Today, I’ll offer the second teaching sermon on the Christian Bible, focusing on the Christian Scriptures. These sacred texts are better known in Christian circles as the New Testament, and are sometimes referred to as the Second Covenant. You’ll hear me use the label Christian Scriptures, as I am phasing out my use of the label New Testament, because of its implied superiority. Whether implicitly or explicitly, many of us were taught prejudicial ideas about the nature of God as depicted within the Christian Bible.
It is fairly common to hear churchgoers of every denomination say something along the lines of: “I don’t like the Old Testament. It is all about a God of wrath focused on a bunch of laws. I like the New Testament, which proclaims a God of love and grace.” This prejudicial framework has its origins in the early second century, when the teachings of Marcion encouraged Christians to reject the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.* The early Church ultimately rejected Marcion’s teachings as heresy, as should we. In our tradition, we use the New Revised Standard Version of the Christian Bible, featuring twenty-seven pieces of early Christian writing. Many of us grew up believing these were all of the early Christian writings. In actuality, these are what early church leaders believed to be the best selection of those writings.** So, let’s back up. Preceding any writing was the life of Jesus of Nazareth, whose teachings and actions were so extraordinary that a movement within Judaism was born. The story of Jesus’ life and teachings, his death and resurrection were shared by word of mouth, and in the subsequent years small bits were written down here and there. Roughly 13-16 years after Jesus’ death, Paul began to write letters to small communities of Jesus’ followers scattered throughout the Roman Empire.** Around the time Peter and Paul were killed and martyred, roughly 35-46 years after Jesus' death, the Gospel of Mark began to be written.**These are all first generation writings, and are often referred to as coming out of the apostolic tradition, because they were composed by those with a connection to Jesus or Paul; those who led some of the earliest churches.** These writings were shared liberally between communities, copying and sharing so the early Church might all grow in faith together. Roughly 50-70 years after Jesus’ death, the second generation of Christian writings began to be written.** These include Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, and letters written by followers of original apostles.** Often letters in this second generation were written in honor of the original apostles and Paul, bearing their name and giving them credit. This is one of the many reasons we might find Paul’s teachings contradictory. Different authors were composing them in his name with different understandings of the Jesus Movement, the nature of God, and what it means to be the Church. This was true for the vast majority of writings that were being written in the second and third generation, which often featured wildly different theologies. Some were letters, some were different books of acts, and there were several gospels. These include at least two infancy gospels imagining Jesus’ early childhood and youth, as well as the Gospel of Mary, portraying the important role of women in the early Church. Meanwhile the early Church was evolving from a movement within Judaism to its own distinct religion. It became important to determine which texts would be included in the Christian canon, which refers to the writings widely accepted as scripture.** The Christian Scriptures as we know them today were not fully determined until the early fifth century. The writings chosen were seen as compatible with apostolic tradition, while at the same time maintaining some breadth and diversity of opinion. Which is yet another reason for contradictory teachings. Some important things for us to remember about the Christian Scriptures:
Alright - are you ready for a whirlwind tour of these twenty-seven writings? Here we go. Scholar Mark Allan Powell suggests thinking about the Christian Scriptures in seven categories:**
Whew! We made it through. I would encourage us each to do some reflecting on our own experience with the Christian Bible.
* Amy Jill-Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler in The Bible With and Without Jesus, pg 8, 14. ** Mark Allan Powell in Introducing the New Testament, pg.41, 60, 61, 63, 64. *** Jerome H Neyrey commentary in The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version, pg. 1880. ****Jennifer K. Berenson commentary in The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version, pg. 2052. *****Margaret M. Mitchell commentary in The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version, pg. 2085. ****** Jean-Pierre Ruiz commentary in The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version, pg. 2155.
Today’s parable, which follows directly after last week’s lesson in Luke, is part of an extended section in which Jesus and the disciples are traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem and Jesus is teaching along the way. He has lamented over Jerusalem, he’s talked about the nature and costs of discipleship, and he is trying to impart to his listeners what it means for God’s reign – what Bishop Michael Curry calls the dream or vision of God – to be realized.
