The Job That Jesus Refused

John 6:11-15

Christ the King

November 20, 2016

William G. Carter

Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

“Those who seek Christ for something other than Christ himself will find Christ flees from them,

yes, the Spirit of Truth flees from them, too.” – St. Rupert

At the height of frenzy during the recent election season, there was a great new product available online at Amazon. It was a 100% cotton t-shirt, available in steel gray for the low price of $24.99. Word is that these were selling pretty fast, especially after each of the three presidential debates. The sales would also have a good bump after the latest polls were revealed, or after any news story having to do with e-mail servers or derogatory words about women or Mexicans.

It was a t-shirt with a message, and it declared a political preference with perfect clarity: “Jesus for President, 2016.”

Friends tell me that they saw matching bumper stickers on everything from a pickup truck to a Prius. I noticed a lot of people making the same statement on Facebook, especially when it seemed like their favorite other candidate would not win. Some even went as far as to declare the election wasn’t going to matter at all to them, because Jesus was their president, no matter who ended up in the White House.

So I thought about this brief story from the Gospel of John. We have to swap the word “king” instead of “president,” not a difficult exchange to make. They wanted to make Jesus king, and he withdrew and slipped away.

In a way, you can’t blame him. Who would want the job? Really! Especially now. Everything you say is broadcast continuously. Everything you do is criticized. Opponents crawl out of the woodwork to oppose you. Old opponents suddenly become your friends, apparently if an appointment is possible. You can’t even send the second-in-command to a Broadway show without having the cast stand up and make a speech.

Would you want that? Would you want to put your family through that? Who would want to become king?

When I was a fourth grader, I thought it would be pretty cool. You could ride in a limousine and eat whatever you wanted for supper. Best of all, you could boss everybody around and they would have to take it.

I remember seeing an old Peanuts cartoon. Lucy says to Linus, “Do this!” “Do this!” “Do this!” In the last panel, Linus replies, “You’re right. You would make a good queen.” When you’re a kid, the possibility of power and unlimited respect seems like a wonderful thing. But when you see what the job entails, you have to “give up your childish ways.” Or at least, the rest of us hope so.

They wanted to make Jesus king. Why? Reflecting on the text, we can think of a number of reasons.

The first is very simple: their bellies are full. A multitude has just been fed, thanks be to Jesus. Thousands of people were there, the disciples wondered what to do. Jesus borrows a little kid’s lunch – five barley loaves and a couple of fish – and five thousand people are fed.

Everybody was amazed. They had trailed after him because of all the healings that he was doing; maybe he could heal them, too. Then he feeds everybody, and the crowd goes wild. They were saying to one another, “This is the prophet of God!” So they wanted to make him king.

The reasoning went something like this, I believe: Jesus is a miracle worker, and if we make him the king, he will be our miracle worker. We will have whatever we want. Grace will be gushing out of a faucet. We won’t have to worry about looking for bread. We won’t have to prepare our own supper. He will just give it to us, if we seize him and declare him our king.  

And Jesus slips away from their grasp. He doesn’t seem interested in giving people what they want. His mother sneaked up behind him at a wedding reception and said, “They ran out of wine.” He looks at her and says, “Woman, what is that to me?” He’s rude to her. As she skulks away, only then does he turn water into wine. (John 2:1-11) Not because she asks, but because he chooses to do so.

Likewise, his good friend Lazarus is dying. They send for Jesus to come, in the hope that he will heal his friend. What does Jesus do? Don’t know, actually; he sits still until Lazarus is dead. Then and only then does he go to the tomb and call him out (John 11:1-53).  Not because they want him to do it, but because he chooses to give life again.

I suppose that means nobody is going to make Jesus king, especially if it’s because they want him to do whatever they want. No special interest groups to influence the Savior!

OK, fair enough. But they want to make him king. Because if he’s the king, he can handle everything. That’s what kings do, right? Not only do they have the power, they have the authority. They speak the order, they sign the paper, they take charge. They get things done.

The people around Jesus knew that. They were Jews, they had the story in their Bible. They remembered, from their own history, how their ancestors went to the prophet Samuel and said, “Why can’t we have a king? All the other nations have a king. We want a king.”

Samuel said, “You don’t want a king.” But the people said, “Yes, we do. We want to be like all the other countries, and they have kings.”

Samuel said, “You don’t want a king. Kings send your children into battle. Kings take over your fields and reap the harvest. Kings take a tenth of all that you have, your food and wine and horsepower, and use it as they wish. Kings steal your daughters and eat your olives. You don’t want a king.” But the people persisted and complained, until God said to Samuel, “OK, give them a king.”[1] Let them learn the hard way.

And do you know something? According to the history books of Israel, they didn’t have one perfect king. Oh, they thought the next one would be the right one, but they were wrong … maybe because all their rulers were men. Yet they never gave up hope, even after the nation was repeatedly invaded, even after the office of “king” was eliminated. “The next king is going to be good. He’s going to handle everything for us.”

So Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar, reminds us that a big thick book in the Bible is called “Kings.” The history was so thick that they had to put in two large scrolls, later called “First Kings” and “Second Kings.” Brueggemann says the real title of those scrolls ought to conclude with a question mark: “Kings? You call these kings?”[2]

So maybe we should give up the vain and silly notion that, if only we put the right person on the throne, they will give us what we want. Our earthly rulers can’t ever live up to those expectations. They need our prayers so that they might govern wisely. They need our prayers because they will ultimately answer to the God.

