Sermon - October 24, 2010

22nd Sunday after Pentecost - Year C
Luke 18:9-14

Honest with Ourselves - Honest with God


Our Refrigerator is covered with photos and clippings – the sort of things you used to send one another by mail, before email spam became so popular. One of them is a clipping Laura’s mother sent us, not long after we were married. I am not sure whether its message was for me or Laura, but the message comes through loud and clear. The piece talks about all those little imperfections, possessed by one's spouse. After starting off on a humorous note, the writing shifts and begins to touch upon inadequacies which are less than endearing. The writer addresses those things which are significant, life altering faults.

But, just as you think the article is about to reach its conclusion, it shifts once again. This time the emphasis falls, not upon the imperfections possessed by one's mate, but upon one's own grievous faults. The writer concludes: “The best prescription for curing one's irritation at a partner's imperfections is every morning to look at the flaws in the face in the mirror and say, 'You're no bar¬gain, either.' You may soon realize that you're not a ten slumming with a six but more likely an evenly matched pair of sevens."

In today's gospel lesson, Jesus tells his parable about two men who go up to the temple. They are two VERY different individuals. One is a Pharisee, a man who thinks of himself as a "10" relative to religious practice. The other man is a tax collector. A despised individual, this man looks at no one. He becomes an object to the Pharisee, a thing to be used by the Pharisee in recounting his many and wonderful deeds. But Jesus' story also shifts. As it does so it places the emphasis upon an unexpected aspect of these two men. The one thinks highly of himself, too highly. He looks upon his fellow worshippers and regrets the fact that he must slum around with them. But, as Jesus points out, it is the one who takes the honest look in the mirror who leaves the temple justified.

The Pharisees were committed lay people. They took faith seriously, devoting long hours to study. Generally speaking, they were business class, merchants, white-collar workers. Fiercely dedicated to the temple, the Pharisees were the backbone of the synagogue, pillars of the community of faith. They were committed, sacrificial, and zealous in their obedience to God's Word. They were good people.

Tax collectors were different. Jesus’ reference is to someone who, while a Hebrew, was believed to have sold out to the occupy¬ing forces of Rome. Jewish tax collectors were essential to the Roman government. They became the inside eyes and ears who would identify and tax the local people. Without the assistance of such persons, the occupying authorities would never have been able to maintain order. But, in the eyes of many, the Tax collectors were seen as traders, as persons who had turned upon their families, friends and religious beliefs.

These were very different men, these two whom Jesus presents in his little parable.

Their differences run even deeper. By his own admission, the Pharisee is a model of the godly life. He's the kind of church member for whom every pastor prays. He tithes. 10% of his income he returns to God as a thank offering. And if that isn't enough, he fasts twice a week. How many of us fast once a week? Jesus sets up his parable by presenting a man who takes seriously his commitment to God, who disciplines himself and lives out all the things Moses instructed the Hebrews to do. He is no thief, rogue, or adulterer. He is the epitome of the godly life.

In all fairness, we don't know how the tax collector lives his life. Jesus omits any reference to his lifestyle, life choices, or adherence to the word of God. All we know of him is the Pharisee's inclusion of him in the list of "other people." Perhaps the Pharisee knew him, or he may have been referring to his "type". Never-the-less, the Pharisee includes him with thieves, rogues, and adulterers.

These are differing men, these two whom Jesus describes. They are like night and day. Of that Jesus leaves no doubt.

But, as important as the aforementioned differences are, they serve only as backdrop to the distinction which stands out in Jesus' mind. The difference which most marks these individuals is their prayers. The one offers a litany of his accomplishments. The other lifts a plea for forgiveness.

The tax collector probably did have more sins to confess. The tax collector's way of making a living was to overtax the people. He added a commission to the amount that Rome required. So long as he raised the sum expected by the occupying governor, he was free to tax as he saw fit. He did have sins to confess. But, in his telling, Jesus does not seem to be concerned with the amount of sin. His concern is one's attitude toward that sin. The Pharisee refuses to look into the mirror, to acknowledge that he is anything less than a perfect "10" in his religious life. It is the tax collector who understands his need for grace and pleads for God's forgiveness.

Some have claimed that it is humility which distinguishes these two churchgoers; that the tax collector is humble while the Pharisee is not. While humility may be the personality trait which lies behind their actions, humility is a difficult thing to suddenly obtain. We cannot simply "decide" to be humble. It occurs to me that while Jesus may have honored the one who is humble, his parable is in the end and instruction on the necessity of looking- honestly - at ourselves and realizing our imperfections. There is nothing wrong with the Pharisee’s actions or necessarily his pride in those actions. What is wrong is his dishonest portrayal of himself. He speaks as if he has no need for God. God cannot HELP him. God can only reward him. He is not honest with himself or with God.

