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Helplessly Receiving the Kingdom
August 7 , 2005
Sermon Series on the Gospel of Luke
Associate Pastor Steve Lympus
Luke
18:9-17
There are two stories in
this passage today: the first story is a parable about two
men saying their prayers, and the second story is when parents
were bringing their babies to Jesus.
Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem when he told
this parable and when he met these parents and their babies.
He was on his way to celebrate the Passover Feast, where
he would be betrayed by a good friend, be put on trial, and
die on the Cross. Both of these stories – the parable
and the babies – are about grace, and point the way
to the Cross.
Gospel reading: Luke
18:9-17
In the parable, two men go up to the temple to say their prayers at a worship
service. The first man is a Pharisee, a leader in the Jewish community, a very
religious man.
The Pharisees were Jews who tried really
hard to keep the Old Testament Law, to follow all of God’s
commandments and to help other people do the same. They
stayed away from people who were not Jews, so that they
wouldn’t be contaminated by anyone or anything that
would break the Law. Jesus spent a lot of his time with
the Pharisees.
The second man is a tax collector.
The tax collectors were also Jews, but their
job was to collect taxes from the Jews for the Roman government.
The other Jews hated the tax collectors because they took
their money, often in unfair and sneaky ways.
The Pharisees especially hated the tax collectors
because they had to mingle with Gentiles, non-Jews who
were considered to be “unclean” (Lk 5.30).
Jesus hung out and often ate with the tax
collectors, and called one of them (Levi) to be one of
his 12 disciples (Lk 5.27f).
So here we have the Pharisee
and the tax collector, going up to the temple to pray.
The Pharisee thought that he was “righteous,” and
he looked down on other people. This is why he is “standing
by himself,” setting himself apart and above the other
people in the worship service, especially the tax collector
in the back.
The Pharisee prays out loud like this:
“God, I thank you that I am not like
the bad people…thieves, rogues (unjust people),
adulterers, and especially like this tax collector (what’s
he doing here, anyway?).
He’s very proud of himself, and wants
to makes sure God and everybody else knows why.
If that’s not enough, the Pharisee goes
on to talk about the good things he does for God:
- he fasts twice a week,
- he tithes on everything he earns.
His prayer is all about him, how he goes above
and beyond in his religious efforts. The Pharisee isn’t
really talking to God…he’s talking to himself.
Do you ever think like this? Or pray like
this?I almost subconsciously do this when I’m channel-surfing
and I come across certain religious programming and one religious
TV channel in particular…
”God, thank you that I don’t
worship like them!”
Worse than this, though,
I sort of do the same thing when I go to other churches sometimes.
I’m semi-subconsciously thinking,
“God, thank you that I go to an intellectual
church – one that is not legalistic, one that does
not sing these songs…”
Even when I read this parable, I end up thinking,
“God, I thank you that I am not
like this Pharisee!”
Woops.
It’s tempting to make a standard and
judge everyone who doesn’t live up to it. And it’s
easiest to do this when we’re trying to justify ourselves…racking
up religious merit badges, keep track of all the good things
we do for God.
The ironic thing about humility: as soon as
you notice that you have it, you don’t have it anymore.
Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington D.C.,
supposedly once said,
“I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding
Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply
educated man; I am a humble man.”
If we all leave today trying really hard to
show our religious humility, we will miss the point: being “religious” and
justifying ourselves is not what the Gospel is about.
The Gospel is more about this tax collector,
and what God is doing in his life…
The tax collector is “standing
far off,” in the back of the sanctuary apart from the
rest of the congregation. Either they feel like they will
be contaminated by him, or he feels unworthy to stand with
God’s people near the altar – or maybe both.
And he will not even “look up to heaven” because
he is so ashamed of himself.
He is “beating his breast,” which
was (and is) an intense expression of anguish in the Middle
East. The only other time the Gospels record this gesture
is at the Cross, when the crowd goes home “beating
their breasts” (Lk 23.48). This gesture means he is
deeply sad, and totally hopeless.