Yet the people wanted to make Jesus king. The notion first arises in the first chapter of John. Nathanael, sassy Nathanael, hears about Jesus and says, “Nothing good ever comes out of the Podunk town where he’s from.” But Jesus throws it back at him, and then lets him know that he has observed a lot more about Nathanael than is comfortable. So Nathanael says, “You’re the king, the king of Israel.”[3] The idea is planted. Like a seed, it starts to grow. The buzz begins to spread.

By the time we get to chapter six, the crowd is cheering and surging: they want to make Jesus the king. And there’s nothing like a crowd, especially when most of them agree with one another. That’s one of the remarkable reports from our recent election. There were mass gatherings of people, everybody in agreement. If you speak against, you might get punched or hauled out of there. And if a huge mob is cheering in unison, it’s hard to say no.

And Jesus says no. They were about to seize him by force and make him king. He would have nothing of it.

Maybe if they had read the Gospel of Matthew, the crowd would have known better. You probably remember the story. Jesus was in the wilderness, working out the implications of his baptism. The Tempter came to him and said, “I’m going to give you all the political power in the world. Just say the word, and the kingdoms of the world can be yours.” According to Matthew, Jesus said, “Go back to hell where you belong.”[4]

Maybe if they were paying attention on Palm Sunday. The Gospel of John says it got pretty noisy. The crowds saw Jesus, they cheered with a victorious Psalm. They called him “king.” They even cut down palm branches, just like they did when they had a political uprising against another empire, almost two hundred years before. “This Jesus, he will be king. He will drive out the Roman army, he will restore the Temple to its full glory, and then there will be no more PeeWee Football or Travel Soccer to interfere with Sunday School. We’ll be in charge.”

But  - and it’s a mighty big “but” - Jesus climbs onto a donkey, just like the humblest leader that old prophets ever mentioned. Because he wasn’t going to be that kind of king.

Maybe if they were listening when he stands before Pontius Pilate. Pilate says, “So I hear you are a king.” Jesus says, “Those are your words.”  Pilate said, “I’m no Jew. What have you done?” Jesus says, “My kingship is not from around here.” So you’re a king? And Jesus says, “For this reason I was born: to point to the Truth.” Pilate doesn’t get it, any more than the crowd who had their bellies filled.

In one final, slick move, Pilate decrees that a sign be placed over the prisoner’s head when they put him on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Some of his enemies complain, “He isn’t our king.” But Pilate leaves the sign up there, translated into all the languages of the city. And everybody who passed by wondered what kind of king he was. All the kings they know don’t get crucified. All the kings they’ve ever heard about don’t withdraw from the cheers of the mob. All the kings that the world notices are the ones who love to be in charge.

And yet, Jesus is King. Not because our bellies are full, but because he already is king. Not because he gives us whatever we want, but because he is the Source and Destination of our lives. He is not the king because somebody puts it on a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, or a Facebook post; his kingship does not originate from human acclamation or getting a lot of votes. Rather it comes from the love of God that sends Jesus into a world like this.

I think I know why he disappeared when the crowd wanted to make him king. It’s because he doesn’t need a crowd in order to be crowned. He doesn’t need our approval before he grants us life, or grace, or daily bread. He doesn’t ask our permission before he forgives us or sends us out to forgive. He doesn’t need anything more than our awakened hearts, seeking him, loving him, living like him, following him, giving ourselves for others just like him.

In the words of St. Augustine, “Jesus is sought after for something else, but not for his own sake.”

So there’s our answer: to seek him for who he is, and not for what we want him to be. To live for him and not merely for ourselves. To praise him for his own sake, and to rejoice that the whole world is held in his crucified hands. To love all the people he loves, and to trust in his mercy.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] 1 Samuel 8:10-22

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Knox Preaching Guide, 1 and 2 Samuel

[3] John 1:49

[4] Matthew 4:8-11

Living the Dream

Isaiah 65:17-25

November 13, 2015

William G. Carter

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord — and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

It has been quite a week. Do I have an amen? 

There have been a lot of conversations around the nation since Tuesday. Many of the conversations have been trying to make sense of what has happened. Some are trying to explain the outcome. Others are looking for someone to blame. Some are calling for the abolishing of the electoral college, so that the person with the most votes will actually win. Others are worried that their kids are going to lose their health insurance. Some people are relieved at the outcome, some are terrified. Some are gratified that half the country agrees with them, while others under the same roof of a divided house are planning to protest.

With all of these conversations, the preachers have been talking among themselves. What will we say after a national election? What will we say when our nation is clearly divided in half, where there are no clear winners, and where there is no mandate by one side or the other. We have lived through an election season where, at some point or another, the only majority of the population preferred “none of the above,” yet a vote had to be taken and a decision had to be made. Those are the facts. So what does the preacher say?

Of the scripture passages appointed for today, some would turn to the 21^st chapter of the Gospel of Luke. It’s a passage where Jesus is talking about the end of the world, and that’s precisely why I did not include it within the readings for today. We studied it with our men’s Bible study last Thursday, and it shook them up. Jesus says, “The heavens will be shaken, there will be earthquakes, famines, plagues, signs in the heavens. False prophets will declare, ‘I am the one,’ and they are lying.”

I thought about reading that one, but it would scare the children. By the time I got to the end, where Jesus says “those who endure will be saved,” I was afraid nobody would be enduring. So I didn’t read Luke 21.

