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"Help me, help me, help me!"
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. George D. Smith
Jeremiah 14:1-10, 19-22
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Luke 18: 9-14
Two men went up to the Temple to pray. Where is the punch line?
This sounds to me like the beginning of a joke and reminds me
of one that I heard just recently. Three men died and found
themselves at the pearly gates, where Saint Peter was waiting
for them. The first man, an Episcopal Bishop, stepped forward.
Peter said to him, “you must meet with God before being
allowed to enter heaven. Go into that small house over there
where God is waiting for you. The Bishop did as Peter told him.
He entered the house, shutting the door after him. After a few
minutes, the Bishop emerged, walking out into the greater expanse
of heaven, his hand slapping his forehead, saying, “What
was I thinking?!” The next man, a Southern Baptist, stepped
forward, and as with the Bishop, St. Peter directed him over
to the small house. Again after a few minutes, he emerged, with
his hands on his head, saying, “What was I thinking?!”
The last man, a pastor of a prosperity Gospel mega-church, stepped
forward. As with the others, he was sent into the small house
to meet God face to face. After several minutes, the door swung
open and God emerged from the house, with his hands grasping
his head, saying, “What was I thinking?!”
Today’s parable about the two men who go up to the Temple
to pray is no joke. I think it’s actually a trap, like
an old-fashioned mouse trap, the kind with a spring-loaded bar
and trip baited with a large chunk of aromatic Limburger cheese.
It’s placement in the Gospel reminds me of people who
put out mouse traps that are unset but baited for a few days
so that the mice lose their caution around them.
Unfortunately, many, many unsuspecting people have walked
right into the trap of this parable, tempted by an easy satisfaction
only to be struck on the head with the iron of Gospel irony.
There are two men who go up to the Temple to pray. One is a
Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee prays to God,
saying “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 of my income.”
The other man, the tax collector, beats his breast and says,
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Preachers, teachers
and just about everyone wants the cheese – the tasty easy
answer that sits within reach. The Pharisee is bad – in
any number of ways – arrogant, self-congratulatory, snobby,
ostentatious, ironic in his self-justification before God. The
tax collector is the good guy. He is a sinner who knows it,
and asks for God’s mercy. Simple enough. The tax collector
is justified, the Pharisee not, and the message clear for all:
be like the tax collector. Know that you are a sinner, repent,
and by the way, don’t forget to add, “God, I thank
you that I am not like the Pharisee!” Snap! Slam! The
mouse trap is sprung and the prey is trapped, exposed and immobilized.
The Gospel is like this, filled with mouse traps. In the end,
we will stand before God, covered in traps, from head to toe,
and many will see their condition as it really is for the first
time.
Today’s parable serves to remind us to be wary of the
black and white, the quick answer, the easy answer – whether
handed to us by someone else or derived on our own. Like the
mouse who has survived traps, we must approach the parable carefully,
with caution, curiosity and care – because the reward
is obtainable, and we are hungry for it.
The first thing to notice about the parable is that it centers
around two characters. This is a device in Scripture that is
repeated over and over again. Just last Sunday we heard about
the judge and the widow. And before that, there was the parable
of the dutiful son and his brother, the one who returns home
after squandering his inheritance. There are the stories about
Martha and Mary, the wheat and the tares, the woman and the
coin, the shepherd and the lost sheep, not to mention Adam and
Eve, Cain and Abel, and David and Goliath. In all of these stories,
each character reveals something about the other, and each identity
is impossible without the other. It is simplistic and categorically
wrong to insist that one is good and the other bad. Through
the interplay of both characters, a greater truth is revealed.
Who are these two people in today’s Gospel story –
the Pharisee and the tax collector? We must look beyond the
gauze that has built up over the years of Christian anti-Semitism.
The Pharisee is no windbag of religious hypocrisy, but in fact
the model of religious faithfulness. He represents a profound
commitment to following the laws of the Torah and to God. He
tithes, fasts and prays without asking anything for himself
and is exactly the kind of person any parish or congregation
would be happy to have as a member or as their leader, or as
their bishop. One of our candidates for bishop of Chicago has
been specific in saying that the discipline of tithing has been
extremely important to his spiritual development. The Pharisee
stands at a place of prominence at the Temple mount, as is expected
of him. He has a home, and likely a wife and children who wait
for him. What the world sees of the Pharisee could be compared
to any contemporary figure of religious commitment – Billy
Graham, Mother Teresa, the Dali Lama.