The tax collector prays out loud like this:
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Forgive me – atone for my sins. He longs
for the sacrifices of atonement to apply to him, not just
the congregation that he can’t stand with – he
has nothing in his defense, no merit, just a request:
God, I know I’m a sinner and I
can’t fix it, please make me righteous. When you
forgive them, will you please forgive me, too?
His prayer is a cry for help. For him, it’s
all about God and God’s mercy, and not about him. He
knows himself better than the Pharisee, who lives in delusions
about how pious he is. Help for the tax collector is in God,
or help is in no one.
I also think it’s interesting that the
tax collector prays a prayer that is one-fifth the length
of the Pharisee’s prayers. As someone who gets really
distracted when I’m praying, especially if I try to
pray for a long time, I appreciate this. So much for the
theory that long-prayers are the only ones that God hears.
I don’t like the
Pharisee in this story, but I really like the tax
collector. In fact, I like him so much that I want this
tax collector to return home and makes some changes…no
more shady job, get honest work, get a daily devotional
and join a small accountability group. So that when he
returns to pray next week at the temple, his life begins
to turn around.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting the
tax collector to turn his life around. But that hope misses
the point of the parable: whether he cleans up his life or
not, he will not be justified by what he does. If we want
him to try and justify himself, then we just make him into
the Pharisee.
One night a couple years ago, I was working
late here at church and I heard a knock on the Fellowship
Hall doors…the man’s name was Jack, he was about
my age, and he said he needed to talk with someone.
Jack struggled with alcohol, and he worried
he was becoming an alcoholic. Earlier that night, he had
bought a whole case of beer and was planning on drinking
himself into oblivion; he had a lot of problems he wanted
to forget about…but something snapped, and he poured
it all down the sink, and left his house. He stopped walking
when he saw the church.
We talked for a while that night – Jack
wanted to return to God, if God would have him back, after
so many years of Jack ignoring him. We talked some more,
and we prayed together – Jack pleaded desperately for
God to accept him back, and help him with his alcohol problem.
We had a few more conversations after that night, and then
I never saw Jack again.
I don’t know what happened to Jack.
I don’t know whether he cleaned up his life or not.
I don’t know whether this tax collector cleaned up
his life or not. But these questions miss the point. All
I know is that the prayer of the tax collector, and the prayer
Jack prayed that night we met, are the most honest prayers
I’ve ever heard. And the most helpless.
The way we pray reveals what
our relationship with God is like. We don’t pray to
prove or demonstrate our relationship with God – we
pray because praying is essential to being in relationship
with God. But if our praying is to prove to God or other
people how holy we are, then we will have a difficult time
receiving what God wants to give to us.
Jesus says that the second man, the tax collector, “went
home justified” after he prayed. The tax collector,
not the Pharisee, was justified: it means that he was made
righteous in God’s eyes, set free, put back into right
relationship with God. The one the Pharisee called unjust,
Jesus says he is now going home justified.
It doesn’t mean that the tax collector
was “good” and the Pharisee was “bad.” It
means that the tax collector knows who he is: a sinner who
needs God’s grace.
I don’t want to demonize the Pharisee
and make the tax collector the perfect hero…or the
point of grace in this story is lost. I’m sure God
loved them both. And who knows that they didn’t switch
places the next week at worship...maybe the Pharisee comes
and repents, maybe the tax collector comes to brag to God
about how he put his life back together.
But this week, it was the tax collector who
left in right relationship with God. The Pharisee is still
trying to earn God’s grace, still trying to justify
himself. God’s grace – there’s nothing
you can do but receive this.
Grace confounds us, confuses us…it
makes no earthly sense at all. We might rush to try to justify
ourselves by what we have done, and can do. Then we learn
that we are justified when we give up on trying to justify
ourselves. We’re set free when we stop trying to free
ourselves.
It makes no sense – it’s so upside
down. The people who promote themselves will be humiliated,
the people who humble themselves will be promoted. This is
the upside-down way that things work in the Kingdom of God.
And just when we’re sitting
with this conundrum, when I can’t get my head around
what this Kingdom of God really is, God does something in
his Word – something God does often in Scripture – he
shows us a picture: a picture of the Kingdom: people bringing
infants for Jesus to touch.
