XXII Pentecost – October 24, 2010 – Year C, Proper 25 (RCL)
This past Thursday our Diocesan Convention in Terre Haute began as usual, with registration at two o’clock in the afternoon and the hearings on the resolutions to come before convention at three.
I knew that we had a lot of resolutions to look at, twenty-one of them, in fact—resolutions that had been passed by the 2009 General Convention and brought back to our diocese and every diocese of the Episcopal Church to be acted upon.
I had read them over, so I also knew that some of them were likely to cause some controversy, but I wasn’t ready for what happened when the resolution condemning torture: “Resolved that the 173rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis along with the Episcopal Church [in the United States] condemn[s] the use of torture and other extraordinary methods of interrogation by the United States government and any government, individual, or organization in any location in the world;” was brought up, and someone from the floor asked for a definition of torture and was immediately interrupted by someone else, who blurted out: “If torture could have prevented what happened on September 11th, I’m for it.”
I have no way of knowing what other people thought—I think I heard a sharp intake of breath or two around the room, but the sudden silence that descended over the room lasted long enough for me to think to myself: “God, what an awful thing to say! I’m glad I don’t think that way!”
Fortunately, the priest who was running the meeting had the presence of mind to gloss over the interruption by assuring us that the Committee on Resolutions would see to it that an appropriate phrase defining torture would be added to the measure before it came before the Convention, and in fact by the time we voted on it Friday afternoon there was a phrase in it that read: “…as defined by the Geneva Convention”.
But it wasn’t until yesterday afternoon, when Diocesan Convention was over and I was considering once again the implications of this morning’s lesson from the Gospel according to Luke, that I realized how woefully mistaken, not to mention uncharitable, my reaction Thursday afternoon had been.
What did I know about the person who seemed to be condoning torture, when she blurted out so forcefully that reference to 9/11?
Had she lost a relative or a friend on that disastrous day?
And who was I to judge another, with or without having walked in her moccasins?
I was astounded at the parallels that began to suggest themselves between my nearly automatic censure of my sister in Christ, whose opinion I certainly did not share, but whose reasons for holding it I had no way of knowing—the parallels between my thoughtless behavior on Thursday and the contempt that the Pharisee heaped on the hapless tax collector in Jesus’ little story.
At that moment any relief that I might have felt, relief that at least I’m not like that pompous Pharisee in the story, was simply blown away.
The only thing that was left was the tax collector’s words, ringing in my ears: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Still the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector troubles me.
It troubles me because of the comment that Jesus makes at the end of the story: “I tell you,” says Jesus, “this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.”
In other words, the tax collector ended up being “right with God”, but not the Pharisee.
I suppose that could mean that since the Pharisee didn’t think he needed to be forgiven, he wasn’t—but it didn’t matter to him anyway.
I don’t know.
It’s not a very satisfying explanation.
Or maybe I’m troubled because the Gospel writer explains in the introduction that Jesus’ parable was aimed at self-righteous people who “regarded others with contempt”, then concludes the story by having Jesus deliver the predictable tag-line: “…for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The problem with that tag-line is that it sounds like a short-cut to spiritual success: “If you imitate the tax collector in the parable rather than the Pharisee, you’ve got it made.”
Of course, imagining that it could be that simple would be just plain kidding ourselves.
Deliberately acting humble in hopes of being seen as virtuous sounds manipulative and dishonest, to say the least—morally bankrupt, even.
So if we are not to conclude that the writer of Luke’s Gospel is trying to tantalize us with a slick formula for instant success, then just what are we to conclude?
I wonder what the Pharisees to whom Jesus is supposed to have told this parable—I wonder what kind of conclusion they came to.
The comparison between the Pharisee and the tax collector begins innocently enough.
Standing in the court of the temple, the Pharisee thanks God that he is not like some people he could name: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even the tax collector who is standing off to one side.
“I fast twice a week,” the Pharisee continues. “I give a tenth of all my income.”
Would the Pharisees listening to Jesus have recognized themselves in this description?
