20th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 30, Year C

The King of the Castle

Readings: Jeremiah 14:1-22; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

Today’s Gospel reading always reminds me of a childhood game we played at school. It is one of those universal games, but I suspect it got played out in different ways depending on the venue. Our schoolyard had a slope up to the fence along one side, and we children would scramble to be first to the top at which point we would shout as loudly as we could, “I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal.”

There are two characters in the story, one a Pharisee, and the other the dreaded tax collector.

The Pharisee is one of the pillars of the Jewish community. He gives generously. He prays and keeps religious observances well beyond what the law requires. You get the impression from his prayer that he is a one-person admiration society. There he is standing at the front of the synagogue where everyone can see him. "How good and pious I am," he thinks to himself. He is wearing long robes. They make him feel very holy. They attract lots of attention. Then he begins his prayer. "God, I thank you that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of humanity," he almost shouts it. Then he catches sight of that loathsome tax collector who has just sneaked as quietly and unobtrusively as possible into the back of the synagogue.
“I thank you especially that I am not like that tax collector over there. I mean, what is he even doing here?” He is confessing everyone else’s sins for them. His prayer is an exercise in unrealized self-congratulation. You get the picture, don't you? Here is a person who is totally satisfied with himself. Truly he does live a good life – upright, moral, pious. And what's more, he knows it. He is the king of the castle, the kid shouting at the top of the hill. Decent, law abiding, self confident, religious! A total success – at least in his own eyes!

Now I do not want to imply that he is not righteous. He deserves to be confident of his relationship with God. But he is confident for all the wrong reasons. “I fast twice a week,” he says. “I give a tenth of my income.” His achievements are not really that notable. Religious Jews paid the temple tax. They went to the temple to pray every day. It was also common for religious Jews to fast twice a week. Fasting is good for the soul. We should all try it more often. It can help clear one’s mind and body. It can help take away what stands between God and us. But it is not something to brag about. It is meant to further one’s spiritual life. The Pharisee has missed out on the true nature of his blessing. He trusts in himself rather than in God.

Then there is the tax collector. On the one hand, he knows that he has done nothing of merit. On the other hand, he has done much to offend the law of Israel. He is a shady character, to put it mildly! He makes his living in a rather underhanded way. He takes a little more than he should. He is grasping and unjust. He is the dirty rascal at the bottom of the hill. The loser. But you know, he has no false illusions. He sees himself pretty much as he is. He knows his failures, his flaws. He sneaks into the synagogue, way at the back where no one will see him. He does nothing to bring attention to himself. He simply cries out to God, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

And surprise! We are told that it is the tax collector, the sinner, the shady character, who went home justified. You see, he came to God in humility and found access to God’s grace. He faced the truth about himself and put his dependence on God’s compassionate mercy.

The Pharisee trusted in his own righteousness and religious achievement. He did all the right things, but he went about it in all the wrong ways. I suspect he was the kind of person who got all hot and bothered about silly little rules, about dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Instead of looking inward to see himself as God saw him, he spent his time tearing others apart. He forgot that his prayer should focus on God. His piety, the very thing that should have brought him closer to God, became for him an insurmountable barrier.

The outcome of the story is that God loved the dirty rascal at the bottom of the hill. God accepted the villain and rejected the saint. God saw the humility of the tax collector and accepted it; God rejected the pride of the Pharisee.

But what about us? About you and me? Do we have a bit of each in us? At the same time we stand with the Pharisee at the front of the temple bragging about our righteousness we stand with the tax collector at the back recognizing our guilt. Who really wants to identify with a self-righteous prig like the Pharisee? But he is faithful and pious. It is just that his way of approaching God is wrong. He lacks humility. But who wants to identify with the tax collector? He is commended for his prayer, but he is so lacking in self-esteem. And Jesus! Jesus stands there and laughs at our sense of ambiguity. Most of us accept that we are sinners, albeit forgiven sinners. We accept that forgiveness is a gift from God, a gift of grace, not earned or deserved, but simply accepted. What we often do not recognize is the cost of that grace.

Finding yourself blessed in life is a matter for gratitude, not for pride. But it is human nature to feel a sense of pride in what we do. We like to think that we have accomplished something in life. Perhaps the balance lies in honing our awareness that we are limited creatures, dependent on the life-sustaining nature of our world, dependent upon one another, above all, dependent upon our creator. That is the kind of attitude that is needed to bring about reform and renewal within the Church. It is the kind of attitude that is needed to bring about the renewal of all of God’s creation.

We live in difficult times. Our indigenous people are hurting. They blame us. Especially the Church! And we are to blame. I must admit that I felt a great deal of ambiguity about my culpability. You see, I taught in a Residential School back in the sixties. I grew up with a rather romantic notion about helping our First Nations people. Each Lent we children would fill our Lent box with its picture of cute little pigtailed “Indian” children with pennies and feel self-righteous about how much good we were doing. I went to Teachers’ College and the romantic notion stayed with me. I applied to Indian Affairs and went to teach in Fort George, Quebec, on the James Bay Coast. The experience remains bitter sweet. I loved the children. I did my best to teach them with limited resources. It was a difficult place for a young, inexperienced teacher. When many years later it began to come out about everything that had gone on in the schools – my principal was charged with sexual abuse from another school – I had to come to terms with the fact that no matter how well intentioned I was, I along with every Canadian bear the blame. I have become an Ambassador for the National Church and continue in the reconciliation process that we all need to undergo if wrongs are to be righted.