We did include 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, or as one comedian called it, “Two Thessalonians.” In that passage, the apostle Paul is very clear: “if you don’t work, you will not eat.” Now, that might sound like a criticism of those who are lazy, and in a way, it is. But Paul has something specific in mind when he speaks. He is denouncing those he calls “busy bodies.” That is, those who might have a lot to say, but don’t actually produce anything.

I wonder if he was referring to all those talking heads on cable TV, the pundits and commentators. They have plenty of opinions, but for months they have been filling the air with a lot of blather. Certainly they have to claim no small responsibility in stirring up controversy, replacing truthful reporting with unnecessary drama. Or to use Paul’s phrase, “busy bodies.” We could talk about that, I suppose, but it would be a huge distraction, and we would never hear Paul say, “Do not weary in doing what is right.” (3:13)

So we turn to the choir, and ask them to sing the third reading, often called “the First Song of Isaiah.” That one is really good. It’s helpful. We hope the melody sticks with you for a while: “Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in him and not be afraid.”

As for me, the text for the day that provides a gravitational center is the poem from Isaiah 65. One of my friends said, “I don’t know; Isaiah 65 smells of funeral lilies. That’s the only time I ever hear it.” I went back at him and said, “It’s not about death. It’s about life.” God’s going to make new heavens and a new earth. That’s a profound hope that recurs through the Bible, and this is the first time the Bible says as much.

“New heavens, a new earth” – sounds like the hope for the season of Advent, which starts in a couple of weeks. Why new heavens, and a new earth? Because the old ones are worn out.

Imagine a world, says the prophet, where everything fit together. Imagine what it would be like if all the pieces fit.

Isaiah gives us such a scene near the end of the collection of his writings. It is a picture of joy and delight, no weeping or distress. Life is never cut short, and people live out the full length of their days. There is continuity between their dreams and their fulfillment: families build houses and live in them, farmers plant vineyards and then enjoy the wine. Everybody will enjoy their daily work, and everything will fit.

That’s the picture. At the heart of it is an astonishing vision of peace: predators aren’t consuming, the prey aren’t hiding or running away. The wolf and lamb are at peace together. The ravenous lion is a vegetarian, and steps up to the feed trough next to the ox. Imagine this, says the prophet Isaiah. Imagine a life where everything fits.

This is what God dreams for the world. This is the dream that God implants in the imagination of the prophet Isaiah. This is the dream that lingers to be written down in the Bible, where it is waiting to be rediscovered by every generation and lived with fresh energy.

It is a powerful dream, because it is an alternative to most of the stories that actually appear in the Bible. The Bible is honest about the way life normally is. God creates a new earth in the book of Genesis, and by page three, Cain rises up against Abel. Pharoah enslaves a whole race of people as his work force, and pretty soon, people are trying to destroy one another. These aren’t ancient fairy tales. They are honest observations about the human animal. We live in a world where good work is met with resistance and the innocent are crucified.

It suggests the problem with the human race, in a nutshell. God implants this dream within us, and we keep choosing something less than the dream. Don’t blame the devil or anybody else for this. No, it’s what we keep choosing. In our world, women are demeaned and treated as something less than the image of God that they bear. Those who are deemed different are shunned or cast out. The weak are plundered, often to improve the profits of the arrogant. And everybody interrupts or shouts over one another.

This is why we regard the Bible as truth: it’s the truth about real people.

But the Bible also speaks the truth about God. For our sake, God is “slow to anger and abounding with steadfast love.” And every day, we have the opportunity to live out the dream that God has for us. See the wolf and the lamb feeding together. Imagine that. Nobody gets hurt, there is no destruction, only peace on God’s holy hill.

That’s the ultimate truth, where God declares, “Like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” Then God says, “I will rejoice and delight in my people.”

One of the reasons why we come to church is to catch one more glimpse of this grand dream. One of the reasons why God calls us to church is to keep planting this dream in our hearts and minds. Left to our own devices, we will never hear the promise that God wants all creation to flourish and live in peace. We will merely slide back into the mud and muck, and act like wild animals. All our imperfect progress would be lost.

Someone was telling me about a terrible scene she observed. An angry man was bloviating about science. He said all kinds of nasty things about scholars who spend their lives trying to study and explain how nature works. Then, of all things, he started ranting about evolution, yelling “Evolution cannot be proven. There’s no evidence of evolution.” My friend looked at him long and hard, and then she declared, “In your case, you’re probably right.”

Haven’t we had enough of the rants, the anger, the put-downs, and the destructive speech? Haven’t we had enough of distorted truth, public information withheld, and outright bullying? Haven’t we had enough of people who make fun of others, in order to advance themselves? Haven’t we had enough of the wolf attacking the lamb?

Yes, I think we have. Because Isaiah 65 says this not the way it’s supposed to be.

Our Christian hope is that the peace is something that God is always creating. The Hebrew Bible calls it “shalom.” It refers to a balance between all the forces of life. Shalom is about the continuity of past and present. It’s about a life lived without aggression or its damage. It’s about welcoming one another as neighbors, and not competitors. It’s about the possibility of living in peace with everybody we meet. This is God’s dream, given to us.

So let me make a modest proposal – that we live the dream, specifically this dream. That we live as generously and graciously as Jesus. That we set an example among ourselves how to respect one another, how to serve one another, how to love one another. Let it start here. Let us be a church where God’s love for every person is palpable.

