What do you think of people who change their minds? You could surprise me, I suppose, but often, as I see it, people who change their minds are looked upon as having a flaw in their character. "She changed her mind," they say, "What's wrong with her anyway?"

Today I want to challenge that way of thinking. I will do it by beginning this sermon by saying: if you never have to change your mind, it is either because you're quite perfect as you are or you are very stupid. I mean it. Perfect, because you have always been right in the first place. Or stupid, because you are going to live with the consequences of a wrong decision no matter how miserable you are. Those are horns of a dilemma illustrating that there are times in life when a change of mind is exactly what is needed.

A few years ago a major theological journal featured a series of articles on the theme, "How I Have Changed My Mind." I remember reading them avidly, because these articles were by "the big boys" of theology - the shapers of twentieth-century American religion, the teachers in influential seminaries, the writers of stacks of books. "These people actually have changed their minds," I remember musing to myself with a smile, "These people who have their first opinions recorded in print for the rest of the world to toss back in their faces!" As I read those articles, I remember thinking what I still believe: that, sometimes, to change one's mind can be an act of courage.

In a parable of Jesus there was a man who changed his mind. A son of the vineyard owner, Jesus tells us. You and I could imagine him to be a teen-age son, feeling a bit rebellious and having reached his limit taking orders from "the old man." After all he probably had his own plans for his day. Now his father messes up his plans for a day at the beach (or whatever teen-agers did in first-century Palestine) by sending him off to pick grapes. Really disgusted with his old man, the kid says, "Forget it!" Sounds to me like he even got a bit sassy! Oh, yes, he was "shootin' straight," saying exactly what he thought. A bit later, however, he starts thinking about what he's done, about his father, about the crop that'll rot while he has "fun in the sun" of a different kind. And in his own words, he "comes to his senses." He calls his friends to say that he's not coming and then goes off to spend the day working for his father.

Now that is a real change of mind. Matthew wrote about him that "afterward he repented and went." Sometimes we have said that repentance means "feeling sorry," but it's far more than this. It's going a different direction. It's the change of mind, which sets your feet going down a different path, and which sent the son in our parable off to work in the vineyard. Who knows how he felt - happy, at peace, still a bit irritated with his father? The point is: he went. He did what his father wanted him to do.

It's obvious now that this is an allegory. The father is God. Of course, the son's rebellious answer to his father is surely not given as a model of the way we are to be before God - or is it? No, it's probably not, but he is an example of the honesty of our rebellion. He's the person who says what is on his mind even when he doesn't give the proper religious answer. Oh, it's wrong to defy God, all right, but couldn't it be that, in the end, God has more success with honest people?

A few years ago I was speaking with a man vitally involved in the affairs of his congregation. One would see him at worship regularly. He gave generously. He served well in many community organizations. During the conversation, we came to talk about confirmation because he had a child in my class. "You know," he said, "I was just awful in confirmation class. I misbehaved. I dared question the pastor as to why we had all this memory work 'junk.' To this day, I am really amazed that he confirmed me. In those two years I didn't want to buy anything that he was selling! For what I said and did, I should have been sent packing out of there." He shook his head with amazement and said, "That hard-nosed pastor didn't give up on me. And God hasn't either." Sometime in the years that followed, the boy grew into a man, had a change of mind - repented! - and began walking down that path he was sure he'd never take. That is what matters: going God's way! How you get to it, how long it takes, wherever you are today, the rebellious moments of the past, the feelings and the memories - all these are "small stuff." What matters is doing God's will, which is your possibility right now.

There was a second son in Jesus' parable. He gave the right answers but nothing more happened. His father had given him orders, too, to go to work; and he responded, "Right now, sir!" Impressive. Heart-warming for his father to see that he's raised "such a good boy." But for some reason or other, maybe any reason at all, he never goes. Oh, I'll bet if you asked him, he'd say he intended to go, all right, but he just never got around to it. "The road to hell," as they say, "is paved with good intentions."

Could it be that, somewhere within this young man with the silver tongue and the right words, there is quiet rebellion against his father? He does not say it to him. He even calls him "Sir." Yet, one fact stands out: he doesn't go to work. Amidst all the outward signs of respect, it comes down to this: he doesn't go to work. Oh, deep within him, he's doing battle with God and he doesn't even know it! Instead, he's paving the road to hell with good intentions which evaporate like morning dew during hot, dry weather.

How do we enter the kingdom of God then? By a genuine change of mind, which means doing God's will, not just thinking a few pious thoughts about doing it. The wife of Henry IV, King of France, in the 1600s, had numerous intense enemies including the Roman Catholic cardinal and her son who became king. On her deathbed, however, she promised to forgive all her enemies, including the cardinal. The priest hearing her confession asked her, "Madame, as a sign of reconciliation, will you send him the bracelet you are wearing on your arm?" "No," she stated flatly, "that would be too much." How close to the kingdom! How close, but no closer, when good intentions do not give way to action. In the end, good intentions are no substitute for doing the will of God.

Many of you are parents. Some of you have had the joy of hearing your children sing. The songs they learned are from Church School, a school you brought them to in response to a promise you made to God. Did you remember that? On the day your children were baptized, you promised to raise them in the faith, teach them the Lord's Prayer and other basics, and bring them to worship. Your presence at worship is right and good, the keeping of a promise you once made.

Yet I see too many parents make that same promise and never keep it. They do not bring their children to worship except for programs. They do not live by Christian values and set that example. But they have said all the fine words! They have said the right words. They have given the best of intentions. These are not enough in themselves. A change of mind is needed unless, to paraphrase the saying, "the road to hell is going to be re-paved again."

What are your own good intentions which have come to nothing? Maybe you, children, said you'd clean your room and you never did. Maybe you, fathers, promised to make more family time in your schedule, but it's gone back to the same old grind. Perhaps you were determined to be more generous and giving, but you seemed to forget so quickly.

If this is you or me, today is the day to stop trusting our good intentions, as if they can save us! They won't! Today is the day to confess that we have had this quiet rebellion inside of us, and the devil is often winning it against God. We have given God the sincere words but not the solid action. Today's the day to confess that we need the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and a changed mind: a mind that doesn't call good intentions good enough! That same Jesus Christ now waits to hear our prayer and give us what we need. Amen