Then I think about Greta Thunberg and her mission to change the world. What she says about climate change is humbling. As she blamed adults for what the world faces through climate change, I found myself saying, but ... You know, but I recycle. But I am not wasteful. But I walk instead of driving. But I use reusable bags instead of plastic. As long as any of us says “but”, nothing changes. We continue in our self-righteous protestations, and the problem continues.

I don’t want to be the king of the castle. I don’t want to be the dirty rascal. What is the answer? It lies in the good news that God loves us. Our creator God looks down on us and calls us into right relationship with God and creation. I can only believe that the answer lies in that right relationship, in reaching out to God in prayer; in praying for a world that is crying out in pain; in praying that we will be people who strive for justice; in changing our attitudes and acting without saying but; in doing what God is calling us to do. Amen.

Proper 22, Year B

Getting at the Fire Within

Readings: Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I love the synchronicity of God. As I was working on the readings this week, Graham told me about a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk, David Steindl-Rast. He is known amongst other things for his work on the interaction between spirituality and science, right up Graham’s alley. He says the following in an interview: “I compare mysticism to a volcano that gushes forth and then the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it is just rocks. You would never guess that there was fire in it.”

“So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that is within it.”

That in a nutshell is what I want to say today. In his short and pithy way of presenting the gospel, Mark forces us to consider whether or not how we follow Jesus truly represents the faith in our hearts. What we say and what we do matter, for they reveal who we truly are. It is that simple. If we wish to get to the fire within, we have to push through the crust.

The reading focuses on ritual that simply becomes ritualistic and loses its meaning, loses its fire. It begins with a specific and cutting question. The Pharisees demand an explanation from Jesus about the behaviour of his disciples. “Why do your disciples eat with unclean hands?” They ask. It is not that they are being fastidious about cleanliness. It has to do with Jewish law, with conforming to Judaic tradition, with carrying out ritual acts in the prescribed manner. The disciples had not washed their hands in the way the Pharisees said people should. They had failed to follow the ritual practices of their religion. The purpose of such purifying was not to change outward appearance in any way. It was not to protect from disease. It was for outward show. Simply put, following the rules would make Jesus’ disciples more acceptable to the Pharisees.

I want to be clear here. Jesus did not regard the laws as bizarre or outlandish. He is not saying that it is wrong. Elsewhere and at another time Jesus would criticize a host for not giving him water to cleanse himself. He is not questioning the action. He is concerned about how an external act has become an end in itself. Jesus understands the rituals in Jewish law and tradition. But at the same time he knows that it is the shema, loving God with heart and soul and strength that is the essence of Judaism as it is for us as Christians. He knows perfectly well that following every cleansing ritual prescribed by Jewish law will not make an iota of difference to society. He knows that it is about more than simply following the old traditions. He knows that they need to put their faith into action if it is going to be effective, if it is going to bring them closer to God, if they are going to live out their faith. He knows that what is needed to identify the people as God’s people, is an authentic faith and a sense of justice and love. He knows that it is far more about people choosing to do the right things, not because they are following the rules, but because they want to do the right thing. They want to do things because they are convinced that it is the right thing to do.

Jesus wants more than lip service from his disciples. He wants to see the true marks of discipleship in their lives. The essential mark of discipleship surely is to know yourself. Otherwise there is a deep disconnect between what we do and what we say. What we say and what we do are not separate from who we are.

James says the same thing. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” It is rather like the expression, “Don’t believe your own press releases!” James knows that religion is not merely listening, speaking, discussing, arguing and analyzing. It is acted out. It is lived. The ultimate test of what we profess is our actions. Spirituality is never disembodied. Faith must emerge in the world as service. Otherwise it is simply rhetoric. (I am tempted at this point to get into our current political scene, but I will refrain!)

The fact is, if we expect to follow Jesus, live as Jesus lived, do as Jesus would do, keep the fire in our faith, then it requires examination of ourselves. What are our true intentions? What do we believe? What does it matter? Does it change anything because I am a Christian? It requires not only taking stock of whom we are, but also accepting responsibility for our actions.

Again and again we hear Jesus take moral issues out of the realm of mere action and into the deeper realm of motivation. How many times must we forgive? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are forgiving people. Do we say grace day after day, praying for the needs of others, but never contribute to help change their plight? Do we bring names of the sick and suffering to the altar Sunday after Sunday but never go out to minister to them? Do we have a rich liturgical life but do none of the real work of the church? Do we think that we serve God by going to church on Sunday, or by spending time in private prayer, or through our financial support of the church? These may indeed be signs of a Christian living a Christian life. But they do not change the fundamental question. “How is my heart towards God?”

Well, so far all that I have spoken is bad news. Where is the good news of the Gospel? The good news is there in Jesus’ words. “There is nothing,” Jesus says, “that goes into a person from the outside which can make that person unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that makes one unclean.” Jesus is affirming the holiness, the sacred nature of all creation. God continues to call all of creation back into harmony.

The good news is there as well in the words of the prophets of our time. In listening to them, they can lead us to understand the disconnect between who we are and what we say and do. It is difficult to live what we believe, to speak our truth, to show in our actions what is in our hearts. After all, we are broken people. But we have a loving God. Just as our words and actions reveal the heart of who we are, so God’s words and actions reveal God’s own self. In opening up our lives to God’s forgiving grace, in taking responsibility for our actions, we rekindle the fire in our hearts. That is good news indeed! Amen