Twice this week I have been in conversations which wound themselves around to the point of individual honesty. Those conversations arose as we talked about the people who come to church. It is my conviction that churchgoers are all tax collectors. That we are a collection of individuals who realize our imperfections and inadequacies. I believe we come because we know this is a place where we can be honest about our needs, where we can acknowledge our imperfections are begin to hope that our inadequacies might be dealt with. We know this, and so we come, honestly acknowledging that which separates us from the people we wish we were.

It is an honest look at ourselves that brings us to the altar and leads us to confess our sins. It is an honest consid¬eration of who we are that causes us to come together, drawing strength from those like ourselves - persons who also realize their need for God.

It doesn't really matter how much sin we have to confess. It is of no real consequence to examine ourselves as models of the godly life. What counts is honesty; honest with ourselves, honesty with our God, honesty about those who come to worship with us.

No less than anyone else, we have sinned. We stand here in need of God's forgiveness and grace. We leave justified because we have had the courage to look in the mirror and acknowledge our own imperfections.

Amen.

Devotion - Thursday, October 21

Luke 7:36-50 retells the story of the woman of the city who follows Jesus into the home of a Pharisee. She positions herself behind Jesus, washing her feet with her tears. When the self-righteous Pharisee sees this, he is appalled. “How can Jesus allow this woman to touch him?” he asks. Jesus then tells a parable of two debtors – one owes five hundred, the other fifty. “When both are forgiven their debt, which one is more appreciative?” Jesus asks.

I am typically not one to encourage the recounting of transgression. Planted firmly in the assurance of a forgiving and gracious God, I would rather speak of how one lives out the life Christ makes possible for us. Typically, this is the message repeated in sermons and in these early morning offerings. In reading Luke 7, I am reminded that unless we take a good, honest look at ourselves, we might fail to realize what God has done for us.

This Sunday’s gospel lesson involves a self-righteous person and another who is humble of heart. This humility is praised by Jesus. The humble one is assured of a continued right relationship with God.

We do not dwell on our sin, bringing ourselves down to the depths of despair. But we do acknowledge our shortcomings, we identify our sin, so that we might remain forever grateful to the one who has forgiven us. We are forgiven of many debts. We therefore have much appreciation to show.

Devotion - Wednesday, October 20

Making decisions is tough. Sometimes paralyzing. In a sermon broadcast on ABC Radio in 1948, F. Eppling Reinartz identified the resources available to a Christian as we make tough decisions.

First, we are paralyzed, no matter how grave the decision. We understand that our decision will not have that great an impact on the world, or even on our own lives. God’s grace, and the gift of salvation have made the change in our lives to which everything else is window dressing.

He writes, “Christians don’t find it easier to make vital decisions that do others. Oh no! But our religion does give us insight and guidance which help us when, lacking them, we would find our thinking at a dead end.”

As persons of faith, we turn to God to assist us in our thinking. We turn to God in prayer. This has the effect of centering ourselves and our lives. The act of turning to God in prayer reminds us of that which is ultimately important. It clears the center track of our thinking so that God might travel through. Having reestablished our priorities, decisions come to us and take effect in our lives.

“When a Christian, facing a decision, says, ‘I’ll sleep over it,’ he means, ‘I’ll surrender this all quietly to God through the night.’” - You may be sure that whether that surrender is made while waking or sleeping, it gets results. “Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for Him, and He will give Thee (to know) thy heart’s desire.”

Devotion - Tuesday, Octobe 19

In Acts 23:12-24 we read of one of the plots to kill Paul. There are several such stories, in the Book of Acts. Paul was persecuted in much the same way as Jesus; those who wished to silence his message wanted him dead.

In Acts 23, it is a group of forty men to take a vow that they will “taste no food” till they have killed him. They share their intentions with the religious leaders. They ask these leaders to send to the tribune a request to bring him back before the Council, under the pretense of asking him more questions about this new teaching. When the tribune hears of the plot, he appoints two hundred soldiers and seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to give Paul safe passage. It is the civil authority who protects Paul from the intentions of the religious community.

We know that it does not always operate that way. But in this case, it is the non-religious who do the right thing. I am not merely referring to protecting the message of Christ – I mean that they preserve life and ward off deceit. The tribune was able to see the wrong of what was being planned by those blinded by religious zeal.

I love Jesus as much as anyone. I am guided by his words and I am directed by his teachings. But I pray that my zeal would never overtake my awareness of what is right and what is wrong. I will not accept, for a moment, that it is acceptable to God for my devotion to His Son to lead to my setting aside the foundational teachings of justice and mercy. The message proclaimed by my Lord will withstand any challenge – I don’t need to defend it by silencing those who would preach a different message.