In fact, the Pharisees were probably not thieves, rogues, adulterers, or like the tax collectors that they so detested; they were actually pretty good people.
So why did Jesus go after them the way he did?
Jesus went after them, I imagine, because, although they were not thieves or rogues or adulterers or like the tax collectors, the Pharisees were still like all those people in one respect: They, too, were sinners.
I doubt if anybody gets much of a charge out of being called a sinner.
The Pharisees certainly didn’t like being called sinners, and I suspect that you and I don’t much like being called sinners either.
For one thing, it doesn’t do much for your image (especially since we have been told that we are made in God’s image).
After all, we’re pretty good people.
But in fact what Jesus wanted his hearers to grasp is that the Pharisee and the tax collector are not two extremes; the exalted and the humble are closer together in God’s eyes than we realize.
Being sinners puts them in the same class—the same class, but, oddly enough, a privileged class, as it turns out.
Nevertheless, it could be argued that the Pharisee in his seemingly boastful prayer makes a reasonably good beginning: “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.”
Did the first ones to hear Jesus tell this story recognize the one thing that is lacking in the Pharisee’s prayer?
“God, I thank you that I am not like these other people” may sound a wee bit lacking in charity, but it is a legitimate expression of gratitude; uniqueness is worth celebrating.
Still the words “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income” might profitably be followed by the words: “Yet, I am a sinner. God be merciful to me!”
Maybe some of the Pharisees who heard Jesus tell this story felt humbled enough when he commended the tax collector that they were able to recognize the need for God’s grace and mercy in their own lives.
“I may not be perfect”—can we bring ourselves to say that?—“I may not be perfect, but God loves me anyway and will make me perfect, though probably not right away!”
Recognizing that every one of us is a sinner—that every one of us acts in ways that displease God, but that God loves us anyway, that God grants us forgiveness even before we ask, not only helps us to accept ourselves for who we are and for who, by God’s grace, we are in the process of becoming; recognizing that every one of us is a sinner, yet each a child of God, loved and cherished by a God who forgives without reserve, also helps us to accept others graciously, no matter how “different” from us we may think they are, as children of God like us, even, to cite an extreme example, fearsome terrorists who threaten our nation’s security.
Indeed, now more than ever, our world, saddled as it is with a legacy of prejudice, bigotry, and hatred which so often erupts in atrocious acts of senseless violence, desperately needs the kind of courageous leadership that only prophetic communities of faith can provide—prophetic communities of faith that can do seemingly bizarre things like pray for our enemies, even when we’d really rather not.
After all, to deplore a despicable act is a fairly easy task; to deplore a despicable act while at the same time placing that act in the context of universal human sinfulness graciously pardoned by a loving and faithful God is much more difficult.
You may recall that Christians, along with members of many other communities of faith, found themselves in a unique position after the events of September 11th: Not only were we bidden to pray for the victims of the terrorist attacks and for their families and friends in the face of their unutterable loss, but we could choose to pray for those who had vowed to destroy us—for the ones who had done us harm and wished us harm —and for all others who like them were filled with hatred and malice, not, however tempting the thought, that they would “get what was coming to them”—whatever that was, but rather, however strange it might sound, that “their hearts would be turned and their spirits freed”.
To have done anything less would have been to fall into the trap that the Pharisee in Jesus’ story fell into—and oh, how painfully subtle that trap is!
Indeed, it is hard for the mind to grasp, but “God, I thank you that I am not like those crazy fanatics over in Iraq and Afghanistan who blow themselves up and take innocent people with them”, for example, is no less self-righteous a prayer than “God, I thank you that I am not like that pompous Pharisee in Jesus’ story”, though, strange to say, both of these prayers are ultimately “redeemable” by the simple addition of the heartfelt words: “…but I confess that I am as great a sinner as any of them. Lord, have mercy upon me!”
The startling truth that anybody, even a cold-blooded killer, could be deemed a child of God may seem almost ludicrous to us at first, yet, oddly enough, it is because of that very truth that you and I and everybody else are assured of salvation.