October 23, 2016

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The Rev. J.D. McQueen, II - All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Diego, CA

Here’s a joke you may have heard:

v A very distinguished gentleman walks into a beautiful church for Mass.

v Before entering his pew, he gazes at the crucifix above the high altar and says, “Before thee, Lord Jesus, I am nothing,” and kneels down to pray.

A couple minutes later, another well-dressed and very dignified gentleman enters.

v Pausing at his pew, he also raises his eyes to the crucifix and says, “Before thee, Lord Jesus, I am nothing,”

v Then he also kneels, not far from the first man who gives him a warm smile and nods approvingly.

After a few minutes, the pious quiet is broken when a bleary-eyed, very disheveled man, clearly hungover and still stinking from the night before, loudly galumphs in.

v Never looking up from the floor, he flops down in a seat across from the first two men, puts his head in his hands, and says, “Lord, I’m nothin’.”

Very much annoyed, the first gentleman leaned over to the second and said,

v “Well, look who thinks he’s nothing.”

v Clearly someone hasn’t quite grasped the point, and that’s what Jesus is showing us in his parable.

Heard the gospels so many times that we mix this up, but have to remember, the tax collector really is a bad guy;

v Basically a criminal and a traitor, which is why it made the Pharisees so mad that Jesus seemed to spend all his time with them and other notorious sinners.

v Pharisees, on the other hand, really were the good guys – not all scheming, nefarious; religious elite leading renewal of popular Jewish piety and devotion.

But a zeal for piety and devotion can easily become a trap, like this Pharisee, whose every movement screams, “Look at me, I’m the good guy.”

v He comes in like he owns the place, strides up to the front, standing confidently before God, and then (probably loud enough for everyone to hear) lists all the people that are beneath him and ticks off the reasons why.

v But that’s not real prayer, and Jesus makes it clear that he’s not connecting with God when he says that the Pharisee “stood and prayed thus with himself”

When we truly connect to God, we see how unworthy we are, but also how much greater God’s love and mercy is than our unworthiness.

v And that’s exactly the point – the law, liturgy, our prayer – it’s all aimed at helping us grasp, internalize, and live into this reality.

v When we get it, the result is not that we think less of ourselves, but that we think of ourselves less.

v Then, as we’re freed from our selfishness, we’re better able to love God and reveal him to the world by loving our neighbor as he does.

But if we’re only connecting to ourselves, the opposite happens.

v We’ll begin to see our piety and devotion, our sacrifices, even our service to others, as the signs of our own goodness.

v And the more we notice what we do, the more we’ll notice what others don’t do.

Just like so many things, it’s hard to judge the quality of our prayer until we see how well it serves its purpose.

v So if the point of prayer (and all our religious activities) is to make us humble before God and free us to love him and our neighbor – we need to ask some hard questions about how we’re doing.

First, when was the last time you felt truly humbled, maybe even a little frightened, in the presence of the Lord?

v God is Love and Mercy, and also Truth and Justice, so when we sin, and we all do, he is offended and our relationship is impaired.

v Now I don’t want you to doubt God’s love for you or agonize over your salvation, but we have to take our sin seriously, seriously enough to do something about it.

v We can’t say that we love someone if their pain doesn’t move us to action; so even though God will never stop loving us, we have to take care that we don’t let our selfish indifference unravel the relationship.

Now, because we can easily deceive ourselves when it comes to loving God, the clearest test is how we’ve treated what’s precious to him: our neighbors.

v Once I’ve learned how to name my own sins, how quick am I to name someone else’s?

v Do I reveal the universal love of the Father? Or do I play favorites and take pleasure in criticizing others?

v When people let me down or hurt me, do I suffer like Jesus, praying for others from the cross? Or am I immediately harsh, impatient, or vindictive?

St. Francis de Sales warns of the grave dangers of “virtues meditated on, but not practiced” and says that when we’re fervent in prayer, but not in loving our neighbor, the good feelings are nothing but “spiritual mushrooms.”

v I can say from much, much personal experience that this is absolutely true –

v and so I can’t encourage you enough to take even a short bit of time every day to consider how God has loved you and how you’ve responded.

If you do that day after day, with an honest and humble heart, I can promise you two things:

1. At times, you’ll be unsettled by how quickly you can go from praising God to cutting down your neighbor.

v And in those moments you’ll be quick to offer with genuine sorrow the prayer of the tax collector, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”

2. But also, more and more, you’ll see the proof that you’ve been connecting with God in how you interact with your neighbor.

v And in those moments you’ll be quick to offer the same prayer for God to be merciful, thankful to be reminded that he is.