When we talk about parables, we always remind ourselves that they are, on the surface, simple stories, but they always include a twist or a surprise whose unexpectedness causes us to pause, consider, and to re-evaluate our assumptions. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector fits this definition perfectly. It's about two very different people who go up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray to God. The first, a Pharisee, in effect lists his credentials – he tithes and fasts – and contrasts himself favorably with the other character, the tax collector. The Pharisee, does, in fact, show his commitment to his religion – he gives away a tenth of his income, and he restricts his food on two days out of seven. He is certainly serious about his faith practice. Probably many of us, today, have negative associations with Pharisees because the gospel writers so frequently portray them as Jesus’ opponents and adversaries. For Jesus’ community, however, they were the local clergy – men (and they were all men) who led prayer, taught, and offered counsel to members of their congregations. The other character is a tax collector, who, in his prayer, simply offers up to God that he is a sinner in need of mercy. We should not think of the tax collector as someone who was merely a bureaucrat from the Imperial Revenue Service. The way the Roman tax system actually worked was that different territories in the Empire were, in effect, put up for bid, with the contract going to the highest bidder, not unlike the way we here at James and Andrew put out a call for bids when we need to get the furnace replaced. We’re looking for the lowest bid, while Rome looked for the bid that would bring the greatest revenue. The person winning the bid guaranteed the amount of his bid to the Roman authorities, and he would make money only if he collected more than that. This arrangement worked very well for the Romans, but from the point of view of the local population, it had unpleasant consequences: it tended to attract rather unsavory characters, and they in turn were probably not too choosy about the methods they used to get their payments from local artisans or farmers. It’s safe to say, then, that those hearing Jesus tell this parable would have thought it was no more than the truth to hear the tax collector acknowledge his unworthiness as he looks down in shame. So let’s rename this parable. Let’s call it the parable of the retired rector and the guy who runs a protection racket. When Jesus says that the second character was “justified” (or righteous, or saved) rather than the first character – when the parable nails the cleric but lets the creep get off scot free – we may be as offended as the original hearers might have been. But after we are finished being offended, we still have to ask what Jesus is trying to tell us. There is no question that the Pharisee, or the retired rector, is a socially acceptable, good person. And there’s also no question that the tax collector, or the creep, is not. So one conclusion we might draw that Jesus thinks it doesn’t matter what we do, how we behave. Upright citizen or extortionist, it doesn’t matter. Of course that’s not the case. What does Jesus mean when he says that the second character is “justified”? Does it mean that God is satisfied with a little humility and repentance? That it doesn’t matter if I’ve been a really bad person, as long as I admit it? That hanging my head in shame is enough? I don’t think that’s it either. No one who reads the Bible could think that God does not care about what we do and how we act. In saying after saying, parable after parable, Jesus makes it clear that God cares passionately about what we do. But God cares for a particular reason: the way we act, over time and in the many different situations of our lives, shapes who we are and determines our relationships with God, with other people, and with ourselves. If we consistently look to our own advantage we become closed off to others and toward God. God offers us grace, but if our hands are balled into fists and our hearts are closed, there’s not much room for grace. That’s the Pharisee’s story. He is not a miser or a slacker in his religious practice, but he is quite satisfied with where he is. One of our vestry members observed, as we discussed this passage during our meeting this week, that “He’s really praying to himself, not to God.” And he completes his self-congratulation by observing the inferiority of the tax collector. Yes, he is “better” than the tax collector; but that is not what he should be paying attention to. He should be paying attention to God; but his entire prayer is asking God to pay attention to what a wonderful person he is. And what about that tax collector? Is Jesus saying that because he has said he’s sorry, everything is just fine? Or is Jesus, rather, saying that his acknowledgement of the wrongness in his life provides the first small opening through which the light of God’s grace can enter. I think that’s what we are supposed to see: not that the tax collector is alright as he is, but that he has started taking a turn toward the right direction. And what about us, which is always where we need to go as we listen to Jesus’ words to his own listeners. How often are we the Pharisee, and how often the tax collector? I have to tell you that as I have been sitting with this parable this week, I can’t help but think that we are a nation full of Pharisees right now. I look at our political and social divides, and I see and hear vast groups of Americans certain of the righteousness of our own values, our own positions, our assumptions and our solutions to the problems that plague our nation and our world. I don’t see much humility. Like the Pharisee, we love to not only pat ourselves on the back, but we love to trivialize and vilify not only the thinking of those on “the other side”, but to look with contempt on those neighbors themselves who take positions that offend us. Now, I don’t think we do it in church, but I certainly see it in the belittling memes that show up on social media, and in the jokes and cartoons that make the rounds in email, that stereotype and make fun of those who don’t see things the way we do, and I confess that I sometimes smile at these before I catch myself. I hear the Pharisee routinely in our leaders in congress, including both the party that I vote for and the other one. So as we head into this week, let’s work on paying attention to God and asking God for wisdom and generosity and humility. And for mercy on us, sinners. Let’s work on asking God to open our minds and our hearts that we might be learners and reconcilers, and figure out how to reach across divides for the healing of God’s world. In Jesus name and for his sake.
