If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all. Proper 25C

+Joann and I had a seminary professor who,after a particularly challenging piece of scripture was read, often said: “This reading convicts me.” It was a curious turn of phrase and I always wondered what he really meant by it. But this morning? This morning I know exactly what he meant... for this morning the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector  convicts me. It convicts me because  just like the Pharisee, I have prayed the prayer of “Thank God it’s them and not me.” It convicts me because of how many times I’ve  encountered someone and instead of responding in love, I’ve responded in fear.. Someone who’s mentally ill or intoxicated or in some sort of distress.  How many times have I avoided these people and rationalized my actions by thinking, “well I give money to charities that care for people like them, I’m a good person——haven’t  I done enough?” Truth be told, while I feel ashamed about this behavior, I can easily cover it with false righteousness.
It convicts me because I’m reminded that my actions are not that of a humble, God loving, God trusting person, but rather the actions of an uptight, rigid, going to always play by the rules of society—ignoring the cost-- person.
This reading convicts me because it makes me way too much like the Pharisee and not nearly enough like the tax collector.
Did you notice how the Pharisee isn’t so much praying to God as he is lecturing? But in his efforts to point out how different---how much better—he is than the tax collector he forgets (or more likely he never knew) that it isn’t an either or proposition. He forgets that we are indeed our brother’s and sister’s keeper. If one of us has fallen, we’ve all fallen. If one of us is hungry, we’re all hungry, if one of us is abused, we’re all abused. If one of us is lost than none of us is truly found. He forgets that the way of Jesus is not the way of us against them it’s the way of and for us all.
If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all.
        At first glance, the Pharisee seems to be the insider in this story, the tax collector the outcast. But alas, in the world of Jesus, it’s the Pharisee who is on the outside, it’s the Pharisee who’s lost, it’s the Pharisee who needs redemption.
Now that’s not to say that the tax collector is Mr. Good Neighbor. Remember, he’s an agent for the occupying force of the day, the Roman Empire. He’s no prize.
Yet he, at the end of parable, goes away justified: forgiven, healed and renewed. The pharisee, on the other hand…well he has some lessons to. learn…
He needs to learn about community.
He needs to learn that the temple he worked so diligently to protect by following every single rule of who was allowed in and who should be kept out amounted to nothing without love of neighbor.
Without its community.
Any community of faith more concerned with who is in and who is out misses the entire point.
All that we are and all that we have is through God’s abundant and indescribable mercy and grace.
The tax collector “got it.” The Pharisee did not.
We’re all in this together. If the tax collector is standing outside the temple gates while we’re safely ensconced inside, then our work isn’t finished.
Until every single person who wants to be in the loving embrace of God is safely in that embrace, than none of us are.
We’re all in this together.
If our sister or brother is ill, outcast, lost or lonely than we are.
We’re all in this together.
And when I say all, I mean all:
Everyone.Those who we like and those who we don’t, Those who worship like us and those who don’t. Those who love like we do, and those who don’t. Those who vote like us and those who don’t. Those with whom we are comfortable and those with whom we are not.
Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves means if our neighbor isn’t ok, then we aren’t ok.
 It’s all about community...and to be a true beloved community of God we must, as we prayed in this morning’s collect, exercise the gifts of faith, hope, and charity.
Faith in a God who loves everyone everywhere, always and forever.
Hope in a world that will look more and more like God’s dream for it rather than the nightmare it so often appears to be.
And charity for those who are not as fortunate as we are.
For when we act for all instead of for only us, we are exalted,  justified, and saved.
 Not for who we are or who we aren’t, but for what we do and for whom we do it.
May we all be convicted enough by this morning’s reading to leave here prepared to share all that we have with all whom we encounter, each and every day.
For if we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all.
Amen.

