This Confirms It - Let's Reform

John 8:31-36

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Reformation Sunday!!!

I do Confirmation on this Sunday. 

Unlike some of you, I don’t have the kids preach the sermon at their Confirmation service.

I do this because:

1. I’m afraid of what they’d say, and how it would reflect on the fact that their Confirmation instruction was supbar.

2. I don’t want to give up the center stage attention.

3. I don’t want to have to sit through whatever lame thing they’d prepare.

4. All of the above.

Here’s some stuff, based off what I blogged a couple 3 years ago for this text.

Sometimes I will read stuff by this or that guy (almost always a guy) and he will be saying something about how “the Church NEEDS to go through another reformation!”

There are often 2 things that attend that call for reformation

1. They have a specific idea of exactly how that reformation needs to take place - and the attendant wrong-ness of the Church as is.

2. They irritate the crap out of me.

I suspect that - as often as not - it is the certitude (and often self righteousness) that goes with this that annoys me.

But is there not also a part of me that wants to respond...

“We are heirs of Martin Luther! Heirs of THE Reformation! Reformation is our middle name. I don’t need a new anything, (unless it is a new pair of shoes)”

or some variation.

I’m not sure what any of that means but there ya go

One more thing. Why do a good many of the folks who talk about Christian freedom give me the willies? (not to use anyone's name in vain!)
Sort of interesting, considering our parable for last week, isn't it?

Trapped Like Mice - Rats

Luke 18:9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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 my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

There are no two ways about it. 

This parable is a trap!

A trap I tell you. 

That starts with T and rhymes with C and . . . 

(time to stop this dumb line of - - - whatever. crap?)

This parable clearly is a trap. 

I think of the line by Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring, which, if I recall correctly, is a part of his farewell speech before he disappears from the Shire:

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you, half as well as you deserve.

It takes a while for the people to realize that this “toast” might well be an insult.

I wonder at this parable. 

Yes, it is a trap. 

I liked the work that thehardestquestion.org guy did with that aspect of it. . . 

He calls it the Parable Trap, and he asks this as the hardest question

“Is the Pharisee’s self-justification built on the Law or his comparison to others?”

yup.

Many take this text and reflect on humility. 

Capon does a nice job in his sermon, and he says, it is not about humility, rather, the Pharisee making the error of trusting in his own abilities and not trusting in God alone.

yup

All this is so. 

Yet, I have found a couple folks who address what Luke might be suggesting is central - more than others do. And that is the introductory line: Jesus  

told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:

- And here I thought he told it so we would be more humble. 

I wonder if Luke’s introducing of the parable in this way doesn’t “double down” on the trap thing.

It seems, that in one way or another, it is possible to take a couple different wrong turns in this maze of a text.

For instance, in a pretty well done piece on this text, at goodpreacher.com, Joerg Rieger (I think - its not clear who the author is) starts by saying that “At first sight, the theological meaning of this story seems clear: do not boast about your accomplishments, admit that nobody is perfect and everything will be fine.”

But then, he says, we might ask what it might mean to confess your sin. . . and from there he goes to the connection between righteousness, justification and justice. And then he concludes that “In the end, both Pharisee and tax collector need to develop a more robust understanding of their sinfulness in order join God’s alternative justice.”

yup

But - rather than being moved to take note of the tax collector in his humanness. Rather than being moved to not hold others in contempt, we’ve gone and tried to solve all the problems of world hunger, and begun on the path to alternative forms of energy production.

I digress.

But I think that it may well be easy to follow interpretive paths that cause us to digress. . . cause us to speak of our humility - our righteousness - our justification - and to not address our desire to hold others in contempt. I suspect that Rathbun’s hardest question gets at this some. .  .

Loader - in his Australian way of spelling, says of the Pharisee, that the Pharisee, in his righteousness, and in his differentiating himself over and against the tax collector . . . 

Love of God has become separated from love of neighbour. . .

he goes on to say

The answer is not to pretend the toll collector has done no wrong, but to accept our common humanity & to know that our real value is in loving & accepting ourselves as God loves us & not upping our value by downing others. The toll collector is also a person of worth. We can forget trying to earn credit points w/ God & establishing our worth on a relative scale. When we do so we will have so much more time & space & energy for compassion, both receiving & giving it. ‘Pharisees’ need it - as much as toll collectors.

Roberta Bondi has a nice piece titled: Sin of Scorn says:

 we too live in a world of scorching, escalating, judgmental scorn - our own & others’ - that is grinding us all down to the bone. As Christians, how can we ever escape it? Perhaps we need not so much to quit bragging about our goodness & admit that we are sinners, as to give up the whole question of whether any of us are sinners. (I suspect that if I can acknowledge & learn to thank God when I am able to do something good, I will not have to demonstrate my worth to myself by despising those whose lives look very different from mine.)

"There is no other sin than that of being scornful," one of the desert Abbas used to say. As Dorotheos  [some desert Father] suggests, allowing ourselves to experience gratitude to God for the good we can do may truly provide some healing for our scornful souls.

Let me conclude by saying that it is true I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you, half as well as you deserve.

Heal Me - - - or Go Twins!!!!!

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

I need healing

I need it badly

and why is that?

because I am a fan of the Twins

and the Twins are playing the effing Yankees.

And they have lost the first game of this five game playoff

And this inspires me to want to write lament psalms, 

and then perhaps work on some imprecatory psalms as well

and then personally recite those imprecatory psalms to the corpse of G. Steinbrenner. 

I’d rather the Twins lost to Brigham Young Junior College.

I’d rather they lost to the Duke University basketball team and coach K.  (that might be overstating it. . . )

When the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl, Pay No Toll showed a measure of resignation that was alarming. 

“They’ll find a way to lose this one too;” was his lament.

Preparing for the worst, he lowered his expectations.

Then they won. 

Which turned out to be small consolation. . . 

I need healing. . . 

I have had some pastoral conversations with some people in the last few days that cause me to wonder at how I could ever become so consumed with the little inconveniences that I face.

THEY NEED HEALING. I'd just like this little diversion to go my way.

Odd,  I truly am consumed with angst about the Twins.

I truly am caught up with an emotion towards a gol darn baseball club from some large city to the East of me.

I need healing.

This world needs healing.

If we were to receive it, would we know enough to be grateful? 

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Luke 17:5–10

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "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. Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Had I made an entry last week - this is what I would have titled it: Stupid is as stupid does.

Which I don't understand, but it leads to this.

In a way, can't we say that Faith is as faith does... ?

Not in a "works righteousness" sort of way of course.

But I am almost willing to walk this tight rope on this text

One also must include verse 4

“if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

This story compels us to take note, that God's community of faith is called to reach out with God's love. If we are not a community of forgiveness and grace, I wonder at how we can accomplish that.