exploiting.
Not clinging to status.
Christ empties himself.
Takes the form of a servant.
Humbles himself.
And because of that, Paul says:
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you.”
I love that.
God is at work in you.
Not finished with you.
Working in you.
Which means the Christian life isn't about reaching some point where we say:
“There. Finished. I now possess all correct opinions.”
It's about becoming increasingly available to God.
God, change my heart.
Change my assumptions.
Change my priorities.
Change how I see that person.
Change how I spend my money.
Change how I use my time.
Change what I do with my anger.
Change what I think I need.
Change me.
And I think this matters because there are places in every one of our lives where we desperately need the grace of the second thought.
Maybe you have written somebody off.
“They'll never change.”
Second thought.
Maybe you've decided something about yourself.
“I'm too old.”
“I'm too broken.”
“I've made too many mistakes.”
“It's too late.”
Second thought.
Maybe you've been carrying resentment so long that you've forgotten what life felt like before it.
Second thought.
Maybe you've decided that because something failed once, you can never try again.
Second thought.
Maybe you've inherited an opinion about a group of people you've never really gotten to know.
Second thought.
Maybe you've decided your marriage can't get better.
Your relationship with your child can't change.
Your faith can't become alive again.
Your church can't grow.
Your life can't surprise you.
Second thought.
Because sometimes the Holy Spirit's favorite sentence may simply be:
“Take another look.”
-------
And there's another piece of this Gospel that I don't want us to miss.
The first son doesn't just think differently.
He goes to the vineyard.
That's crucial.
Because Jesus isn't praising better opinions.
Jesus is talking about transformed lives.
The second son has the correct words.
“I go, sir.”
Beautiful.
Orthodox.
Respectful.
And useless.
Because he doesn't go.
The first son's words are wrong.
But his life changes.
And Jesus asks:
Which one did the father's will?
The one who went.
That's Christianity.
Not merely saying the right things.
Doing them.
Not merely saying we love our neighbors.
Loving them.
Not merely saying we care about the poor.
Serving them.
Not merely saying we believe in forgiveness.
Forgiving.
Not merely saying all are welcome.
Making room.
Not merely saying we follow Jesus.
Following Jesus.
Which is why our liturgy this morning keeps moving us from words into action.
We will confess that we have sinned “in thought, word, and deed,” including “what we have done” and “what we have left undone.”
And then we ask God to forgive us so that we may “delight in your will, and walk in your ways.”
Walk.
Not merely agree.
Walk.
And then we come to this table.
We receive bread.
We receive wine.
We receive Christ.
And then the prayer doesn't say:
“Now remain here and think religious thoughts.”
It says:
“Send us forth in the power of your Spirit.”
Go.
Into the vineyard.
Into the world.
Into your marriage.
Into your family.
Into your workplace.
Into Southfield, Berkley, Royal Oak, Bloomfield, and Novi.
Into that difficult relationship.
Into that situation you've given up on.
Go.
And then, almost perfectly, our final hymn gives us the prayer we need:
“Lead me, guide me along the way.”
That's the prayer of someone who understands:
I might not know the way.
I might need guidance.
I might need correction.
I might need God to lead me somewhere I hadn't planned to go.
And that is not failure.
That's faith.
So maybe there is a very simple prayer for us this week.
God...
give me the grace of the second thought.
When anger gives me my first thought...
give me another.
When fear gives me my first thought...
give me another.
When pride gives me my first thought...
give me another.
When prejudice gives me my first thought...
give me another.
When despair tells me nothing can change...
give me another.
And when I've been wrong...
give me enough humility to say so.
Because the good news this morning is that God doesn't freeze us at our first answer.
The vineyard is still there.
The invitation is still open.
The Father is still calling.
And even if yesterday you said:
“No.”
Today...
you can get up.
You can change your mind.
You can change direction.
You can go.
Because sometimes repentance begins with nothing more dramatic than this:
**“You know what?
I've thought about it.”**
And maybe that's where grace begins.
With a second thought.
Followed by... a first step. Amen.