This week's Sunday Song is a sermon and a song that poured out of me when I read the parable of the two sons. (Matthew 21:23-32). I was asked by the Erickson Lutheran church to offer an online sermon, so welcome to all of you, and to all of my other Sunday Song readers/listeners.

In the video talk, I mention the context of this parable being told soon after Jesus has driven out the money changers and overturned the tables in the temple. In this text also, John the Baptist is mentioned, (who had already been beheaded).

I didn't mention it in the talk below, but I want to point out John Dominic Crossan's work on why John the Baptist was so disliked by people in power. So many people think he was beheaded for simply speaking out against divorce, (a clause used for centuries to try and keep especially women in abusive marriages). But once you know what Antipas was up to: setting up a commercial fishery on the Sea of Galilee, destroying the way of life for all of Jesus' fishing friends. And once you know that the divorce of his Arab wife, and the marriage of Herodias, was for the reason of attempting to gain more political power (that would further oppress these occupied Jewish territories), we can understand the public judgement from John the Baptist, and hear his fiery speech, as an outcry for justice. (I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of John Dominic Crossan's wonderful book The Greatest Prayer. I keep it at the ready nearly daily.)