Recognizing the God who is Written on our Hearts,—Proper 24 Yr C

+I’m a big fan of the author JD Salinger—-in his novel Franny and Zooey, college student Franny has decided to follow St Paul’s instruction to “pray without ceasing.” Unfortunately, Franny takes this practice on without guidance or support and her efforts soon lead to a mental breakdown and as the book begins she’s left college, and gone home to recover. After significant back and forth conversation, Zooey, Franny’s brother exclaims, “we don’t need gimmicks to attract God, we’re all carrying God deep with in us where we’re just too stubborn or too distracted, to look.” 

God is deep within us. Deep. Within. Us.  

And by practicing our faith—- by literally ingesting it through the sacred act of Holy Eucharist—-we join forces with God, living this faith out, fulfilling the dream God has always held for us. 

We are to ingest faith—as so beautifully played out in the Holy Eucharist--to have it become completely in us and of us. 

It really is a give and take proposition, God’s in us and we’re in God. And together we join in the most holy of all dances. 

But, because we are who we are, we spend a whole lot of time looking for God, out here when, as Zooey tells Franny, God is already in here. Totally, completely, always.

      This has been God’s promise to us for all time. In today’s reading from Jeremiah---Gos says, “I will be their God and they will be my people. I will write the law on their hearts.” Can’t get much clearer than that. God wants us so much that God has been written on our hearts---suggesting that, if we really listen to our heart’s desire, if we pay attention to what’s deep within us, we’ll find God. Because God is in us and we are in God.

Just like Zooey says.

Franny’s efforts to get closer to God aren’t wrong---praying without ceasing is bound to increase our awareness of the God within us---but it doesn’t bring God any closer, because God is already close.

 It’s funny, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to get closer to God, assuming that God is some elusive force outside of us when God is already within us,  just waiting for us to notice.

       In the parable of the persistent widow, a widow ---remember in Jesus’ time there was no lower socio economic status than that of a widow-----is seeking justice against an unnamed adversary. Justice, in this case, can only be granted by the local judge--who was, by all accounts, an unpleasant man who had no fear or love of God and no respect or love of people. A scoundrel of a sort, but the local magistrate nonetheless. The widow had no choice but to pursue justice through him. And so she does.....never quitting, never wavering, never shrinking away. 

The point Jesus makes is this: if such a jerk like the judge would listen to the persistent pleadings of the widow-- one of the most dismissed and ignored members of society in Jesus’ day—then imagine how, if we are as persistent in our own pleadings as she, a just and loving God will respond to us.

It’s easy to consider us the widow and God the judge, isn’t it?

 But, here’s the thing...are we always the widow in this story? Is God always the judge?

 I don’t think so.

Sometimes we’re the widow: fervently, and persistently seeking God. But then there are other times—probably more than I care to admit—-when we’re the unjust judge, and God is the widow. Times when we ignore the tenacious pleadings of a loving God who just wants to be noticed. A God who wants to be found. A God who wants to be heard.

Jesus sums it up at the end of Gospel when he asks---“when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”---will he find us engaged in a dance with God?

Will he find us seeking God as eagerly as God seeks us?

This is what Franny was trying to do with her attempts at unceasing prayer. She thinks if she continually prays, God will appear from some far away place.

But what Franny forgot, what we all forget , is that God doesn’t need to be coaxed out of hiding—for God is hiding in plain sight, waiting for us. Longing for us to seek out the divine as earnestly and as urgently as the widow seeks out the judge because then—when we have sought God out so fervently, so tenaciously so deliberately and so persistently---we will discover the secret Zooey knows: that God is deep within us, residing on our very hearts where we have been  a little too stubborn, a little too timid, and a  little too dense to look.

My friends, in this day and age, when so many people are feeling lost, when so much of the world seems to have gone mad, may we all look deep within us and find the God who is waiting for us, longing for us, hiding in plain sight. 

Amen.

23C His is a song of the saved, not simply a refrain of the healed.

