Contrasting People - 10-23-22
Contrasting People
2 Tim 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14
2 Tim 4:6-8, 16-18
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Luke 18:9-14
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Prayer – God of grace – we have a tendency to focus on our virtues and overlook our faults. We have a tendency to see the sins and shortcomings of others and magnify their weaknesses. Give us the courage to look at our sisters and brothers as you look upon them – as your beloved and cherished children whom you are determined to forgive and to save. Enable us to welcome contrasting people into our fellowship, receiving them as you so warmly receive us – amen.
Perhaps our opening prayer this morning should read like this – ‘God of grace, I thank you that I am not like other people. Really, thank you God.’ Wow, does this passage ever make us take a pretty serious look in the mirror. And if we are not willing to look in the mirror then perhaps we are deluding ourselves. If you are like me, if I am honest, I pray this prayer way too much. With way too much justification. With all kinds of explanations for such an expression of relief.
It starts out as a benign statement, doesn’t it? A brief observation of comparison. A glance that sizes up the other. An aspect of an individual singled out as especially distasteful. I’m thinking the person standing at an intersection with a sign, scruffy clothes, unwashed, looking destitute begging for any kindness in the world and the first thought that enters my mind is a comparison between his or her life and my own. Feelings of I’d never allow myself to get to that point.
But then, something changes. It is no longer a passing comparison, an appraisal of the person and their life, but one that leads to judgment. Druggie, alcoholic, just pull yourself out of the mess of your own creation. Judgment without understanding. Judgment without empathy. Judgment without any attempt to see what Jesus sees. Without any action that tries to come near to the marginalized whom Jesus regards.
This story calls out my sin, calls out this sin of ours – the sin of dismissal. The sin of one-upmanship. The sin of appraisal and assessment before compassion even enters the picture. It calls attention to the time and space in between an all-too-quick evaluation and the final verdict of whether or not we deem another as one who meets the expectations we have set out. It calls attention to contrasting people with a sense of judgment.
When we look at the context of Luke’s gospel, chapter 17 is concerned with the manner of the coming of the kingdom of God and much of chapter 18, which includes our passage this morning, addresses the manner in which people will receive the blessings of the kingdom of God. In a series of parables and teachings, Jesus presents this is terms of different categories – vengeance, vindication, reception, inheritance and entrance. And while it may be easy to read our parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector merely as a teaching concerning the contrasting of people with a relationship with God, when we situate this parable upon the broader canvas of Jesus’ teaching regarding the coming kingdom, further dimensions emerge.
In particular, the broader canvas underlines the fact that the actions of contrasting people in this parable and the teachings that surround it – the persistent widow, the rich young ruler, the tax collector and Pharisee, the disciples – all are oriented towards the horizon of the future and public action of God within Israel and the world. This future day would bring both vindication and judgment; there would be deliverance and reward that would surprise even the best of us. It reveals where everyone stands in relation to that mirror that reflects God’s purposes for all of humankind.
For the Pharisee, the future is awaited with blithe assurance that he will be vindicated within it. When he looked at this life, all of the signs were propitious that he was in the right, a fine specimen of a true and faithful Israelite, a guardian of the nation’s holiness, leaving him free to engage in self-congratulation under the guise of a prayer of thanksgiving. His self-confidence was powerfully bolstered by how favorably he appeared against the foil of the extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and the tax collector, his high self-regard being inseparable from his habitual judgment of others.
If the Pharisee is confident in his righteousness, the tax collector openly addresses God from a position of moral destitution and unrighteousness, throwing himself upon divine mercy. Facing the prospect of God’s coming just kingdom, the tax collector is well aware of where he stands relative to it.
The need to receive God’s kingdom from a position of lack or destitution is a recurring theme within Luke 18. The widow addresses the unjust judge from a position of social powerlessness. In receiving the kingdom of God as little children, we do so as those who are weak and dependent. In the light of the kingdom, the rich young ruler’s paradoxical ‘lack’ is his abundance, something that he must surrender in order to inherit the kingdom. Finally, the disciples are promised a reward in the age to come as they have left homes, parents, families, children to follow Jesus. The tax collector who seeks God’s mercy from a position of moral unworthiness is the true heir, rather than the Pharisee who presumes his entitlement.