The first Christians forged the church by living like Jesus as best they could. They didn’t take their orders from the Roman empire. They lived the dream, God’s Isaiah 65 dream. People outside were drawn to that, because they knew it wasn’t just a church dream. It is a universal vision of how we can build and spread God’s shalom. Even the critics admired the church and said, “Look how much they love one another.”

What if the people of this community could look to this church and say the same thing? What if we could treat one another with such respect and compassion that our neighbors said, “We want to be part of a group like that?” Now, that would be living the dream.

And maybe it starts with small, steady steps that benefit the lives of others. Like my friend Jenny, who lives out in Kansas City. She heard a loud noise and went outside to see what it was. It was a guy with a leaf blower working his way down her street. He doesn’t live there, but he’s clearing all the leaves from everybody’s yard. Why’s he doing that? And he said, “It’s been a weird week, and this is a way to bring some goodness and blessing to it.”

And I think that’s what I want to say after a week like the one that we’ve had.

God bless you. May you be a blessing for others.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved

Wee Little Man, Changed Heart

Wee Little Man, Changed Heart

Luke 19:1-10

October 30, 2016

William G. Carter

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Years ago we took the tour bus through downtown Jericho. It’s not far from the Dead Sea, and some of it hasn't changed very much over the centuries. There was an open market place to the right, with two locals squabbling over the price of figs. Off to the left, there was a public square with a camel, along with an enterprising photographer who would snap a picture of you on the camel for a small fee. Then the tour guide at the front of the bus said, “Right up here, in the next block, we will pass the actual sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus.”

Everybody laughed, because if you’ve ever been on a tour of ancient places, you know there’s a good bit of nonsense to please the tourists. The real tree is long gone. But everybody looked, because we love the story of Zacchaeus. It’s as relevant as ever.

For a moment, it was quite a thrill for the imagination. This is the town, this is the street, where Jesus invited himself to the home of the most famous tax collector in the Bble. He looked up into that tree and said, “Come on down, Zaccheus. I’m eating dinner at your home and spending the night.”

Now, the kids like the story because it sounds like Zacchaeus is kind of short, just like them. But I will point out that the grammar is ambiguous. We’re not sure if Zacchaeus is the short one or if it’s Jesus. Listen to the sentence again: “He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.” Which one of them is the short one? Maybe Jesus was 4’11”. The grammar is not clear.

But before you chew on that, let me say that what is clear is the impact of the story. Zacchaeus changes his life. Not only does Jesus intrude on him with the same intrusive grace that Luke has been narrating for nineteen chapters, but Zacchaeus responds. He makes a big, dramatic change. “Look, Lord,” he says, “I will give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I’ve defrauded anyone, I will repay them four-fold.”

It’s an unusual moment. Jesus has been changing lives by preaching, teaching, healing, and feeding the multitudes. But ever since his mother Mary first said “yes” to an angel, there hasn’t been a lot of evidence that people have actually done something in response to his ministry. They have talked about his stories, they’ve reacted to his teaching, they’ve benefitted from his healings – but that one of them should actually make a change in his life, why, that’s pretty rare in the Gospel of Luke.

As you may recall, he has been with tax collectors before. Some of them have followed after him, others have had him for dinner. As we heard last week, one tax collector appeared as the hero of one of his stories. But that a tax collector should make a change, specifically a financial donation, that’s an unprecedented response to the work of Jesus. Especially given who tax collectors were in his time and place!

We have at least one elected tax collector in our congregation and a couple of retired IRS agents. They are nothing like the tax collectors of ancient Israel. Zacchaeus and his bunch were Jews who sold out to the Roman Empire. Their job was to collect for the Romans whatever it took for the Roman soldiers to occupy the land. As an additional incentive, they could collect whatever additional fees they could get away with. If the local Roman soldiers were friendly, they could back them up and split the additional proceeds. That would have been especially true in an isolated border town like Jericho, off in the desert.

We know two things about New Testament tax collectors. Most of them lived in luxury (imagine that!) and all of them were hated by the neighbors in their towns.  It got so bad that the leaders of the Jerusalem temple kept a list of “despised trades,” people who were not welcome to worship with the rest of God’s people. Tax collectors were always at the top of the list.[1]  

So what does it mean that Zacchaeus “wanted to see Jesus”? What does it mean that he was willing to climb a tree and risk the embarrassment of being spotted by the crowd of people who hated him? What does it mean that he was “happy to welcome him”? He was the happy tax collector, literally he was “rejoicing exceedingly.” It’s the same verb as the shepherd who rejoices as he finds the lost lamb and carries it home on his shoulders (Luke 15:5), except this time it’s the Lost Lamb who rejoices when the Good Shepherd finds him – and calls him by name.

“Zacchaeus, hurry and come down. I must stay at your house today.” The guy whose job has excluded him and caused him to be hated by others is wanted, and named, and visited by the Christ of grace.

Now that’s a story that lies at the heart of the Good News of Jesus is all about. And it’s a story that keeps being told by others among us who find themselves wanted, named, and visited.

I have started to read the memoir of a man named Brennan Manning. Ever hear about him? He has some kind of story. He heard the call of God and was ordained as a Catholic priest. He served for a while and said, “Is this all there is?” He was a former Marine, had served in the Korean War. Presiding over a congregation never really floated his boat.

