Luke 18.9-14 28 October 2007
“THE HUNGRY AND THE SATISFIED”
Jesus speaks in today’s parable by way of contrast of two people who went up to the temple to pray. One was a pious, devout, religious person, a Pharisee. He prayed, “God, I thank thee that I am not like other people—extortioners, murder-ers, adulterers—or like the tax collector. The tax collector could hardly pray at all. He pounded upon his chest, crying, “Lord, have mercy upon me, the sinner.”
Will Willimon recasts this parable in our more familiar world. Two people came to church one Sunday morning. One, a lifetime member of the church, involved in the worthy efforts of the wider church, leader on an important board, said, “God, I thank you that my parents brought me to church, read the Bible to me and taught me my prayers as a child, saw to my confirmation, and set an example for me to volunteer with the less-fortunate downtown. I thank you that I can sing many of the hymns without opening a hymnal and have memorized some of the creeds. “
Another man slipped into the back after the service began. He sat there looking stricken. One of the Deacons who had given him his order of worship and hymnal could have sworn they heard him mutter, “God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” You see, he gambled on high-risk stocks and frittered away the nest egg his family had planned upon. His marriage had dissolved. He had neglected his job and was sifting through how he had been implicated in a scrape with the IRS. That was when he had started coming to church. He hadn’t joined anywhere yet. He knew that he needed to pray but didn’t know how. He couldn’t find the words.
These two persons went home after church. Frankly, the admired and upstanding Christian, the one everyone seemed to look to, hadn’t gotten much out of the service. Something was missing. Nothing had touched his heart. “I wonder what that’s about?” he mused. “Oh well. I guess that I’ll try again next Sunday”.
The other man stayed seated after the benediction had been spoken, the service was over, and most everyone had left the sanctuary. A tear ran down his cheek. But he didn’t know why. Was it the grief of what his life had become or the new-found joy that the God who created him would give him another chance? That is what he had heard in the morning worship, in the call to worship, the confession, the hymns, the anthem, the scripture, the message. He had hungrily lapped it up. He had heard it all and been touched by it all as he had never dreamt possible.
We should be careful with this parable. Some parables, we know, are clear ex-ample stories. Take the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are urged to act a certain way. But other parables don’t urge us to do anything. They are images, pictures, if you will, of God. They give us not so much a way to act, but insight into how God behaves, those whom God blesses, the impulses of God’s heart.
This parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is of this latter order, a window unto God. It’s not so much about avoiding acting like the Pharisee or emulating the Publican (after all, how can anyone really try to be humble? It doesn’t work. You either are or you aren’t.) No, it is more about watching what God does here.
So what did God do? As the two different persons came before God in worship, one felt close to God and the other did not. God touched one but not the other. Why is that? You ask. I have no idea, frankly. Our God is a God of deep mystery.
But I do know where to look for clues. This parable reminds me of Jesus’ fourth Beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” I make that link because the one who comes to church already filled leaves hungry and the one who comes hungry leaves filled and renewed.
In the parable, as in the Beatitude, the spiritually well-satisfied person leaves empty, but the hungry one is surprised to be filled with blessing, despite himself.
What’s that all about? All that I know is when we come to church acting as though we’ve already mastered this ‘love thy neighbor’ thing, as though we’ve exhausted the gospel, as though we have already done enough justice for the poor, as though we’re the ones who know what church is all about and appointed ourselves guardians to protect “what it really stands for”, not much will happen.
At the same time, when we come to church because our world has been shaken, because our comfort cannot touch the emptiness in someone we love, because we feel ourselves lost on a bleak landscape we’ve never walked before, because love and gospel and justice and church are suddenly words drained of content, then look out. Things are about to break loose. Massive transformation is on the horizon. God is going to broadcast in ways we will hear loud and clear. The Lord is about to get a hold of us and accomplish things we once dreamt impossible. For the swings of life have made us hungry again. And God blesses the hungry.
The tragedy of the parable is how even well-meaning religious people can grow immune to grace; its glory is how the spiritual fugitive can so acutely taste grace.
In the two figures Jesus lays the tragedy right next to the glory for vividness sake.
Think of the times you so hungered and thirsted for righteousness that you were surprised at how grace filled your frame and overflowed your soul. Maybe it was not in a searing, soul-searching season of brokenness. Maybe you were a child and grace was mediated because children are hungry in many directions at once.