+Nine were healed. One was saved. To me, that’s the down ‘n dirty take away from today’s Gospel about the healing of the ten people with leprosy.
An important thing to consider in the gospels is context and in today’s reading, Luke is clear about the context of just where this story takes place. Jesus and his friends were in a cultural no man’s land---they weren’t in Galilee where they “belonged,” and they weren’t in Samaria where they most certainly DID Not.  They were in a border region. The Greek word translated here actually means “the middle region” They were traveling in the middle area between Samaria and Galilee. They were neither here nor there. They were betwixt and between.
They were, in effect, no where that mattered….
And here they are approached. Accosted, pursued, sought out by a group of ten people, ten people who found one another after being cast out from their families, their homes, their villages.  Pushed out, denied, forgotten, shunned. They were united through their exclusion.
They were no longer anyone. And they were wandering in an area best described as no where.
Jesus is where we usually find Him —on the border between clean and unclean, safe and unsafe, ok and not ok.
Luke gives us these details for a reason. He’s making sure we know that this story of healing didn’t take place in the temple. It took place out there, beyond the border of the safe, beyond the border of the comfortable. That’s important….being out there, is what Luke is trying to get across.
     Now, let’s look at the actual healing part of this Gospel. It’s an interesting course of events—the ten had heard about this itinerant preacher and healer and what in the world did they have to lose by trying to get his help? NOTHING. So they holler at him as he approaches the nearby village. This isn’t a quiet meet and greet on the road into town. This is a bit of a dust up.
     I have an image of Jesus and his friends approaching the village and upon hearing the shouts of the ten, Jesus looking over his shoulder and saying, in what I hear as a somewhat dismissive tone: All right, GO, get out of here, show yourselves to the priests. As if to imply, “fine, I’ll take care of you, now get out of my way, I’ve got other things to do.”
 Lots of commentators keep Jesus really squeaky clean during these stories. That just doesn’t jibe with who I think Jesus of Nazareth was—he hung out in notoriously bad places with people of questionable character---he was a rabble rouser, an instigator and a pain in the patoot to a whole host of people. He was sweaty and smelly and dirty. He could be rude and outlandish. He could be cranky and annoying. After all, he was HUMAN.  He had good days and bad. So what makes us think that he kindly and gently said, in an angelic voice, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Perhaps he was brusque. Perhaps he was annoyed and ticked off and said   “Go show yourselves to the priests” [say with annoyance] and then went on his way.
I imagine the scene playing out like that rather than a holier than thou preacher gently and lovingly giving them direction.
BUT —-and here’s the kicker—even when annoyed and rushed and hot and bothered, Jesus can’t help but feel compassion. He can’t help but HEAL them, even if he doesn’t take the time to stop and speak with them. He can’t help, amidst all the human-ness of his being, to also be Divine. That’s the beauty of our Savior. For he at all times and in all places, is BOTH.
    And so, he gives his directive and the ten head toward the synagogue to see the priests. (No doubt hoping that this Jesus knew what he was talking about.) And as they turn to head to the synagogue they’re miraculously, thoroughly and utterly healed... It’s a miracle, they have been healed.
Noticing this barely slows nine of them down. Who can blame them? They’re anxious to do exactly what they’ve been told---after all if that crazy preacher could heal them with just a word, he could also un-heal them if they don’t follow his instructions.  They’re not the bad guys in this story—they did as they were told.
But then there’s the one….a Samaritan nonetheless… a foreigner to beat all foreigners-- a hated outsider who stops, and turns goes to Jesus, falling at his feet and praising God for this gift of health.
This isn’t just a simple thank you. It isn’t just rejoicing at being relieved of a particular ailment. No this one man, upon receiving the gift of healing, turned his whole life, his whole mind, his whole heart and his whole soul over to God. His behavior is a shout of “Hosanna in the Highest, you are my God and I am your child.”
His is a song of the saved, not simply a refrain of the healed.
Have we been healed, or have we been saved?
To be healed is a wondrous thing, worthy of our gratitude.
But to be saved is to go out into the world, seeking and serving Christ in all whom we encounter. No exceptions, no yes buts, no I can’t. It’s the challenge presented to us by Jesus in today’s parable---be grateful for our healing, AND be energized, renewed and inspired by our salvation.
Go out into the world, make a difference. Stand up and stand out as one who is Healed and Saved. For that’s what we are called to do and to be. Thanks be to God.