"Humbly Trusting Anew," October 27, 2013

Joel 2:21-32 Luke 18:9-14 In another place, the Apostle Paul describes that The Gospel is a Stumbling Block to Many, is true, but one of the great Theologians (Paul Tillich), asserted that our danger is in stumbling over the wrong thing! Such is the case with this morning's parable. Two men went up to the Temple to pray. Before hearing anything else, we know there is going to be a contrast. Last week, we read of the Judge and the Widow, he had all power and prestige, he sat up high behind his bench, where as she stood alone before him. He neither feared nor regarded anyone, not even God. Yet with all his authority, he responded to this little woman who might blacken his eye. Here, one is righteous and one is not, one will be acceptable and one not. The Pharisee has spent his entire life, interpreting the Law, he is not a literalist like the Scribes, he is one who knows the Law so thoroughly as to be able to interpret between contradictions. The other is hated and despised. He not only works for the Roman Empire, he was known to take bribes and steal. This is the Cain and Abel story all over again, this is Pharaoh of Egypt versus Moses and the Hebrews, the Canaanites versus the Israelites, the Good Samaritan compared to The Priest and Levite who crossed over to the other side. There always seems to be two sides, Right and Wrong, In and Out. But what sets this parable apart is there is a trap in application. According to The Biblical Law, the Holiness Code in Leviticus, the Pharisee did everything right! Everything he said about himself was true. He not only fasted once a week, he did so twice! He not only made an offering on his salary, he gave a tythe of all he received, and believing in his own righteousness this would not have been 1/10th but rather 1/7th of everything he had! The Pharisee is the first to draw the line of who is in and who is out: “I thank God, I am not like other men, extortioners, adulterers, unjust, even like that Tax Collector.” According to the Law, he not only did everything required, he did Twice as much! BUT even so, the Parable does not say that he goes home forgiven. The problem is the Pharisee has no humility. He has no need for God. He knows what is right and what is wrong, what is inside and outside, and he justifies himself, like the Elder Brother in the Prodigal Son. The Pharisee never risks getting caught, and always having enough, always being safe and secure, he looks to have great accomplishments, and great possessions, but never to have to be forgiven he has no need for God. Everything about this Pharisee is in the present tense, what happened in the past, tradition does not matter except as being his accomplishment. The Tax Collector on the other hand, knows that he has sinned. The Tax Collector was always looking back over what had happened. He has cheated people. He has not followed the Law. He is so far outside the line, Jesus described “He stood far off” meaning he did not feel worthy to come forward to present his offerings. All the Tax Collector can do was throw himself at the feet of God and beg “Have mercy on me.” He did not admit he was wrong. He did not ask for forgiveness. He did not make restitution to those he had wronged. He did not even make an offering. Jesus says, that because he asked for mercy, this Tax Collector went home forgiven. So the point is “Be Humble”. Would that it were that simple. The trap of this Parable is we cannot have a faith in being Humble, because like the Pharisee we would try to take pride in outdoing one another at being humble. Instead, the point of this parable is whether Pharisee or Tax Collector, whether on the Inside or the Outside, recognize that the only thing that matters is there is a God, God who loves you and will provide for you. Everything comes from God, God is the only thing that does matter. Not profit, not possessions, not right and wrong, not power, not even the Law. Not living in the past, or even in the moment, but believing and trusting in a new future because of God's mercy. If the first lesson of this morning's Scriptures is that We be Humble, The Second is that our focus be on God and only God. Focusing upon God and nothing else, that sounds like the Reformation which is the historic reference of this day. The Reformers came to recognize that all society, especially the church, was distracted by a great number of other things and not focused upon God. So the Reformers attempted to strip away everything except God and how to live in relationship to God's mercy. Preachers wear black or gray, so the focus would not be on our clothes. Jettison all the Interpretations of the Church, the Saints, the rituals, so our focus was strictly on the Word of God and on God. Historically, this created a split within the Church with Mystery of God on one side and Understanding God and ourselves in relation to God on the other. Lest you imagine this is dusty old historic