The sermon went fine this morning at St. Giles — somewhat surprisingly, since I had to go to sleep with the text only half-written. I woke up early, got most of the way there, then thought through the last bit while I was motoring out to Northbrook. I’ll append the sermon in the “extended” portion.
Now, however, I have to put something together for tomorrow’s service for the Blessing of the Seminary Grounds and Buildings. The gospel reading, as I said earlier, is Luke 11:1-13, but right at the moment (and we’re adhering to a strict definition of the word “moment”) I think I’ll preach on the liturgical refrain of the first part of the service, “Unless the Lord builds the house / They labor in vain who build it” (taken from Psalm 127). But so far, I haven’t the faintest, foggiest idea what I’ll say. It’s not fair that the Sox play World Series games during sermon prep time.
[Later: I’m beginning to think I might use “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?” and talk about Josiah. Hmmm. . . .]
DRMA: What, are you kidding? I’m watching/listening to the Sox game.
Proper 25, Year C October 24, 2004
St. Giles, Northbrook
Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22/Psalm 84/2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18/Luke 18:9-14
I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.
+ In the name of God Almighty, the Blessed Trinity — Amen.
You are strangers to me, and I to you; I know none of your secrets, nor you mine. Yet I know that there is one among us, someone here, who has sinned perhaps just a little more than anyone else. That person may only have sinned a shade more than the rest, just one more unit of litter or one more mile an hour over the speed limit — but someone must be a greater sinner than the rest, and that means one of us here. . . is that person.
One of us is the greatest sinner in the bunch, and one of us is the saintliest person here, the person who most successfully resists temptation, whose good character keeps wrongdoing and heedlessness at arm’s length. The sinner and the saint may be sitting next to one another, may be married, may not even be acquainted. I may be one, and you wouldn’t know which; you may be one, and I’d be none the wiser. Two churchgoers, two souls, two permanent record cards in heaven, two divergent paths.
Of those two. . . well, you were listening to the gospel lesson, you know how the story comes out. Two people go to worship. One of them is the best-behaved believer in the congregation, the other is the naughtiest rascal in the building; and Jesus singles out one of them as an example of the kind of person whom God loves. We don’t have to paint the figures as extreme types. The good person doesn’t have to walk on water and find lost kittens, nor need the bad person be a murderer or predator. Doesn’t matter, for the sake of the parable, since St. Luke tells only that the nice parishioner gets the cold shoulder, and the wretch receives applause from Jesus.
I would prefer to think around that outcome. I’d like to make excuses for Jesus’ poor taste in good examples — really, I might say, the good parishioner shouldn’t be so self-satisfied, and really, the naughtier parishioner asked nothing more than mercy. Really, I suppose, the well-behaved churchgoer deserves a reprimand, and the fraudmonger deserves congratulations. Really, we should be less like the saints and more like the criminals. Really, good is bad and bad is good. Really, it all depends on what “good” means. You can see easily enough where that leads.
It leads to a world that’s governed by our sense of how God ought to manage things, rather than on God’s promise of good news. People want to know who the holiest person in the congregation this morning might be, and praise them; people want to find out who’s keeping a shameful secret, sneaking out on his spouse or pocketing a percentage at work, and expose their dastardly underhandedness. Most of us want credit for our goodness, want to live in a world where our willingness not to deceive and exploit meets some reward. It seems as though there must be some benefit for goodness; why would anyone forgo violence and treachery if there’s nothing whatever in it, if we’re just volunteering to be taken as suckers by people who not only get away with it, but who then get a kind word from God in the bargain. How fair is that?
Well, the answer from Jesus is that it’s not fair, and it isn’t meant to be fair. The Kingdom of God operates on a basis that departs from fairness, and it moves further away, more rapidly, the more concern we show about whether God meets our standards of fairness. All we need do is look around us to see that the Kingdom doesn’t revolve around fairness; so many of God’s beloved children suffer in poverty, in pain, in loneliness, in torment from evil powers. Where’s the fairness in schizophrenia? In AIDS? In famine and genocide? Where’s the fairness in being cut off from your loved ones for arbitrary, capricious reasons, to fret in isolated loneliness? Where’s the fairness when the church turns its back on faithful, energetic servants of the gospel — whether those rejected believers live in the US or in Africa? Where will we find fairness, if not in God’s Kingdom?
That vital question pushes us out onto thin theological ice, sisters and brothers; if we don’t answer carefully we may find ourselves falling into dangerous waters. For instance, the church often tries to shush questions about God’s fairness, whether by scolding people who question God or by promising that we’ll understand it better bye and bye. Those answers, true as they are, may only drive us out further onto the ice — especially when comfortable, prosperous, strong people mouth the words.
The way back from the thin ice to the safety of God’s true ways requires us to push even further ahead. God’s loves us and regards us fairly, yes, and that fairness extends beyond our goodness and our flaws. God’s fairness embraces us, each, as we are in our totality, and envelopes us in a blanket of giving — of giving, not deserving; of giving, not earning; of giving, not rewarding. God gives to the tax collector, and the tax collector accepts that gift; but the pious churchgoer isn’t sure he wants to be included with the thieves, adulterers, rogues and tax collectors to whom God is determined to offer the Kingdom. So to the sinner, God offers the opportunity to enter; and to the saint, God offers the opportunity to pass up a bliss that he’s have to share with those undesirables.
Jesus doesn’t just spring this parable out of nowhere; he preaches this scoundrels’ gospel all along. The pious churchgoer in this morning’s story plays the same part as the older brother in Luke’s parable of the Prodigal Son, or as the rich man in the story about the beggar Lazarus. St. Luke reminds us, over and over and over again, that God’s grace overwhelms us, sweeps us off our feet and into heaven. If we insist on entering heaven on our own steam, marching step by deliberate, self-conscious, perfectly choreographed step, walking side by side with this morning’s Pharisee, we’ll waste a lot of energy and anxiety trying to marshal the strength to accomplish what still only ever comes about by grace.
The rushing current of grace catches us off balance, out of control, so that we have nothing to say but, “God, have mercy on me-e-e-e-e-e. . . .” That prospect scares me to this very day, after twenty years of studying and serving and teaching and preaching the good news of God’s grace. The water of baptism runs swift and strong, washing sin away from us. The water of baptism makes no distinction between woman and man, child or elder, nor even Pharisee or tax collector; baptism swirls together unlikely (sometimes unwelcome) sharers in a miscellaneous family of God’s children. The water of baptism sweeps us off the righteous course we planned, on toward a less predictable, less comfortable voyage. But comfort and predictability aren’t the only elements that make for an edifying journey, and the grace that gathers in the sinners with the saints, that grace promises us one awesome ride.
That ride departs from this table every week at about 10:45; indeed, it begins daily when you wake and nightly when you dream, it’s a trip you’re on already, whether you recognize it or not. Are you the unknown sinner in our midst? Watch out! Grace has caught you up and popped you into these pews — heaven only knows what that might lead to! And secret saint, that same grace has brought you here, too; don’t resist that grace, but swim along with it, as rough and tempestuous as it looks, let the power of grace supply a patience and wisdom that our own righteous never attains. Saints, swim with the current of grace wherever it leads, guided by grace, strengthened by mercy, humbled by the magnitude of a sea of love beyond our imagining — and maybe in our best moments even thankful that God‘s grace, unlimited by our wickedness or worthiness, gathers secret sinners and surreptitious saints, and a few surprise guests to boot, into the full, joyous company of the children of God.
Amen
Posted by AKMA at October 24, 2004 09:12 PM | TrackBack