Too many in our world are blinded by religious zeal. This is true of every religious community – ours as well as that of other traditions. Let us take an oath, not to destroy the messengers with whom we disagree, but to listen to their story and to seek ways to bring their story under the umbrella of the Truths witnessed to by our Lord. May our oath be to defend our neighbor’s actions in the kindest of ways, and to assist them in all of their bodily needs.

Devotion - Monday, October 18

Luke 6 contains Jesus’ observation that we quickly see the error in the lives of another, while ignoring our own failings. He says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

There are a number of reasons “Why.” One reason is our belief that the errors committed by us are not as serious. “My gossip is rooted in fact!” Another reason involves a hierarchy of transgression. The thing I do to break the law is not as bad a sin as that committed by another. We might tell ourselves that our confession will absolve us of the transgression; that once the wrong we have committed rises to awareness we will turn to God and repent. Of course, all the while assuming that the other person commits their transgression out of willful intent to inflict injury.

Jesus instructs those identified in this teaching to “First remove the log from you own eye, and they you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”

Recognizing, admitting, and dealing with the log is our first step.

Few things are as difficult as this. Few things are as important.

When another helps us to identify the places in our lives where things are out of sync, they are not only helping us correct present wrongs, they are aid us in our hope to avoid future transgressions. Exposing a short-sighted comment or act reduces the likelihood that we will repeat the error. They truly are “helping” us when they point out to us that we have this timber obstructing our view.

Let us be quick to see the log; slow to over-exaggerate the size of the speck. And, when another comes to our aid, identifying for us the wrong in our life, let us be thankful for their aid.

Devotion - Wednesday, October 13

The opening line from this morning’s prayer caught my attention: “O God, whose almighty power is made known chiefly in showing mercy and pity…” It identifies for us what God’s power is like; it instructs us as to how we ought to exercise power in our world.

So often, power is used to dominate others. The “powerful” are those who have the ability to crush others. God’s power is of a differing type. God is powerful enough that no shows of strength are necessary.

Every day we are bombarded with political campaign ads. I hate joining an all too popular chorus which decries negative campaigning. (They do it because it works – we fall for it.) Such ads seek to portray as powerful the one who has the ability to “expose the misdeeds” of another. It is a use of power to crush the opponent’s message, their self-presentation. A truly powerful politician is one who uses their energy to serve the common good; to enable positive change for the citizens.

There is a lot of talk about the Clemson football team. “I like Dabo, but why can’t he win games?” I like Dabo, too. And I think he is a good man. I have come to believe that he understands the power he has in the lives of the players. And, whether he wins games or not, it seems to me that he is using his power to improve the lives of players.

“O God, whose almighty power is made known chiefly in showing mercy and pity….” Perhaps only “almighty” power can be shown in this way. Regular old everyday power will forever slip toward abuse and manipulation. Maybe, but I hope not; I pray not. And I invite you to join me in labeling abusive actions as something other than power. God has shown us was power really is, and it is never used to put someone down or harm them.

Devotion - Tuesday, October 12

These words from Virginia Stem Owens were powerful to me. I share them with you.

“We are not so familiar with freaks as Jesus was. He daily handled as bad or worse that what I see weekly in the hospital. People coming to him for healing were maimed, mutilated, and desperate. They didn’t even have on clean pajamas. It is we who have isolated ourselves from the Incarnation. Our fear of the flesh is so deep that we institutionalize death and decay wherever it breaks out. There would be little chance of Jesus meeting a leper on the road today. Any kind of freakishness, whether physical, mental, or emotional, must be put away from our midst. People on public view must be at least superficially healthy. The lame, the halt, the blind may not have had Medicare in the first century, but neither were they incarcerated for their offense against the sensibilities of the whole…

“I used the word “saliva” in a church group the other night. People shifted their eyes uneasily. Yet it was spittle that Jesus used for a poultice on the blind man’s eyes. Saliva and mud. Somehow we’ve gotten the idea salvation eliminates the efficacy of saliva.

“I have a notion that our flight from flesh will end in more and more mechanical parts for the human body. It is the cleanliness of nylon and silicone we seem to desire, not sweat and saliva…

“Will not the shinning substitutes of plastic parts begin to dampen our ardor for the Incarnation and dull our sense of the profundity of our Lord’s bodily death and resurrection? Are we not already a little secretly ashamed of the stripes that heal us, wishing instead for an unscathed savior, Jesus Superjock, borne aloft by teams of angels unwilling to let him stub his well-shod toe? The offense of the Cross began with the offense of the Incarnation. The bloody public death is foreshadowed by a bloody stable birth. Perhaps it is not in disease and disfigurement that we reach the limits of the image of God. Disease can be healed and disfigurement restored. But would the image fade with each cloned replica of the perfect physique equipped with replaceable parts?”