I have a distinct memory of my mother taking me to see the film “King of Kings” – one of those traditional cinematic dramatizations of the gospel story – when it came out in 1961, and it included one very scary scene of Jesus meeting and healing lepers. It so stuck with me that I went to the public library and took out a book written by a former patient from Carville, Louisiana, the community where people afflicted by Hansen’s in the US were isolated and treated from the 19th century until late in the 20th.
We know now that Hansen’s Disease is not nearly as contagious as it was once believed to be, and because it is entirely treatable, it has been largely eliminated from the developed world. Before modern medicine, though, “lepers” were commonly segregated into colonies and cut off from contact with the rest of the community. In Jesus’ era (and beyond it,) the disease was often seen as judgment from God – not unlike the way that AIDS was viewed by many in the latter part of the 20th century. In today’s gospel story, then, ten folks suffering from Hansen’s seek out healing from Jesus. They were required to maintain a distance from other people, and so they simply called out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Seeing what troubled them, Jesus instructed them to “Go, show yourselves to priests”, and Luke tells us that “as they went, they were made clean” by God’s power. Jewish law at that time focused on clean or acceptable status and practice, and the priests were the guardians, rather like Board of Health. Only after certification by the priests could previously “unclean” persons return to their families and resume life within the community. Nine of those who Jesus sent to the priests were caught up in the moment, undoubtedly eager to receive their certification of health and take up their lives. But one “SAW that he was healed”, and he turned back and returned to Jesus to praise God and express his gratitude. Jesus’ response - "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." There are different Greek words used in the New Testament to describe healing. One, that comes from the Greek therapueuo, describes a physical making well. The nine in today’s story were made well, made clean. A second, that derives from the Greek sozo, conveys a broader and deeper meaning, and is often translated as “to be made whole”, or even “to be saved”. The tenth leper was healed in a way that the others were not. He was changed, even transformed because he SAW his own healing and RESPONDED to it. We could say lots of things about what today’s gospel means, but certainly, one of its themes is that of gratitude. My three year old grandson is in the process of learning about polite behavior, and part of that includes saying “please’ and “thank you”. He has pretty well integrated that behavior, and needs only occasional reminders. The harder lesson, which we can’t teach, is that of actually FEELING gratitude. When I give my grandson sliced apple for his snack, does he comprehend how fortunate he is to have fresh, healthy food and a loving family who provide it to him every day? He’s definitely not there yet. I don’t even do as well as I would like to in pausing the SEE and value the gifts with which my life is abundantly full. The tenth man was made whole, even saved, because he saw the gift God had given him, and turned back, - he ACTED in his need to express his gratitude. In last week’s sermon Heather reflected on what it means to have faith. She observed that faith is a matter of “showing up”, of “forming the intention to trust in God”. She went on to describe faith this way: “To show up each day, with some intention to bring our best selves. To not be concerned with any kind of reward … Faith is not something we pay God to receive some magical, heavenly good. Faith is our love, our hope, our curiosity, our aches and longings to connect to the highest power in this universe and one another”, and to Heather’s list I would add our gratitude, “as well as a willingness to do our small part.” Living into a perspective of gratitude – as did the 10th leper – is another critical element of faith that has the power to make us whole. Living gratefully connects us to others – it breaks down our isolation and helps us to remember we are in relationship, that we are a part of community. Recognizing and acknowledging gifts helps us to sustain a positive outlook, which can certainly be difficult to do in this troubled world. The positive attitude that gratitude engenders in us involves
Gratitude is not only a right attitude because it’s healthy and spiritually fulfilling; it’s also appropriate. Nothing we enjoy in life is guaranteed. Everything is gift. It is gift that we choose how to respond to and how to use, whether to hold, and how to share. Let’s, then, do our best to live life with thanks on our lips and in our lives. Let’s always live our thanks to the God who has created us, who has shown us the way and saved us from lives of shallowness and meaninglessness, whose love sustains us in every moment.