The disciples try stopping them, but Jesus
says no, let them come, the Kingdom of God belongs to “such
as these.” The Kingdom of God is made up of helpless
people, like these little babies.
We adults forget that in God’ Kingdom
we are always children, God’s children…we never
grow up and out of that. Babies are a great picture of God’s
Kingdom because they come with nothing, and they can receive
everything.
When Laura and I went home to Montana a few
weeks ago, she and my mom started going through my baby-book…I
think I pulled out all the “totally naked running on
the beach shots” when I discovered the book as a teenager,
so I wasn’t too worried.
But they did find this picture (show photo)…this
is me and my mom right after I was baptized in a little Presbyterian
church in Polson, Montana. I don’t remember this day
at all – I was only a few months old. I didn’t
do much in the ceremony but just sit there in a pastor’s
arms and have water poured over me.
This is one reason why I love the experience
of infant baptism, because it’s so obviously an experience
of God’s grace. Babies don’t even try to earn
it. Babies don’t even realize what’s going on
when they’re baptized.
Whether you were baptized as an infant or
as an adult, whether you even agree or disagree with the
practice of infant baptism, I think we can all hold onto
this as a picture of God’s grace, which none of us
deserve, and most of the time we’re not even fully
aware of.
Jesus says that those who
do not “receive the kingdom of God as a little child
will never enter it.” I think this line has two meanings:
1. More passive: become like
the children, receive God’s Kingdom as a child receives
love and care…helplessly, because they need help.
This is how we receive the kingdom – helplessly.
We come with nothing – nothing to offer, nothing
to prove. Entering into God’s Kingdom is somewhat
passive, as we totally depend on God.
2. More active: receive God’s
Kingdom the way you receive a child…with open arms,
they way you love and care for an infant.
The Kingdom of God is like a child we receive:
the Kingdom is all about showing hospitality and welcoming
the helpless ones. Living in God’s Kingdom – responding
to his grace – is somewhat active, as we receive
and care for the helpless ones.
I went to an elementary school called Peterson,
one of about 7 public elementary schools in my hometown.
Peterson was a great little school, but we all knew that
it wasn’t the cool school to go to. Russell Elementary
was the cool school: it had a newspaper, a better playground,
more computers, and it housed the district’s “Gifted
and Talented” program.
My best friend from High School went to Russell,
and still to this day, if we have an argument about something
and I’m proven wrong, he reminds me who went to Russell
and who went to Peterson.
But Peterson Elementary housed the “Sunshine
Room,” an educational program for kids who had severe
mental disabilities. Many kids had Downs Syndrome, some were
born with other disabilities or had accidents – all
of them were confined to wheelchairs and had limited speech.
These kids were the same
age as me, but they needed someone to take care of them every
hour of the day…feed them, clean them up, help them
exercise, talk with them. These kids were pretty helpless
on their own.
Sometimes these kids would join us for class
activities, and often classmates would take some of the “Sunshine
Room” kids along with them on recess, wheeling them
around the playground, and doing what they could to integrate
them into what the rest of us were doing on the playground.
I don’t mind anymore that I didn’t
go to Russell, the cool school…because I got to see
something that changed me. I got to see people welcoming
these helpless kids into our community. That’s what
it means to receive God’s Kingdom.
If we want to enter into God’s Kingdom,
we enter in helplessly…not trying to earn it. We come
with nothing – nothing to offer, nothing to prove – giving
up on ourselves and all our many efforts to be righteous
on our own.
If we want to enter into God’s Kingdom,
and participate in it, we receive the helpless ones into
our midst, and take care of them…the ones who can
just as easily be exploited, the ones near and the ones far
away.
The first story, about the tax collector and
the Pharisee, shows us this.
The second story, about the little children
being brought to Jesus, shows us this.
The Communion meal also
shows us this, and so it can be our third story this morning.
Because we come to the Table like the tax collector came
to the temple, and we come to the Table like the children
came to Jesus…helplessly in need of God’s forgiving
grace.
Like the tax collector who went up to the
Temple, let’s humble ourselves and confess our sins
to a God who is ready and waiting to hear us, and heal us.
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