I am talking about those childhood moments of intense and complete joy that for an instant left absolutely nothing to be desired. Maybe it was your first dress or suit, for Easter or for school pictures. I had transcended Lee’s hand-me downs! Maybe it was the first time you received a letter in the mail. I recall mine, my Aunt Eleanor formally addressed “Master Dale Rosenberger”. I liked that for I was master of nothing. Maybe it was the first time your mother let you mix the dough or your dad let you steer the car. I remember when I was 11 grandpa tossing me the keys to a rusty ‘58 Dodge Coronet to bring in the cows for milking. I walked a foot off the ground. Maybe it was the time you overheard your teacher tell your mom during parent-teacher conference how smart you were and what a joy you were to teach. (Of course, I had other countervailing reports before and after that one.) Maybe it was the first time you realized how much your mother loved you. For me it was as I ate my bag lunch of carrots and sandwich on whole wheat while the ‘lucky’ kids feasted on chocolate Hostess cupcakes. It dawned on me that she had given me the yucky healthy lunch because she loved me. I unfolded the ball I had wrapped my lunch into and faithfully devoured it. It’s a tragedy to be immune to grace and what great glory it is when it visits you!
Eventide Productions has taught as much on this stage in The Miracle Worker. All of the well-to-do grown-ups pretty well fixed in life had given up on the chance of grace for a six-year-old mute-blind girl named Helen. She was doomed to the shadows. But deep within Helen was buried a hunger to become something more than a wild child flailing in all directions to be mollified with a stick of candy. It took a 20-year-old teacher named Ann, barely out of her childhood almshouse and hungry to teach, whose efforts led to Helen’s moment and lifetime of grace. The play is about nothing if not hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And how grace, at first so stubbornly resistant, suddenly intruded and conquered all.
As for achieving the impossible, sometimes I look at the construction adjoining this temporary sanctuary and I wonder how we have managed to come this far. This work is more than half finished and the funding is roughly 80% subscribed.
How did that happen? It didn’t happen because we were self-satisfied. It didn’t happen because we thought we had arrived. It didn’t happen because the status quo was good enough. It happened because we saw an opportunity and it made us hungry. What started as the shoring up of our shaky foundation became the occasion for daring to dream some dreams close to God’s heart. What if we were to make room for people not already here for whom there is now no place? What if we were to think beyond feathering our own nests and create a setting for ministries that later generations will talk about even a hundred years from now?
What if we gave ourselves a place to enjoy each other’s company where we could mill about and talk without blocking someone trying to pass us in the hall? What if we renewed our library and updated our electronics in order to reach out to the homebound? What if we did these things for ourselves and had showers for the homeless? What if God took our ministry to a new level as other local churches of our ilk have had no choice but to move down to part-time ministries?
Grace has abounded because we have hungered and thirsted for righteousness.
Last Sunday we put out a word of challenge inviting the gifts to support all of the ministries that we hear God calling us to next year. The Stewardship Committee asked us to consider increasing our giving at the level of 1% of our income. With that, we would have no budget worries. At least consider increasing by a significant chunk. If you have already made a pledge, it’s not too late to take it up a tick. That’s what I plan to do with my pledge of last week. God is asking us how hungry we are. If we can find within ourselves that same hunger that God has in his heart for us, we shall oversubscribe our ministries in need of support.
As we dedicate our faith promises we celebrate that God has fully prospered us for the challenges before us. Blessed are you who hunger and thirst, for you shall be filled. May we become more than conquerors. And may grace abound. Amen.
Wondrous God, in you our world rejoices. We bless you for the world you have made: for mighty, moody oceans; for mothering hills that suckle flocks and flowers at their green breasts; for broad, strong plains which praise you with harvests of grains; for plunging waterfalls, surging rivers, lapping lakes, sprightly streams, all bless you, God, and so do we, with hearts and hands and voices.
For the miracle of life, for the bounty of life on the
But there is one more grace we must have from your hand: Open the gates of our hearts that your countless gifts of love may flow through us, blessing others on their way. Too often we receive your kindness and abundance, only to bottle it up inside. Make us channels of your goodness, rather than bottlenecks where blessings get stuck. By your wise guiding, teach us to share so that all people may know your care. In the name of your very best gift, Jesus Christ our Lord.
We pray remembering cousin of Sunny Davidson, Peg Ward, in her health concerns; we pray for Marie Wahlberg hospitalized at Cape Cod hospital, we continue to pray for the recoveries of Don Parker and Lo Smith and others who have faced surgery, we pray for those who have lost property or loved ones in the California wildfires, we pray with hearts rejoicing for Connie’s new healthy boy and girl twins at four pounds plus change. Spare them any complications….