Jesus had been speaking to them about the challenges of discipleship (Luke 17:1-4). He warned them against using their power and position to mislead the vulnerable. He cautioned there would be times when the disciples sinned against one another. Jesus was trying to prepare them for the inevitable reality that disciples would violate boundaries and norms that caused harm and fractured relationships. He explained when this happens, they were to communicate this harm to the offending party, and if that person repented, they were to forgive them (Luke 17:3-4). Irrelevant of how many times they came up short, if they sincerely repented, they were to forgive one another. Over, and over again. Maybe we can understand why they begged Jesus to, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5)
So, how do we know if we have enough faith? Jesus tells them, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6). In other words - the apostles are maybe asking the wrong question. It is not about having enough faith. It is about having faith, period. The tiniest grain of trust is more than enough. Because faith is not quantifiable. Faith is simply showing up. Faith is our intention to trust in God. Note I said intention - faith is not all the times we successfully put our trust in God. Our success rate is irrelevant to God. Faith is when we seek to trust, when we are mindful of our intentions. All God really wants from us is to show up; embodying our willingness to be part of something far greater than ourselves - a movement. Jesus routinely reiterated the why behind this movement: we are called to proclaim in thought, word, and deed the transformative power of God’s Love, knowing we can change this world for the better when humanity works in concert with God and one another. Faith is showing up with an intention to be a part of this movement. To hold our hands open, with a willingness to lend our ideas, our time, and our resources towards this movement, and see where the journey takes us. To further make his point, Jesus describes another parable that is pretty challenging to our contemporary sensibilities. At first glance, it would appear Jesus is comparing disciples to slaves, and unworthy slaves at that. (Luke 17:7-10) You’ll be delighted to know that the many commentaries out there we normally turn to more or less ignore these verses except for acknowledging they are challenging. Thanks, scholars. So, bear with me as we try to gauge what Jesus may have meant. When I was imagining how this parable might speak to us today, I imagined the relationship between an employer and an employee. As an employer, do you stop an employee from carrying out their daily tasks midday, with a fraction of their work complete? Do you gush and praise over the employee when they have not yet even produced the bare minimum? Do you hand them their paycheck midday, maybe with a little bonus reward tucked inside the envelope? Generally not. Rather, it is expected when you hire an employee, and you outline the tasks for them to accomplish, that they will do those tasks to the best of their ability, and you will pay them fairly for their work. So, why would Jesus offer this odd parable? I think one possibility is that Jesus may be responding to the apostles' earlier plea, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5) The apostles were concerned with the question we began this sermon with: How do we know if we have enough faith? Since faith is not quantifiable, Jesus may be reframing the apostles’ anxiety about having enough; shifting them towards a more helpful question: How do we embody our faith? I think in this parable, Jesus is reminding the disciples that faith is about showing up, with hands open, and a willingness to share ourselves with this movement. To show up each day, with some intention to bring our best selves. To not be concerned with any kind of reward - as that is irrelevant to faith. Faith is not something we pay God to receive some magical, heavenly good. Faith is our love, our hope, our curiosity, our aches and longings to connect to the highest power in this universe and one another, as well as a willingness to do our small part. And the possibly comical aspect of this particular parable, is that it also holds at least one other truth. While we are not invited to have faith in order to be rewarded - God is not unlike the employer Jesus describes. God does interrupt our daily work with the magical, mystical, beauty of creation. We find our work interrupted when we notice a setting sun, or a flower in full bloom. For that matter, God does gush and praise humanity in spite of our frequently ridiculous behaviors. I sometimes imagine that to God we are like toddlers in the throes of our terrible twos - completely beastly when we want to be, and yet at the same time we remain the children that God loves beyond any possible measure. God gushes over us with a parental love that makes no sense, but is simply true. And while we are not supposed to be in this faith thing for the rewards - I find my faith leads me to discover an endless series of rewards. On any given day, I experience the reward of a job well done, of a community coming together to help address a need, the reward of building relationships with folks I may never have crossed paths with if it were not for my faith. So, while we are not invited to believe for the sake of reward - there are rewards. But maybe these treasures can only be found when we are not seeking them out. Maybe they can only be found when we show up with intention, hands held open, and a willingness to be part of the transformative love of God in this world. We began today’s sermon by asking how do we know if we have enough faith? The truth of the matter is we have more than enough. Especially when we come together as a community and through the miracle of sharing we each contribute our ideas, our funds, and our time to the ministry we have been called into here at Saints James and Andrew. Like the apostles’, we don’t need Jesus to increase our faith - we have more than enough. As a loved one said in response to this passage - when it comes to faith, the real question is - what are we going to do with it? As we head back into the world today, I wonder:
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