So Father Manning joined a Franciscan order, took a vow of poverty, and went wherever he was directed by his abbot. For a while, he lived in a cave in Spain while he was serving the poor. He worked as a campus minister in Ohio. He kept asking, “Is this all there is?” He slipped into alcoholism, left the priesthood, and dried out. Then he married a woman and moved to New Orleans. The people he’d known really wanted nothing to do with him. His family regarded him as a failure.

But in the thick of it all, he discovered the love of Jesus. It had been there all along, but he had ignored it in the name of mere religion. He had served the church and found it to be full of people obsessed with guilt. The way they worked out their own guilt was by imposing more guilt on the people around him. “It was complete nonsense,” he said. “Did Jesus die for nothing? Did he come back from the dead to make people feel guilty?”

In his recovery from alcohol, Brennan Manning discovered the love of Jesus. “I was pursued until I was found,” he declared. Indeed it didn’t totally fix everything. He began to speak wherever anybody wanted to hear about the love of Christ and wrote best-selling books – even though he had at least two more relapses into addiction and was later divorced from his wife. But he still kept talking about the love of Jesus. His ex-wife ran the office that booked his speaking trips.

In fact, in a strange twist, he was once booked to speak at a church very close to here, which I will not name. When the church leaders discovered what a mess his life had been, they uninvited him. They said he wasn’t spiritual enough, that he wasn’t a good example. Brennan Manning didn’t care. He said there must be more than what he called “moralistic religiosity,” and he kept writing books and talking about the love of Jesus.

When he passed away three years ago, he was traveling widely with a back brace, catheter, and an IV bag, with the simple message of the love of Jesus. He said, “The work that God had given me to do is helping people to enter the existential experience of being loved in their brokenness.”[2] He was found and loved by Christ, and he did something about it.

That’s why my friends and I looked out the bus window in the city of Jericho: it was another place where somebody had been found and loved by Christ. And he did something about it. Zacchaeus said, “Lord, half my possessions I give to the poor, and if I’ve defrauded anybody, I will restore it four-fold.”

Now, I didn’t want to point out that today is the day we make our pledges to support the work of this church. I don’t want to reduce the abundant love of Christ to mere fund-raising. We were not baptized in order to pay the light bill and meet the budget. No, we were baptized in the love of God in order to proclaim the love of God. It’s just that big.

And even if our lives have been busted or shipwrecked in any way, it is here in the community of Jesus Christ that we proclaim there is something more. We are found, we are named, we are visited – and we are invited to change, to become more like Christ.

Now let me say a word about what that meant for Zacchaeus, before we explore what that might mean for you and me. Zacchaeus was “a child of Abraham.” That means he was circumcised into the Law of Moses. The Torah was given by God to give guidance for his life.

But Zacchaeus decided that getting rich and selling out your neighbors was more important than the gift of God’s Word for his life, even when that Word said, “Live honestly, don’t defraud, be generous with what you have.” So he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that there is indeed something more.

And then one day, that Something More, the Word of God on two legs, walked up to his tree, called him by name, and invited himself for dinner. Luke says, “He hurried down, and he was glad to welcome him.” The gladness comes because he is free from having to live a divided life. The love of God found him. He was always, and now renewed, as a child of Abraham.

We are the adopted children of God, claimed by the same grace and love that saved and restored Zacchaeus’ life. And it’s time for us to do something about it. If you want to pitch in for the heat bill and last week’s bell choir anthem, great! The church needs that, but I’d like to think we are capable of so much more.

I remember what John Calvin said: “God has given the earth and its resources to human beings. As children made in the image of God, we’re called to share our resources and serve one another.” In fact, he argued in one of his writings, that a person is defrauded when a need is left unmet by someone with the power to meet it.[3]

So here’s what Zacchaeus writes on his pledge card today: I’m not ever going to defraud anybody. No, I’m going to be about the work of restoration through my generosity. And he makes that promise because he is confident of the love of God through Jesus, the One whom he calls “Lord.”

But enough talk; it’s time to do something. I want to do what Zacchaeus did, to commit myself to the work of God’s love through my generosity.  

How about you?

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] See Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969) 303-312.

[2] Read about Brennan Manning online at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/june/22.42.html?start=1

[3] Matthew J. Tuininga, “Good News for the Poor: John Calvin and Social Justice,” http://bit.ly/2eZAh8g

Righteousness Misfired

Luke 18:9-14

Ordinary 30

October 23, 2016

William G. Carter

Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Two people go up to the temple to pray. One is a Pharisee, the other is a tax collector. And if you have been paying any attention to the Gospel of Luke, you know what kind of people they are.

The Pharisee is a terrible, horrible, no good person. Throughout his Gospel, Luke has trained us to boo and hiss whenever a Pharisee walks onto one of his pages.

One day, the Pharisees were sitting nearby when Jesus was teaching in a house. Just then, some villagers dug a hole through the roof and lowered a paralyzed man at the feet of Jesus. He stopped his lesson long enough to look at the man and say, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” The Pharisees say, “Hey, nobody but God can forgive.” Jesus looks at them, looks at the man, and says, “OK, get up and walk too.” So the man gets up and walks away, as the Pharisees grumble.

After this, Jesus goes to a dinner party at the home of a questionable man (a tax collector, by the way). There are a lot of questionable people there, hanging around with Jesus. The Pharisees stand outside and complain, “Why do you eat and drink with sinners?” They just can’t imagine it.   

