Proper25 C + Restore + 10.23.22

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14)

In the book of Joel we heard today:

“I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”

And I have always loved that sense of restoration. God will be with us and will restore all things for our good. This was a hope I held onto during the height of the pandemic. That even though things were being taken away, that all would be restored in time. One of the things I felt strongly was the sense of social isolation and how our sense of community would be better restored to us. Even as we tried to build a digital or online sense of community, we looked for the time when we would feel that all was restored to us. And in many ways that is very much the case. We have experienced that lately, that we are restored to fellowship with each other.

Sadly, restoration to being around other humans sometimes brings out the worst in us, too. Our tendency to compare ourselves in unfavorable ways and to build a sense of worth by tearing others down. This is what we hear an example of in the passage today from the Gospel of Luke:

"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!'”

Here, continuing on the theme of last week’s passage on prayer, the men’s prayers are compared. Which is focused on building up the self against others? And which edifies the self by focusing on a humble relationship with God? Once again, Jesus turns our expectations on their heads as the Pharisee, a devout religious person, is seen to be less faithful in this regard than the tax collector, someone who in that day and age was regarded as suspect because they were the middle man out to collect the emperor’s take and a bit for themselves.

Jesus is always about mixing up our assumptions. I love this story that I read this week that illustrates something similar. It is from Idries Shah’s, “The Wisdom of the Idiots” a collection of Sufi Tales:

There was once a dervish devotee who believed that it was his task to reproach those who did evil things and to enjoin upon them spiritual thoughts, so that they might find the right path. [The dervish singled out a compulsive gambler, and each day the dervish placed a stone near the entrance of the house, to remind the gambler of his sin. The devotee enjoyed the pleasure of his 'Godliness' in recording the sins of his neighbor. This went on for twenty years.] Each day the gambler thought, 'Would that I understand goodness! How that saintly man works for my redemption! Would that I could repent, let alone become like him, for he is sure of a place among the elect when the time of requital arrives!' And so it happened that, through a natural catastrophe, both men died at the same time. An angel came to take the soul of the gambler, and said to him gently, 'You are to come with me to paradise.' [The gambler protested, saying that the angel must have mixed up his instructions, for he learned that the devotee is destined for roasting on the fiery pit in hell.] 'Not so,' said the angel, 'as I shall explain to you. It is thuswise: the devotee has been indulging himself for twenty years with feelings of superiority and merit. Now it is his turn to redress the balance. He really put those stones on that pile for himself, not for you. … You are to be rewarded because, every time you passed the dervish, you thought first of goodness and secondly of the dervish. It is goodness, not man, which is rewarding you for your fidelity.'[1] Isn’t this just the way? When we focus on how to better ourselves and serve others, even if we live imperfect lives, we are on the holy path. But when we get focused on correction of others or on making ourselves feel better in comparison with others, we lose our way. A colleague asked me this week- is there such a thing as bad prayer? Because sometimes we say that the Pharisee’s prayer is bad and the tax collector’s is good. Another colleague rightly asked if the Pharisee’s prayer could really be seen as prayer, as it was more about self-praise than an actual connection to God. But we agreed that God uses all prayer for good. So that being said, if you find yourself praying in such a way that you are comparing and judging others, perhaps don’t say it was bad prayer. But do look for an opportunity to come back to God and say the simple words: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Not for self-abasement but in order to reconnect with the humility which will lead us back to right relationship with God. Because all of this is only in part about our relationship with God. It is also about our relationship with each other. For as Joel B. Green says about this portion of Luke: “The basic question is this: Who recognizes God as the gracious benefactor? Who has learned the fundamental lesson Jesus has been developing throughout the Jerusalem journey-namely, that the ‘fatherhood of God’ is characterized by generosity, compassion, care and faithful activity on behalf of God’s children?”[2]    If these things characterize God’s fatherhood or I would say sense of kinship, then they must be emulated by God’s children. Let us strive to model that compassion and also identify true faith around us not by those who proclaim themselves as the most righteous, but by those the most willing to be humble and to serve the people of God. When we see that in play, then we will know that all that the locust has consumed will indeed be restored, as we will be restored in community. Amen.

 

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[1] With thanks to the Rev. Suzanne Guthrie, edgeofenclosure.org/proper25c.html.

[2] Joel B. Green, “Notes on Luke 18:9-27” NISB (Abingdon: 2003), 1888.