Pentecost Proper 25, Year C
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
As you all know, I am not a person who expresses strong opinions about anything!
Well, okay, how about "occasionally"?!
Okay, I do have strong opinions about a lot of things!
Today's Gospel reading could have been written just for me! Though I suppose that's a little grandiose! I think for all of us it's a reminder of the dangers of getting carried away with where we are and what we think we bring.
The danger is most obvious, I think, when we make everything about "us". Our opinions, our beliefs, our successes.
Luke has been spending a lot of time organizing stories about Jesus' teaching to remind us that life isn't focused just on "us". He does this telling those stories where Jesus reminds us of our identity as stewards - stewards of things, stewards, of people, stewards of all God's gifts.
Over and over again Jesus reminded his listeners that life is a gift. Now the thing about gifts is that we have nothing to do with them, they are solely the product of another's intention. I think that's why the old adage is really incomplete - sure, it's better to give than to receive, but its much harder to receive than to give because receiving reminds us of who we are - reminds us that there is nothing we can do to establish our own worthiness.
That's where the Pharisee gets tripped up - he's justifying his worthiness so as not to acknowledge his unworthiness.
I remember hearing the daughter of a Lutheran pastor describe a children's sermon her father used to preach. He would invite a child up to the front of the church, ask her to put her hands together, and fill her cupped hands with small rocks.
Then he offered her a dollar (which, 20 years ago, was a lot for a child!). After struggling for a bit, the child usually gave up and dropped the rocks, which was the only way she could take hold of the bill. The moral was simple: "you can't take hold of the good things of God with your hands full of rocks!" And we sure carry around a lot of metaphorical "rocks" in our metaphorical "hands" don't we!
Perhaps that's because in our age we live with such a heightened sense of scarcity - "will there be enough for me to take that vacation? Enough to pay the bills? Enough to run the programming we want next year?" And this goes beyond the material, beyond our check books to our place in our community, to our standing, to our value in the eyes of others.
Will there be enough? Our North American culture is obsessed with a fear that we won't have enough.
So here's the message - one of them, anyway - of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: let go of that handful of "rocks" that you think you own, or need, or have. Let go, open your hands, empty them of these distracting 'rocks' and recognize the gifts God has given you. Let go of the economy of scarcity, and see the contrast God offers: Abundant forgiveness, love, and blessing.
One writer said this of the consequences: "There will be singing and dreaming, abundant rains and overflowing food." There will be celebration and joy, and good friends to share the abundance.
But before this time of righteousness comes, we need to release all that enslaves us to the demon of scarcity.
"The tax collector comes before God with nothing in his hands. Openly and without shame he lays his sin at the altar and goes home justified. The Pharisee is too caught up in who he isn't and in what he does to lay who he is at God's feet. He is incapable of entering into the economy of abundance that God's grace offers." (Kari Jo Verhulst, "Agents of the Kingdom")
Jesus' invitation to us is this: to think who we would include in the Pharisee's prayer? Who are we grateful not to be: bigots? The materialistic? Knee-jerk reactionaries, Backlash conservatives? Mushy liberals? Fundamentalists? They are not only Children of God, but they're included in God's reign. They are gifts to us just as much as we are gifts to them. The reading's invitation is for us to recognize them as such - as human beings in need of God's compassionate touch.
So ask yourselves this: Do you live as if you've been given all that you need? Are you willing to let go of "ownership"? What, in the end, are the rocks in your hands that prevent you from grabbing hold of God's bounty?
And, of course, what are you going to do about it?!
If you can answer those questions you'll be surprised at how your life will change. Amen.
|
