Read the Lectionary Texts

There’s something about kids that make them God’s favorite people! There’s something about childhood that God loves very much!

And yet, if you are at all like me, you might have to admit that you have spent a great deal of your life running away from childhood and into adulthood.

When my best boyhood friend Dennis and I had grown up a bit – we were in 5th and 6th grade respectively – we once tried to pick up some high school-aged girls. They were 17 or 18. We were 11 and 12. But we thought of ourselves as mature, suave, men-of-the-world. So Dennis and I lowered our voices, and put our best moves on these beautiful high school girls.

One of them asked how old we were. We said (lower voice), “Twenty.”

“Really? What school do you go to?”

(Lower voice) “College.”

“Oh? What are you majoring in?”

Now that was a hard question. We had no idea what courses were taught in college, though we were pretty sure that penmanship and arithmetic probably weren’t. My little mind spun and squeezed itself in search of an answer. And this is what I came up with.

(Lower voice) “Zippittyometry.” Or something like that.

And that pretty much messed up any chance we had with those girls. They walked off, howling with laughter.

I said to Dennis, “Why are they laughing?”

He said, “I don’t think Zippittyometry is a real class.”

So we walked home, very disappointed, wishing we were older, wishing we really were in college, majoring in something advanced and exciting – like zippittyometry.

If only we had the right credentials, we could be a hit with high school girls.

I suppose it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, or even what your ultimate goals are, but isn’t it true that we spend much of our youth yearning to be older, to enter into the rights and privileges that come with age and accomplishment, rank and credential? For me, even during that dream baseball season when I was a ten-year old boy playing with mostly twelve-year old kids on a Little League team that won the city championship, it wasn’t enough. I imagined myself playing one day for the Boston Red Sox, even when the Red Sox were pretty bad, still under the Curse of the Bambino.  In fact, Dennis and I tried that one, too, with a bunch of older girls. But when our mothers called us home for dinner, those girls realized we were not really major league baseball players.

And this is not something that ends when we get older. Even in adulthood, we have this deep need to build a sense of self-importance.

Former Senator (and ex-NBA superstar) Bill Bradley tells the story of attending a political dinner in Washington when a waiter came around with the butter. “I’d like two pats of butter, if I may, please,” said Senator Bradley.

“Sorry, sir,” the waiter replied, “it’s one to a customer.”

 “Well,” the Senator responded, “I guess you don’t know who I am. I am a senior member of the United States Senate. Before that, I was an all-star basketball player for the New York Knicks. And before that I was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.”

 The waiter was unimpressed. “Well, I guess YOU don’t know who I am,” he retorted.

“No, I don’t,” said Bradley. “Who ARE you?”

 The waiter drew himself up to his full 5 feet, five inches, and proudly said, “I, SIR, AM THE GUY WITH THE BUTTER!”

Credentials. Accomplishments. Possessions. Titles. Achievements. Awards. These are so often where we seek our identity as persons. And these are what we so often bring to God in hopes that God will accept us.

Which brings us to our Scripture story in Luke 18.

Jesus tells us that two men go up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing in the center of the sanctuary, walks directly into the spotlight of God’s presence, lifts his arms and prays:

“God! I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers…Unitarians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists… welfare recipients….Alabama fans…or even like this dirty rotten tax collector over there in the shadows. I fast twice a week! I give a tenth of all my income. I am a GOOD person, Lord, and I DO good things! God, to quote the poet: ‘I think that I shall never see a person quite as good as me!’ Praise be to God!”

And please understand something about this Pharisee. He truly IS a good man, with many fine life accomplishments that would be the envy of all of us. Not only that, but he is devoted to God, tithes his income, and is very aware that his life has been blessed by God. He is what many of us would like to be – the kind of church member we’d love to recruit!

Meanwhile, the tax collector, hiding in the wings, too embarrassed to even show his face, drops on his knees, beats on his breast, and cries out, “Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

 I think the first time I heard this parable was when I was a young Sunday School student. And what I remember most about it was how we talked about what an idiot the Pharisee was and what a genuine person was the tax collector. That’s not a hard choice to make. Even we Sunday School kids knew that the hero of this story was not the Pharisee, but the tax collector. And as the class ended, we prayed a prayer that went something like this:

“God, we thank you that we are not like that old Pharisee…!”

…which, when you think about it, is exactly the same prayer the Pharisee prayed in the parable!

You see, here is the genius of Jesus at work. If you’ve never really studied his life and teachings, you’re missing out on some incredible ways of seeing life differently than ever before. And in this story, what Jesus does is lure us into choosing between this arrogant, self-righteous Pharisee and this very humble and broken tax collector. And we DO choose between them. Most of us decide to side with the tax collector and reject the Pharisee. And, as soon as we make that choice, do you see what happens? We BECOME like the PHARISEE ourselves!

 “God, I am SO glad, I’m not like THAT other guy!”

As in all of life, in the Christian walk we get ourselves into real trouble when we begin to measure our lives against others. And the trouble is not only that we can easily misunderstand and underestimate other people, but – even more importantly – that we lose sight of God in the process.

You see, this is not really a parable about the behavior of a Pharisee contrasted with the behavior of a tax collector. Oh no, this is not a parable about how people behave. This is a parable about how GOD behaves.

 Two men come to the Temple to pray, each one hoping God will accept them. Two people stand in the presence of God – one righteous Pharisee, one ungodly tax collector.

And God draws close to the ungodly one!

How strange! Why do you suppose God would do such a thing?

Jesus once said that he came into the world not to save the righteous, but the unrighteous. He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” He ate with tax collectors and sinners, and welcomed into his presence the poor, the lame, the lost and lepers. Like his Heavenly Father in the parable, Jesus drew near to those with no credentials at all.

This is what God is like!

Full of grace and mercy, reaching out to love us and lift us into life not because we have great credentials, but simply because we are God’s children.

 Two people came to the Temple that day. One stood up and tried to seize God’s love. The other just fell down and hoped God’s love might somehow find him.

And it did!

And you may have come here today, carrying with you deep, broken pieces of the puzzle of your life. They may be personal failures. They may be things beyond your control. Whatever burdens you bear today, I want you to know there is grace here. God loves you. God understands. God’s hand reaches out to lift you up to life.

And there’s nothing you can do to get this grace. All you can do is give yourself to God – as you really are –and receive mercy and grace as the gifts God freely gives.

And in receiving grace, you and I are sent to dispense it further in the world.

As our stewardship campaign enters its final week, we would do well to remember why we are here as a church. We exist for the simple purpose of being a community that embodies God’s grace through Jesus Christ. We welcome and accept people for who they are. We care for their needs with Christian compassion. We introduce people to a God of mercy and grace, and help them grow as beloved children. We pool our resources to share the Good News with others. And we try to be a light in the community that says – you don’t have to be more than you are – don’t have to play for the Red Sox or have an advanced degree in  zippittyometry – don’t have to achieve fame or fortune or perfection – you just have to be yourself – like a little child who climbs into her mother’s or father’s arms and simply accepts the love.

Won’t you fall into God’s arms today?

And may WE TOGETHER be like the arms of God embracing a broken world.