Worship - 27 September 2026

Summary Of This Week's Theme

Who remembers these words, sung by Annie Lennox in the Eurythmics?

‘Would I lie to you?/ Would I lie to you, honey? / Would I say something that wasn’t true?
I’m asking you, sugar, would I lie to you?’

I wonder how many people have had someone look them in the eye and ask that question — and then felt ashamed for having doubted them. The problem is that, more often than not, when someone asks, ‘Would I lie to you?’ the answer turns out to be, ‘Yes.’ It can be a rather manipulative way of deflecting suspicion.

We meet something similar in today’s parable. The second son says yes to his father’s request to work in the vineyard — but doesn’t go. The other says no, but eventually changes his mind and goes. Neither son’s words correspond with his actions.

It is an odd little parable. Is it better to say yes and do no, or to say no and then do yes? And what happens when trust is broken? Trust takes a long time to build, but very little time to destroy — and even longer to rebuild.

Jesus tells this story in response to religious leaders who are questioning his authority. But their question is not really about truth; it is about protecting their own position. They are more concerned with self-preservation than with discernment.

Paul addresses something similar when he writes to the Philippians. The Christian community is not to be a collection of people pursuing their own status and interests, but a people marked by mutual care, humility and love. And Paul points to Christ himself: ‘though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.’

That is the extraordinary contrast. The religious leaders cling to authority. Jesus empties himself of it.

And perhaps that brings the parable uncomfortably close to us. Churches, institutions and individuals can become so concerned with protecting our reputation, preserving our structures, or defending what we have always done that we stop asking the more important question: Where is God actually at work?

That is why Jesus speaks so warmly of the tax collectors and prostitutes. They represent people whom respectable society has rejected. Yet God’s compassion is not limited by our categories of worthiness. Repentance is not simply feeling guilty; it is turning around and making ourselves available to God — body, mind and spirit.

And so perhaps the missing option in the parable is the one Jesus invites us to discover: to say yes — and actually do it.

Which brings us back to the Eurythmics. Perhaps the more searching question is not, ‘Would I lie to you?’ It is: Would I lie to myself?

Self-deception is dangerous. We can convince ourselves that our comfort, our reputation, our assumptions and our ways of doing things matter more than the demands of the gospel.

But there is no point deceiving the One who sees straight through us.

Perhaps, then, the Christian response is simply this: stop making excuses, turn around, and say yes — and then go and do it.