After that, on a Sabbath day, Jesus is walking with his disciples through the grain fields. His disciples start plucking the grain and munching on it. Immediately the Pharisees step out from behind a mulberry bush to complain, “Why are they doing this? Don’t you all know the Bible? It’s the Sabbath. God says don’t do any work.” Of course they would say that; Luke says they are Pharisees.

And after that, on another Sabbath, they lurk around the edges of a synagogue as Jesus begins to teach. In the crowd, there is a man with a paralyzed hand. Jesus said to him, “Come up here.” As he goes up, Jesus stares into the shadows at the Pharisees. He says, “What is the law of God: to do good or to do harm? To save life on the Sabbath or to destroy it?” With that, Jesus heals the man, and the Pharisees are “filled with fury.” (6:11). Of course they are. Luke says they are Pharisees.

So after one episode after another, Luke reports a story from the mouth of Jesus: “Two people went up to the temple to pray. One is a Pharisee…” And all of us say, “Boo! Hiss! Away with the Pharisee.” We’ve been trained to know what kind of person he is.

And we also know about the tax collectors. Luke has been telling us about them too. Of course, they are generally unsavory characters, collaborators with the Roman Empire, betrayers of their own townspeople – but they are responding to the Gospel of Jesus.

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness. He began to preach, “The One who is greater than the rest of us is coming. Change your ways and God will forgive you. Be baptized and have your sins be washed away.” And do you know who came forward to respond? Tax collectors! (3:12)  They wanted a fresh beginning.

Luke says this is the invitation of Jesus. God’s Kingdom is right in your face, step into it. He said to a tax collector named Levi, “Come with me,” and Levi dropped everything to go. He was ready for it. He’s the one who threw the great banquet for Jesus. In fact, he filled the house with more tax collectors, and Jesus ate with all of them. They were ready for it too.

Luke says they kept coming, like moths to a flame. They wanted whatever Jesus had. They considered him their friend. (7:34). In fact, remember the great parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son? Jesus told them specifically on behalf of the tax collectors (15:2) who kept surrounding him. It doesn’t say that they all changed their lives, but they wanted what he had . . . and the Pharisees snarled at them all.

So when Jesus says, “Once upon a time, a Pharisee and a tax collector both went up to the temple to pray,” we are already prepared to hear the story. Both of these are stock characters.

The Pharisee is a religious leader, a man serious about his own righteousness, and he wraps up his rightness in his prayer: “I thank you God, that I’m not a bad person, like this tax collector. In fact, I give you a tenth of my whole income.” But there’s something about the prayer that is deeply flawed, and I think you know what it is. It’s in the phrase, “I thank you that I’m not like him.” He says that, and he falls through a dangerous trap door.

Meanwhile the tax collector knows his life is a mess. Maybe he’s like all those real-life tax collectors who swarmed around Jesus. They want what he has, but it keeps eluding them. Maybe they don’t have the courage to walk away from their polluted jobs, or to make amends with the townspeople who hate them, or they can’t quite abandon their ill-gotten wealth. All we know about this guy are two things: he can’t make eye contact with God, and he begs for mercy with no evidence that he is worthy of it.

Listen to what Jesus says: the tax collector is made right with God, not the other.

Well, of course. We have been set up to hear it, and to believe it. It’s all about begging for mercy, rather than declaring how good you already are. As Jesus says somewhere else, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” He has no blessing for those who are smug and superior.

The Pharisee wouldn’t have heard him say it, of course. He was too busy humming, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way. I can’t wait to look in the mirror, ‘cause I get better looking each day.”[1]

Now, I hope you realize that what we have here are a couple of cartoon characters. These are not healthy, well-adjusted human beings. The tax collector isn’t finished with his redemption yet. As we will hear next week in the story of the tax collector Zaccheus, he still has a journey ahead of him. God may justify and forgive in the moment this guy utters the “sinner’s prayer,” but he is still quite far from being a grown-up follower of Jesus.

And the Pharisee, what’s really the matter with him? Who would ever be so arrogant to prance around and declare that he is better than everybody else? Someone so smug, so self-righteous, what’s he doing in the temple anyway? He has no need for God, except for God to be his audience, for God to listen to him prattle on about how successful he is, how accomplished he has been. What kind of pathetic, needy, self-serving arrogant fool is this?

Just picture the poor, broken tax collector. He is just finishing his brief cry for mercy, yet he has to overhear that Pharisee go on and on about how wonderful he is ---Why, it’s enough that the tax collector could very well blurt out, “God, I thank you that I’m not like that Pharisee!”

But if he says it, watch out. If you say something like that, the spiritual trap door might open once again, you could fall through it yourself, and everything you gained would be lost. If you catch my drift.

The spiritual life is never about superiority. It’s not about being a “winner.” There are no winners. By that I mean there’s nobody who is good enough to go up to God, flash a good report card, and presume that will get us in. That’s not how it works. If we were to get in, it’s not because we are good; it would be because God is good.

God is the One who sends us Jesus. God is the One who speaks through Jesus about God’s desire to rule over our lives. God is the One who made us the way we are, the One who knows how needy we are, the One who calls us to step away from all destructiveness and into the presence of grace. God knows that even if we are able to do it, like the old time tax collectors who were so ready for a fresh beginning, even then it would be hard to give up the bad habits, the ornery moods, and the quiet collaborations we still make every day with the empire du jour.

