A Portal for God's Peace We warmly welcome single persons, people of all races and families of every kind.   Sunday Service: Holy Eucharist at 9:30 am Child care is available   Church of Our Saviour 191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094 Map and Directions   Tel: 201-863-1449 Fax: 201-863-1474 Mark A. Lewis, Vicar MLewis@secaucus.org Dorothy Fowlkes Pastoral Associate   This page revised 28 Oct 01 http://www.secaucus.org/ oursaviour		The Church of Our Saviour in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links ----------------Leave frames---------------------   What's going on here? Reflections on the lessons For the 21st Sunday after Pentecost 28 October 2001 By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar Jeremiah 14:7-10,19-22 / Psalm 84:1-6 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18 / Luke 18:9-14 When I was a little kid, I used to have a real thing for the mail. One of my grandfathers worked for the post office in our town and I was often behind the scenes watching the workers process letters and packages. And my other grandfather, although he only lived 20 miles away, had a habit of sending me postcards just for fun every week or so. Add to all that, the letter carrier who worked our neighborhood, Mr. Phelps, was a funny and friendly guy who carried lemon drops with the letters. Especially in the summer, when school was out, the mail delivery was the highlight of my day. I can remember waiting on the porch for the big event from after breakfast until about 11:00 when Mr. Phelps would come along with that week's Life magazine, maybe some pictures that had been sent off for developing (was that just a small town thing?), and who knows what else. Well, I'm older now and the mail just isn't all fun that way anymore. For lots of reasons -- even beyond those in the news today. Along with a remote possibility of a terrorist attack, my mail tomorrow will be mostly bills, notices that start out like I've won the Nobel Prize and wind up hawking yet another credit card, and the first trickles of the flood of Christmas catalogs. One dark day -- years ago -- my mail contained a letter from the IRS. It was a brown envelope. The only word from the letter inside that I remember was "audit". My so-called accountant had worked wonders with my 1992 tax return. The only problem was that instead of using U.S. laws he had complied with the tax code of the Land of Oz. And then he skipped out on me and I found myself sitting across the desk from a very stern woman in Parsippany. She was DISTINCTLY Not Amused. I am sure she was -- is -- a very nice person. With hopes and dreams and a mother who loves her. But it wasn't her job to let me in on that. And I left feeling beaten up and shaken down. With a stern lecture and a big bill. But imagine what it would have been like if she were not only intimidating and distrustful, but also dishonest. Imagine what my audit would have been like if she had been working on commission, receiving for her pay a percentage of my taxes and penalties. What if her own income depended on saying or doing anything to prove that I owed more? I don't think that's the way the IRS works now. But it was the way the tax system worked in Palestine in Jesus' time. Tax collectors were among the most corrupt and despised and feared people in society in those days. They were out to get not just a few, selected people here and there, but EVERYBODY. They routinely operated outside the law with no fear of punishment, changed the rules whenever they wanted to, collecting taxes from people in heartless ways. "Two men went up to the temple to pray," said Jesus. "One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector." In this story, the Pharisee -- Pharisees were a society of particularly observant Jews -- stood up and prayed (out loud, of course) "God, thanks for making me a cut above everybody else -- especially this tax collector." But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up when he whispered "God, have mercy on me". "You might not believe this," said Jesus, "but the tax collector was the one that went away justified in God's eyes." What does that mean? What is going on here? You could ask the same question about a lot of Luke's stories. In Luke's writing, the picture you get of Jesus is one big accumulation of social anarchy and reversals. He eats with no-good foreigners and hangs out with the wrong kind of women. And then he tells his critics that's what the Kingdom of God is like. Luke's Jesus is such a bundle of contradictions, that reading the whole gospel makes you wonder what's going on here? And that's the point I think. "What's going on here?" ought to be one of life's most frequently asked questions. What is going on? The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector touches on the Bible's central theme of reversal. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted. The unexpected is exactly what we ought to expect from Jesus. In Jesus' stories, very often the one we expect to be the role model is not. The one we expect -- or maybe even wish -- to be shunned is in fact embraced. Jesus is not interested in good manners or the status quo. Instead he is all about pushing people to imagine a world where the so-called rational systems of human culture get cracked open. Jesus wants us to wonder what that kind of world would be like. The moral of his stories is always that God's ways are far beyond human understanding and prediction. And that we can change our lives by picking up a few pointers from God's playbook. Two men go to the same temple for the same reason: to pray. And yet they experienced dramatically different results, because their prayers were so different. The Pharisee wanted publicity, not any new insight about God and life. The Pharisee congratulates God on creating such a fine Pharisee. He sets himself apart, not just from the tax collector, but from all kinds of other lesser folk. The two characters in this story contrast sharply. One was a good, upright citizen. The other was a corrupt swindler. But when they went home from the temple, one, the tax collector, knew that something had moved in his life. Something had stirred inside him. But the Pharisee had not changed a bit. So, what is Jesus' point here? It can't be, "OK, folks, let's get out there and be humble." That kind of self-conscious, self-righteous humility interests no one. And it comes naturally to too many people already. I think one way to look at this story -- and it's a hard story to piece together; scholars come up with polar opposites in their interpretations of this one all the time -- is as study in the ways prayer and response work together. (A problem spot for me, but save that for another time.) One thing about prayer, the parable says, is that you quite often get exactly what you ask for. In this case the Pharisee didn't ask for a closer encounter with God and consequently didn't get one. Now, remember, that the tax collector is NOT a good person. Jesus doesn't say he is. The tax collector is a sinner, dishonest and cruel. His breast-beating is not something virtuous. And Jesus doesn't say we ought to copy it. But his realistic assessment of his shortcomings, and his acknowledged need for forgiveness is something Jesus says is worth a look. The tax collector has asked himself "what's going on here". Neither the Pharisee nor the tax collector is the hero of this parable. There is no hero here. Jesus doesn't end this parable with "Go and do likewise" as he does many others. Both of the characters in the story are jerks. One knows it and the other doesn't. What's going on in this parable is that God is transforming reality, changing expectations. God is being God, loving and embracing everyone who falls short, everyone who stumbles, everyone who knows the frustrations of life. This is a parable about prayer and worship, about a typical Sunday morning service in every church. Jesus says that before any altar of God, in any service of worship, you mainly find two sorts of folks: Pharisees and tax collectors. Very few of us are one or the other ALL the time, but most of us are sort of like one or the other some of the time. There are times when we come to worship as good, righteous Pharisees who ask for nothing and get exactly that. We are so pleased with ourselves, so competent. And we go home empty because we are so full of ourselves nothing else can fit in. But there are other times, often I hope, when most of us enter this place as tax collectors: needing everything, lost, painfully aware of our need for mercy and peace. When that happens the potential is limitless. Then, you might go home with with infinitely more than you can ever ask or imagine. -- Mark Lewis Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org. Readings from the Bible for this Sunday. Links to additional sermons by Mark Lewis will be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page. © 2001 -Church of Our Saviour Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links http://www.secaucus.org/oursaviour Webmaster - DRoberts@Secaucus.org