While in the 21st century, we may be less likely to speak of a coming day of judgment and establishment of the kingdom, the vision of a new age coming when a historical vindication occurs remains pretty potent. While the envisioned image of a just society may arrive less as an eschatological irruption than as a gradual development, it is still widely believed that human history is headed in its direction, one way or another.
Typically this hope is a feature of political rhetoric that enjoys considerable traction when one party is in power over another. We speak of the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice or of being on the right side of history. We tend to understand ourselves and perceive our moral duty relative to who is in control in Washington and Austin and less to do with the kingdom of God.
Yet, like the Pharisee, we are prone to self-righteous presumption. We all too easily and often think of ourselves as being on God’s side, as those who can be assured of future praise and vindication. In the assumption of our own justice, we can become like those to whom this parable was addressed, persons who trusted themselves that they were righteous in contrast to some we see on the streets everywhere we go.
As with the Pharisee’s twice-weekly fasting and tithing, practices that were originally designed to assess faithfulness can become means of oppression, judgment, exclusion, requisitioned for the bolstering of our self-righteousness. For instance, rather than pursuing actual liberation on the ground, we speak fervently concerning justice and can become absorbed with policing the boundaries of privileged social or theological cliques, cocooning them in a moral superiority, excluding or condemning anyone who doesn’t speak the language. All the while the coming kingdom of God’s movement toward justice just so happens to pass right beneath our feet. In other words, we tend to point our fingers at others while not doing much of anything to bring about God’s inclusive kingdom.
With our tendency, perhaps even patterns of contrasting people resulting in feelings or thoughts of judgment, interestingly the vision of the kingdom of God in Luke is one where we may find ourselves on the wrong side of our contrasts. This story calls attention to those moments in our ministry – in our lives – when we too readily judge. When we abdicate to denominational principle, doctrinal commitments, theological convictions, or individual ecclesial ideologies instead of leading with love and generosity and compassion. When we size up the other with the assumption that our faith, our religiosity, our spirituality is somehow better.
Faith doesn’t work that way. As soon as we start to question whether or not someone deserves a place in the kingdom, we would do well to remember this passage. As soon as someone points out the inadequacy of another, we would do well to remember this passage. As soon as justification of another is easily determined, it’s time to re-read this passage. What will my response be? What will your response be?
You and I live in a society that excels in deciding another’s fate. The political and religious rhetoric leads one to believe that if you don’t think or believe like me then you are EVIL, spelled in capital letters. And that decision is usually based on that demonstrated by our Pharisaic friend on our passage this morning. Our security in our own future all too often turns into certainty about the “other.” Our sense of justification gets caught up in our own self-righteousness rather than true trust in God’s love, grace and mercy. This story from Luke reveals how we too expediently worry about another’s justification. And language of justification intimates salvation, judgment, and the determination of another’s future after death.
So where is the good news in our story this morning? Perhaps the good news rests in us. That is, the good news will be heard, will be experienced, when we look beyond the obvious, the assumed, the expected in the other to a space and place of deep regard – the regard that all those people we tend to contrast with our own lives are God’s beloved children just as much as you or me. If we have learned anything from Luke this year, perhaps this should be central. If we have embraced anything about Luke’s Jesus, this should be it – we all are dependent on God mercy and justice. Sight beyond the external is what Luke’s perspective calls for.
The tax collector went home justified, although unworthy, as one who appreciates an utter lack that he is able to receive the divine gift of the kingdom’s fullness. To the degree that we resist seeing ourselves as radically unjust, morally insufficient, subject to condemnation, and as willfully and extensively complicit in evil, we disqualify ourselves from entry into the justice of the kingdom. Truly to receive the justice of the kingdom, we must resist any attempt to contrast our righteousness when anyone else’s and like the tax collector, learn to seek humility from our mirror looking and trust in divine mercy that never ever ends – thanks be to God – amen.