The only way we are going to be righteous is if God makes us righteous. One of the Bible words is God “imputes” righteousness in us[2] – that is, we are saved not only by faith in Jesus, but by the faith of Jesus. His righteousness is shown in the cross and resurrection of Christ’s self-giving love. He is the One who saves and reconciles. All we can do is make ourselves available and welcome the hard work Christ does on our behalf. It is a replaying of the death of our own superiority and the justifying power of Christ’s resurrection.

Here’s how somebody else says it:

What Jesus is saying in this parable is that no human goodness is good enough to pass a test like that, and that therefore God is not about to risk it. (God) will not take our cluttered life, as we hold it, into eternity. (God) will only take the clean emptiness of our death in the power of Jesus’ resurrection. (Jesus) condemns the Pharisee because he takes his stand on a life God cannot use; he commends the (tax collector) because he rests his case on a death that God can use…

For Jesus came to raise the dead. Not to reform the reformable, not to improve the improvable… As long as you are struggling like the Pharisee to be alive in your own eyes – and to the precise degree that your struggles are for what is holy, just, and good – you will resent the apparent indifference to your pains that God shows in making the effortlessness of death the touchstone of your justification. Only when you are able, with the (tax collector), to admit that you are dead will you be able to stop balking at grace.[3]

It’s all about grace, the good favor of God. That is what gathers us in. That is what sets us free from the slavery to our own ambition. Grace liberates us from the possibility of any arrogance. It’s all about God, who creates us with the ability to live in relationship to that grace. It’s all about God who is willing to die to bring us into holy fellowship and to rescue us from ourselves.

So here we are, the people who tell stories like this. We tell them because we know grace gathers us into this temple. We come here to pray, because we believe our lives depend entirely on the mercy of God.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] Thanks to Mack Davis for this song, the self-love ballad of the smug Pharisee.

[2] See 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 4:6, Galatians 3:22 (with its accompanying footnote)

[3] Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of Grace (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1988) pp. 182, 184

Can't You Do Any Better Than This?

Luke 18:1-8

Ordinary 29

October 16, 2016

William G. Carter

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”^[b] And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  (Footnote (b):  so that she may not finally come and slap me in the face)

The comment has surfaced more than once. Maybe it’s a conversation at the coffee pot about a political advertisement, or a debate performance, or a general dissatisfaction with the kind of candidates that have been running for office. Someone says, “I suppose I could make a choice, and I probably will. But I can’t stop wondering: can’t we do any better than this?”

Now I don’t say that to side with anybody. All of us have plenty of opinions about the important matters before our nation. What is curious to me is how many folks, if they had the choice, might say, “None of the above.” Without going into the issues, I sense a general disappointment with the quality of people who tend to run for public office, nearly every public office. So the critique comes: can’t you do any better than this?

But enough about the election. I think the same question can be posed of the characters in the story of Jesus tells. There’s a judge who has no respect for God or the people. There’s a woman who is a persistent nag. And are we supposed to choose one of them as the moral example in the story. Come on, Jesus, can’t you do any better than this?

How about that judge! He doesn’t “fear God.” In the world of the Bible, where a reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom, this is code language to say he’s a fool. He has no reference point in the law. He recognizes no authority greater than his own opinion. He is totally unto himself.

And he has no respect for people, either. Some preachers over the years have assumed the judge takes bribes, that his justice can be purchased for a bag of fifty dollar bills. But there’s no evidence of that. To the contrary, he is consumed by indifference. He doesn’t give a rip about anybody or anything. A woman comes to beg for justice and he ignores her. He doesn’t listen to a word she says. What kind of judge is this?

Not only that, he sits by the city gates and talks to himself. If you know the Gospel of Luke, that should be enough of a clue that he is totally wrong. Every time one of the people in one of Jesus’ parables talks to himself or herself, they roll of the tracks. The rich farmer convinces himself to hoard all his stuff in a bigger barn. The wayward son practices a repentance speech that he never gets to finish. The employee who has been robbing his boss creates a new scheme to get ahead.

Likewise this judge has an internal conversation when the woman keeps knocking at his door. He confirms, “I don’t care about her, I don’t care about God.” Yet he decides to give her what she wants, not because it’s the right thing to do, not because her case is clear. No, he gives in because he’s tired of her noise. Not much of a judge if you ask me.

And then there’s the woman. How about her? Luke says she is a widow. Again, in the world of the Bible, that’s shorthand for saying she is a person with great needs. All though the Jewish scriptures, God says, “Watch out for the widow! Take care of the widow.” The widow in the ancient world had no safety net. She had no means of income. She could not inherit anything after her husband died. And so, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Malachi, and the Psalmist all declare, “Pay attention to the widow. Make sure nobody takes advantage of her.”

But this particular woman is hard to ignore. She’s relentless. Worse than that, she’s obnoxious. Day and night, she’s hammering on the judge’s door. “Pay attention to me! Give me what  want!” No wonder the judge gives in. As he says literally in the Greek language, “I’m going to give in so she doesn’t punch me in the face.”

I mean, remember what it says in the book of Proverbs? “With patience a ruler may be persuade, and a soft tongue can break stone.” (25:15). Well, there’s nothing soft about her.

And listen to her complaint: “Give me justice against my opponent.” So who is her opponent? We don’t know. The opponent doesn’t dare show up in the story. And literally, she wants more than justice; she wants revenge. The English translation sands away the splinters. “Give me revenge against my opponent,” she shouts. Day and night, night and day, she pounds against his door until finally he gives in. Wouldn’t you?