stuff that has no bearing on today, I heard it mentioned this week that Martin Luther was one of the first to use Social Media. In an era 500 years before Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Martin Luther posted 95 different reasons why the Church needed to abandon the Sale of Indulgences, on the Doors of the Church at Wittenburg. There were no computers at the time. There were no telephones and no mails. There were no Newspapers. Martin Luther used the doors of the Church like a bulletin board. He wrote so forcefully, with such a command on what is important = God, that people coming in to worship stopped, not only to read but to copy down what he had written. Within two weeks copies of what Luther had written in German were in every Village and town at every church and household across Germany. It was simultaneously translated into Latin, and within the month was posted and read all throughout Europe. Ironically, no one recalls what Luther's sermon was on that day! That is the power of Social Media! Earlier this year, before the election of a new Pope, before the former Pope retired, one of his last acts was to redeem Martin Luther, and all those believers following from Luther, that our Baptism is the same, our need for God is the same. What he did was to Trust God, to dissolve the line of separation of who is IN & OUT! It strikes me that the Pharisee claiming “I thank God I am not like that Tax Collector” is a form of bullying. Bullying does not only happen between 12 year olds, but anytime one individual or group tries to get power by abusing and putting down another, by shaming the other, by seeing each other with prejudice as an obstacle, a thing, not valuing the other person as being a gift from God. Bullying is learned from Parent to Child. This week, meeting with a group of clergy, we came up with a fresh idea for the identity of the Presbyterian Church. What the Presbyterian Church needs to focus on is God and therefore our responsibility redeeming relationships, redeeming lost individuals as being gifts from God. A month ago, only 12 miles from here, an elderly man was beaten to death by a man who did not know him, a man who got into his head I want to kill someone, I want to beat them to death. It did not matter who the other man would be, one wanted to act out, he wanted to claim the power he had to destroy, and a harmless individual was killed. When we identify ourselves by who is in and who is out what other outcome can there be? The Prophecy of Joel, is often referred to as a Prophet of Destruction. This year the Cicada came up out of the ground, and these seven year locusts consumed everything in their way. According to Joel, Israel was plagued by four differing kind of locusts, grasshoppers, cicada. I cannot in all good faith look at circumstances in the world, AIDS, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Forest fires and claim these to be God's vengeance on sinners. That is too easy, too moralistic. However, when circumstances do happen, tragedies, I think we all need to question our lives and recognize that we are mortal, we could die today. If devastation were to come, are we prepared? Have we done all we can? What Joel promises, is that perceiving devastation in this way, we will be all the more glad at what follows. We recall the end of this passage as used by Peter on the Day of Pentecost to describe that “your young men and women shall dream dreams, your old men shall see visions.” We remember the last line, about “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered,” being used by Paul in Romans as an argument about Salvation. But before we attempt to “Christianize” Joel, picking and choosing parts out of the whole, we need to listen to the first half as well, which is Joel's promise that in the past God destroyed with four kinds of locusts, now God will restore with four kinds of rain, early rain and late rain, sprinkles and downpours. All in order that we need to hear Joel describe in verse 25 the restoration. That in the end nothing will be lost, everything in God's sight will be restored. Even more the Hebrew verb here for “Restoration” is a verb form of shalom, “peace according to God.” We need to recognize, that what happened to Israel in 4 different kinds of locusts devouring their crops and homes, in Babylon beating Israel and carrying the Nation off in bondage as exiles in a foreign land, what happened in the Pharisee justifying himself compared to the Tax Collector, all were about bringing shame. What Joel is describing is that even old shame, buried abuses that have caused us to not trust anyone can be forgiven and healed by God. None of us is a blank slate. Our past experiences color what we see, and whom we trust. The point of overcoming former shame, is that we do not simply trust, but knowing we can be abused, knowing we have been, knowing we are sinners no better than everyone else, we trust Because God created us to Trust.