I want you to take a moment and think about what sin you’re really glad you don’t do or haven’t done.
Now, I’m going to guess at least a few of you are glad you’ve never killed someone. Because surely that is the worst possible thing you could do. We do that, don’t we? To try and justify our actions? “Well, at least I didn’t kill anybody…how bad could what I did have been?”
Well – guess what? Moses was a murderer. Samson was a murderer. David was a murderer. Paul was a murderer…
Hmmm… oops?
I think at times it’s just human nature for us to try and measure ourselves against someone else and go, “Well, at least I’m not like THAT!” But then realize that God still loves and uses people who are just like THAT.
There’s a huge danger in trying to preach this parable. It’s obviously a call for humility – a call to recognize the gracious love of God – a call to recognize that all the religiosity in the world won’t put you back in relationship with God – but recognizing our own shortcomings, our own failings – not as the world would judge them necessarily, but as God sees them.
But there are several dangers in this parable. First danger is that we might see it as a call not to do any of the things that the Pharisee was doing… an excuse to keep on sinning - except – everything the Pharisee was doing… were GOOD things – they were things that scripture tells us we SHOULD be doing! So the problem was not with how the Pharisee was living his life – the problem was he was trying to compare himself to others rather than comparing himself to God. Sure, what he did was in line with what he was supposed to be doing – but he thought it was those things that put him ABOVE other people in God’s sight.
The second danger comes in when we start taking our humility and our grace and saying “we’re so much better than everyone else because we know it’s grace that saves us.” When we do that – we’ve just made the same mistake as the Pharisee.
This is the problem we are facing in the church right now – in the ELCA in particular. We’re having divisions over what it looks like for us to both know we are saved by grace through faith, but also what it means to live a godly life – trying to live as a disciple and follower of Jesus – not just a mere believer in Jesus. How to square how we are called to live while simultaneously understanding that God and God alone justifies us.
And justified is a fun word… what does THAT mean? For those of you work with Microsoft Word, think of it this way – when you “justify” the margins – you’re straightening those margins out. Lining things up. That’s what Jesus is talking about here regarding being justified. We’re being put back in right relationship with God by the grace of God.
Because if we compare ourselves to God rather than each other – we know we all fall short.
And right now, what you’ll hear on one side is people saying how evil and terrible the ELCA has been for tossing aside the authority of scripture and how scripture informs us in how we live our daily lives and how awful it is that we are seemingly ignoring that.
On the other side – you’ll hear how evil and awful those people who are leaving the ELCA are because THEY don’t understand grace. THEY’RE… just like the Pharisees. They aren’t as LOVING as we are…
Do you start seeing the problem? Thank goodness I’m not like THAT group who does this. Our own theology of humility and grace becomes a point of comparison when we try to show how superior we are over others because of how gracious and loving and accepting we claim to be.
The reality is… when we begin comparing ourselves to “the other” – WE have become just like the Pharisee. Rather than trying to understand where the tax collector or the pharisee is coming from, rather than trying to understand what it is that upsets them, we’d rather just point fingers and say YOU’RE the problem.
This became extremely evident in a recent article in the Mankato Free Press by former ELCA Bishop Herbert Chilstrom, in regards to those pastors and congregations who have opted to the leave the ELCA over the past year when he wrote:
I am both sad and relieved that you are leaving. Sad, because this was not what we hoped for when the ELCA was formed some 22 years ago. We believed we could be a church where we held to the essentials and allowed for differences on non-essentials.
But I am also relieved. Now those of us who remain in the ELCA can get on with our primary mission of telling everyone -- everyone, “Jesus loves you. You are welcome in this church.”
These words made me weep. I’m glad our brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I disagree are gone so that we can go about the business of telling everyone ELSE how welcome they are?
WHAT? I know if I happen to be one of those people who might possibly agree with the stance of those who have opted to leave – I’m not going to feel very welcome in this church anymore. That if I were to leave - it would be seen as a RELIEF???
So you see the danger? And we wonder why the church is having such an image problem. Even when we are attempting to show how tolerant and loving we can be – there seem to be limits to who we are tolerant and loving toward. When our love and tolerance extends ONLY to those outsiders we deem we should be reaching out to, but doesn’t extend to our brothers and sisters in Christ that we disagree with… are we any better?
We get so tied up in insisting that we’re right and they’re wrong – that we forget to beat our breasts, tear at our clothes and say “wretched sinner that I am.”
And don’t think I’m any different. When Christianity started getting blamed for the bullying that goes on against teens who are struggling with their sexual identity, my first reaction was to point the finger at people like the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas – that group that pickets military funerals. THEY are the ones giving Christianity a bad name…
But then I also realized… sure, it’s easy to point the finger at those churches who, in my view, are distorting scripture and are not exemplifying the true message of Christ – but can we lay all the blame of the “bad image” of the church on those we see as harmful?
Because how harmful are we to the image of Christianity in our everyday lives?
The church has been around for 2000 years, and let’s face it – we have a pretty sketchy history in a lot of places. All because we are constantly trying to compare ourselves to others, ready to treat not only outsiders with contempt, but our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with contempt.
Christians claim to be followers of Jesus Christ… yet we look and act anything like Jesus Christ most of the time. We find the few things in scripture we want to cling to – and tend to ignore the rest – ignore what it means to not just BELIEVE in Jesus Christ – but to also be a follower and a DISCIPLE of Jesus Christ. You must be “Born again” to enter the kingdom of God – true enough… but Jesus also said that to enter the kingdom of God you must sell all your possessions and follow me. Yeah – oops!
So before we start pointing the finger at the Pharisee – who was actually doing what he was supposed to be doing in terms of how he was living – and say how bad he was for boasting and comparing himself to others, thinking his deeds would justify him, we have to remember – Christ, as he was dying on the cross, said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The Pharisees were included in that plea as much as the tax collectors were.
So we also must come before God and say, “Father forgive US, for we know not what we do.”
Well preached, Sister!
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