These are the two characters in the story that Jesus tells. Both of them have their flaws. Even if one of them gets their way, it’s going to be an unsatisfying victory. The loser might even say the system is rigged. Not because it is, you understand, but when you are dealing with a contest between two imperfect people, one of them is going to be a sore loser, especially if one of them ends up being the loser.

Now I’m talking about the parable, you understand, and nothing else. In the parables of Jesus, he always uses imperfect people. I’ve mentioned a few of them already. Let me mention a few more. There’s the dreaded Samaritan that turns out to be a good neighbor. Or the king that invites everybody to a party; they refuse to come, so he burns down their village. Or the self-righteous man who won’t go to his brother’s welcome home celebration. Or his prodigal father, who was dumb enough to give a third of his fortune to the son who blew it all in Vegas. Or so on and so forth.

For Jesus, this is his basket of deplorables. Some of his characters are seedy and corrupt. Some of them are violent. Some of them are dumb enough that they won’t come in out of the rain. Some of them are completely self-absorbed, like the pious Pharisee in the story we will hear next week. Some of them are downright wasteful. They are wasteful, like the farmer who goes out to sow the field and he throws the seed all over the place – on rocks, on well-worn paths, among the weeds - he doesn’t care. That’s wasteful.

To listen to these stories, these parables of Jesus, you have to ask, “Lord, can’t you do any better than this?” And I imagine him smiling or smirking, and saying, “I guess this all I have to work with.” Imperfect people, inconsistent believers. Maybe they are momentarily irrational or temporarily insane, or just stressed out by life.

Like the widow in our story. She pounds on the door, “Judge, open up. Open up right now. I want revenge! I want you to give me revenge.” And she keeps knocking, and she keeps pounding, and she wears him down until he finally gives in. What kind of judge is that? A judge that grants revenge? That’s no kind of judge. Life is not a Mel Gibson movie. And asking for revenge is really not all that good for our souls.

Luke says this is a story about prayer. He says it’s about prayer. Jesus doesn’t say that about the story, but Luke does. Jesus just tells the story. It’s Luke who adds the frame around the picture. Luke is the narrator who inserts verse one: “Jesus told them this parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

What’s Luke trying to say? That prayer is wearing down the patience of God? That prayer is acting obnoxiously toward heaven until heaven gives you what you want? That prayer is persisting until you get whatever you want, even if what you want is revenge? I don’t think so.

I know the Bible says “pray without ceasing,” but prayer is not pushing God until God gives in. In my experience, prayer is pushing God until we give in.

When my 21-year-old daughter was four months old, she almost died in her crib. I believe it was due to the intervention of an angel that her mom found Meg had stopped breathing, shook her awake, and we got her checked out. It turns out the circuits in her brain weren’t quite finished growing, and at any moment, she might stop breathing.

Needless to say, it was a time of great prayer, because it was a time of great stress. Ever notice how we tend to pray more when we are feeling stress? We don’t pray as much when life is going well, only when there’s trouble.

So I was praying and praying and praying that my daughter would get through it, that our family would get through it. In the middle of the night, I’d roll over, my eyes would pop open, and I’d start praying. “Lord, get us through it.” The prayer never seemed to settle in. Never seemed to fit.

One night, tossing and turning, in near desperation, I blurted out another prayer: “Lord, I don’t know what you’re doing . . . but I trust you. It’s in your hands. My daughter is in your hands. We are in your hands.” Suddenly a deep peace came into the room, and I gave in to it.

The work of prayer is a mystery. If you want to believe that you have to keep knocking, knocking, knocking until God gives you what you want, well, go right ahead. Let me know how that works for you.

I believe there is another way to go, and that’s to consider what kind of God we have. God is not the Old Man behind the counter of the candy store, waiting to give you whatever you want. God is the One who rules over the world and all within it.  And the gift of scripture, to say nothing of our whole tradition of faith, is that we have a very consistent record of what God is like and what God cares about.

A lot of scholars, like Ken Bailey and others, remind us that Jesus didn’t invent all of his stories out of thin air. In the time of Christ, there was a two hundred year old text from a wise Jewish teacher named Ben Sirach. Drawing from all the texts about widows, he told us what kind of God we have:

He will not ignore the supplication of the fatherless,

nor the widow when she pours out her story.

Do not the tears of the widow run down her cheek

as she cries out against him who has caused her to fall?

He whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted,

and his prayer will reach to the clouds.

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds,

and he will not be consoled until it reaches the Lord;

He will not desist until the Most High visits him

and does justice to the righteous and executes judgment.

The Lord will not delay . . . [1]

“I tell you,” added Jesus, “he will quickly grant justice to them.”

So maybe it is about prayer, especially prayer offered by the likes of us, imperfect people and inconsistent believers. In this head-scratching parable, Jesus points us beyond the likes of us to the God who is greater, infinitely wiser, and much more responsive. God wants us to say what is on our hearts when we pray, because prayer is fundamentally the expression of a relationship. A relationship in Christ is a praying relationship.

Yet ultimately, it is God’s will that counts, not our will. And if there is any magic in prayer, it comes when our desires intersect with God’s desires. That’s when God not only grants us his will, it’s when God can work through us. And that’s the magic, the deep magic, when we know in our bones, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

For our part, we keep praying. In our prayer, we seek to align our prayers with the work that God wishes to get done. And we know what some of that work is. As someone has said, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)

(c) William G. Carter

---

[1] Ken Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009) 261ff.