Sermon for Proper 25

Video at www.theteachingsofmattday.blogspot.com

Jeremiah 14, 7-10, 19-22
Psalm 84: 1-7
2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18
Luke 18: 9-14
October 24th, 2010

In the name of Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

Now promise not to laugh at me but one of my favorite political analyst is Steve Cobert. He appeared before congress about a month ago to testify on a number of different issues including immigration. While most of his testimony was entertaining to watch, he said something very propounding that made me scratch my head and even post on facebook. One of the legislators asked Cobert about why he was so focused on the issue of immigration. He said,

“It seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrate workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result and yet we still invite them to come and then ask them to leave. It is an interesting contradiction to me. What so ever you do for the least of my brothers and these seem like the least of our brother right now. A lot of people right now are the least brother but migrant works suffer and have no rights.”

Regardless of where you might stand on the issue of immigration, Cobert does have a point. Who stands up for people who have no voice--who have no rights?

It is the same question Jesus is asking his disciples in this parable. Who stands up for people like tax collectors? Tax collectors were not well liked and, as I learned from the confirmation class this past week, modern day tax collectors are still not liked. Many Jews and Gentiles sorely hated tax collectors solely because of their occupation. Tax collectors made their money by adding a surcharge to the taxes and they would keep the surcharge. Many people thought the surcharge was a form of robbery but they missed the giant white elephant in the room—the excessive tax charged by Rome. Instead of condemning the excessive tax, the people condemn the middlemen who were only trying to make a living.

They were seen as evil and horrible people because of what they did for a living. “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.” These men worked for Rome--they worked for the Government that oppressed the people. “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.” They were ostracized from the temple--from God and their religion because they were only trying to make a living. “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.”

But what about those “other people” this Pharisee is talking about? What about people who do not feel welcome or who are thrown outside a town, village or city because some do not think they worthy of God. What about those tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, sick, dying, blind, or lame. What about those people who are told by the society--who are told by their religion, “you are not welcome here?” What about those individuals who have had fists shaken at them and told, “God, I thank you that I am not like this person.” What about them?

How quickly we forget that we are all the crowns of God's creation.1 Each one of us has been gifted by God, created in God’s own image but yet we all still raise our fist at one another and say, “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.”

We have all shaken our fist at another group of people for one reason or another. We have all thought deep down and even said aloud, “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.” But those people who we shake are fist, like the tax collector in our parable, are the people who Jesus seems to always go after.

The Pharisees seem to always track Jesus down to ask him questions. But Jesus always seems to track down those who society shakes their fist at. He touches the unclean, he eats with tax collectors, he defends a women caught in the act of adultery, he raises the dead back to life, he gives the blind slight and the lame the ability to walk. Jesus helps those who are not able to help themselves or who society says are not worthy of any kind of help or love.

Robert Jensen’s quote really hits home the message of this parable. “Whenever you want to draw a line to mark who is outside the kingdom and who is inside, always remember: Jesus is on the other side of the line. Jesus is always with the outsiders." Whenever we shake our fists at someone else and say, “God, I thank you that I am not like those people.” or when we say “God, I thank you that I am not like those people in the middle in east, or those people who can’t find a job, or those single mothers, or those single fathers, or those who did not graduate college or even high school, or those who are of a different faith background”--whenever we rather shake our fist at someone else instead of opening our arms and embracing them as Christ embraces them for who they--a child of God--we are acting like this Pharisee in the parable.

Whenever we judge someone else for simply being different we miss the point of this parable—we miss the point of the gospel. It was God in God’s infinite wisdom that created us to be in God’s own image. We are all different for a reason. But we are all alike in one key area--we are all children of God. And even more than just children of God, we are all baptized into Christ. It is in our baptism that we are identified as followers of Christ—followers of a man who sought out the people who we shake our fists at. We might all not wear the same cross around our necks but we wear Christ on our bodies and in our hearts.

We might be very different from the followers of Jesus’s day but we all are still claimed and sent out by same man who we confess to be our crucified and risen saviour. All of us, at one time or another, have shaken our fist at someone and thank God for not being like them but how quickly we forget that we are all beggars--we are all beggars of God’s grace just like this tax collector.

Every week when we gather for communion, we become beggars looking for God’s grace just as that tax collector was begging for God’s grace. We come up with outstretch arms, unworthy of God’s love, hungry for something that can sustain us more than bread or water could ever sustain us. We come unworthy to the table, with open hands and open mouths begging for God and are fed with the body and blood of Christ Jesus.

It is this same Jesus that we feast on every week that seeks us out. He was deemed an outsider. Who became an an outsider. Jesus was an outsider. Maybe we should be one as well.

In the name of Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Performance at Lutherans at the Lincoln

Sermon for Proper 22

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
Attoway-Kimberlin Lutheran
Proper 22
19th Sunday After Pentecost
October 3rd, 2010

In the name Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

“Increase our faith.” Increase my faith. For many Christians, myself included, this has been a prayer and request for a long time. Surrounded by the many and great sins of the world, tempted every day by the devil and the other evil that lurks around us, pulled away from God, we beg God “Increase our faith, increase my faith.”