The tax collector is also a man – and like the Pharisee,
a Jew. As a tax collector, he is the modern equivalent for us
to a combination of Jehovah witness, IRS agent and IPASS device
– a person who aggressively collects taxes and fees, going
door to door and stopping you for 80 cents at every exit on
the tollway. He likes Fidel Castro, pays no income tax and sends
contributions to Osama Bin Laden. The tax collector is a turncoat
– he skims off a portion of the tax revenue for himself
and sends the rest to the Roman bureaucracy, which pays for
the invading army and instruments of oppression which control
and suppress the people. How he lives with himself, we don’t
know. He has a home, with a wife, children and extended family,
all who depend on him for food and shelter. We also know that
he has asked God for mercy. The power of the parable is that
it takes someone who is despised and hated by nearly everyone,
and in the time it takes to read two sentences, has us on his
side, raising him up as a model of faithfulness, goodness and
authenticity. We want to walk in his shoes and emulate his example
as he descends the stairs of the Temple.
The trap of the parable is that if we over-identify with the
tax collector, we commit the same sin of the Pharisee, who says,
“God, I thank you that I am not like that tax collector”
and instead say, “God, I thank you that I am not like
the Pharisee.” To avoid the trap is to learn from both
of them, hold their relationship in tension and look for a deeper
meaning. The Pharisee on the one hand shows us the virtues of
discipline – of body, mind and spirit. He fasts twice
a week – abstaining from both food and water. He gives
generously, tithing on his income from all sources– exceeding
the Biblical mandate. He prays. The tax collector also shows
us the virtue of self-examination, and at a basic level, the
courage to seek God out of the depth of an entire life that
seems to go against God. The tax collector is aware of his sin
precisely because of the presence and example of the Pharisee.
And whether the Pharisee is aware of it or not, we are made
aware that even the most God-centered life can begin to rot
at its core, which is revealed in association with the tax collector.
If you will, the tax collector is the x-ray of the Pharisee’s
heart – and there is disease.
If the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is a
compelling testimony to the need that we have for each other
as a check and balance, it is also about the richness that each
contributes. For example, each man offers pieces of prayer,
which when combined, offer something greater. Each begins with
an address to “God.” The Pharisee offers a prayer
of thanksgiving – a form of Eucharist. The tax collector
prays for mercy. Together, their joint prayer is for thanksgiving
and mercy. Author, recovering alcoholic, unwed mother and unapologetic
Christian, Anne Lamott, has said that there really are just
two prayers: Help me, help me, help me, and thank you, thank
you, thank you. Other words and other prayers are only commentary.
Beyond the content of the prayers of the parable is the very
act of praying to God that we witness. As we imagine the Pharisee
and tax collector at the Temple, there we are, standing somewhere
between the two. What is our prayer to God? What are things
that you desire to tell God about yourself, your struggles,
your needs and your deepest desires? What are the things that
separate you from God and your neighbor? In front of God, what
do we say? We must follow their example, that yes, it is good
and necessary to pray, and to present ourselves to God.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector offers three
essential and interconnected lessons. First, our sacred Scriptures
are never black and white. This is the power of holiness, and
those who would treat them with certainty and mastery will be
caught in their surprising depth, challenge and ultimate power
to trap us in our own selfishness and futile attempt to control
God and deny our limits. Second, no one can ever say to another,
“I have no need of you” without denying themselves
and without wishing for their own destruction. We are always,
always diminished without the other, in particular those people
who are the most difficult and challenging to us. There is always
something in that person who reveals a weakness or blindness
in us. Reinhold Niebuhr, the influential 20th century theologian
and so-called Christian Realist captures the essence of this
when he wrote, “Nothing we do, however virtuous, could
be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love.”
Third, like the Pharisee and the tax collector, we stand in
front of God, not just on the steps of the Temple, but in every
moment and in every place of our lives. Like the widow who goes
to the judge day after day, we must be persistent in prayer.
We must pray continuously, and what can we say, but thank you,
thank you thank you, and help me, help me, help me?
Amen.
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