So what is faith? Why do we want to increase it? It is interesting that each of the four gospel writers use the word “faith” differently. Our modern day understanding of the word “faith,” according to Webster Dictionary, is a “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Luke and Mr. Webster are about on the same page. Luke did not see faith as a possession--not something you can hold in your hands. Rather, Luke views faith as a “disposition: Faith leads to a faithful behavior; lack of faith leads to anxiety and fear.” Faith is a lifestyle that builds us up even among fear and anxiety.

But living in anxiety and fear? It is true that the disciples live in and anxiety and fear. Even broader, the people who followed Jesus lived in fear. The original audience reading this letter lived in fear. Some of us reading this gospel some 2000 years later still live in fear.

For 2000 years, the people of God have lived in fear unjustly. Jesus knows this. He knows the people are hurting from the oppression of unattainable laws and rituals. Jesus knows the people are hurting from all of the taxes they must pay. He knows the people are starving while the rulers of Rome live in the lap of luxury. The people live in fear of God because they have be told they are being punished for not keeping the law—for not being good enough. The people are crying out, “GIVE US FAITH” because they have nothing else left to hold onto. They are swimming in a great ocean of despair and they didn’t bring a boat. But then Jesus comes along. He heals the sick and dying, he goes to poor, and the outcasts. He brings a new message about God and the people ask, “Give us faith” and Jesus responds with, “You only need a drop of faith to have faith.

A drop of faith means that any of us can say to a Mulberry Tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey. But hold on there for second. Now I tried to do this the other day with an Oak Tree and it did not work. Does this mean I do not have any faith?

To answer this question, we need to look at the big picture Luke is painting. Throughout the gospel narrative, Jesus has never said we have to do anything to receive our faith. Faith simply happens. Our faith is our identity. It is who we are. Our faith is a gift given to us and we live out faith each day not as something we earn but as something live by.

In the explanation to the Third Article of the creed in the Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes:
“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with the Spirit’s gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith...”
Martin Luther says it best here. We do not accept Jesus but Jesus accepts us. We do not call out to God but God calls out to us. We do nothing here because God is in control.

Jesus is not criticizing those who doubt and feel unworthy. He is criticizing the Pharisees who are holding back the people of God from God because the Pharisees think the people are not worthy enough to receive God. (and I might add that the Pharisees Jesus is referring to here is a radical group. The Pharisees are the ones who do care for the people but like with any religious groups, there are radicals and then there are the normal ones). In this parable, we do not earn our faith but we receive it out of Grace.

The Pharisees argue that the law is where we find God. Specifically, by following the law we receive God. But what if can’t do it? What if we can’t keep the law? What if the people could not give to the temple and to Rome and still be able to feed a family? What if I eat shell fish or pork? Does this mean I cannot receive God? Or the question that many of us ask ourselves. What if I doubt and cannot say, truthfully, “I accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour?” Should those who ask this question be denied God then?

When our faith is not sufficient, Jesus makes up for it. Our faith is smaller than a mustard seed because we all have much learning to do. Faith is lifestyle, and therefore needs to be learned. It is the same for our careers. Pastors go on internships because they need to learn what it means to serve a parish. Carpenters go on apprenticeships so that they learn how to properly build a house. A farmer learns to farm. A businessman learns a business. A nurse learns to be a nurse. We all learn and grow into our careers over time just as our faith grows within us.

Joel B. Green writes, “Jesus remains open to the possibility that the Pharisees will hear the word and respond in obedience, but is aware equally that the disciples, if they are to be his disciples, remain in need of formation.” We do not just wake up one day and say, “I GOT IT.” Rather, we wake up desiring to know more about our faith.

My worship professor, Dr. Mark Oldenburg, told me about two of his fellow classmates from seminary. They were both put into a parish where confirmands were quizzed before the congregation. Both pastors did not like the tradition and neither did their students. Both pastors appealed to the council for some help. The first pastor went to the council and they said he had to quiz them—it was a tradition and the church needs to keep doing it. So the pastor went back to the confirmation class and told them all to raise their left hand high after he asked a question but to only hold up their right hand in front of their chest if they knew the answer. The other pastor was also told no by the council and given roughly the same answer. So he told the council that the quizzing would go down as such. For every question I ask the confirmands, you all must also answer a question because confirmation and developing our faith does not end when we are confirmed but should continue long after confirmation.

We are no different from the disciples. The disciples’ faith did not stop growing after Jesus’s Ascension. But it continued to blossom and grow. We do not stop growing our faith after our baptism or confirmation. Our faith is not perfect and we do not always need to have the right answer but, rather, open to new possibilities God is doing with our faith. Our faith is a wonderful gift. Frustrating, yes but yet still amazing and wonderful. It is a gift given to us and we live it out each day by living as Jesus lived. It is not an easy life to live but we know there is forgiveness for when we stray. There is forgiveness when we cannot say, “Yes, Lord, I believe.” It is okay when we don’t have answer. It is okay to cry out, “Give me faith, give us faith” because when our faith is weak, Jesus will make up the rest.

In the name Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.