38 Who's the Good Guy?

"WHO'S THE GOOD GUY?!"


If I were to choose a hymn to go with the Scripture today - Luke
18:9-14. in which the hated tax collector is shown mercy and the self
righteousness religious leader is sent away without any, I would choose
Amazing Grace.
Growing up as we do in a tit for tat world, where the good should
be rewarded and the bad should be condemned, we just don't understand
the way God does things. God saves those we would damn, and sets
free those we would capture. God restores those whom we might leave
broken. While we set about to be righteous and look down upon those
who have not climbed to our heights, God is busy blessing the unrighteous,
and calling our self righteousness into question. God's Grace IS amazing
and downright disgusting - depending upon where we placed
ourselves in the Scripture. God's Mercy is unfathomable except
perhaps to those who need it most.
The wretched tax collector who collected from his fellow Jews
what taxes Rome required and a lot more that he could get away with to
keep for himself, finally had his guilt catch up with him, confessed that he
was a wretched sinner - in contrast to a former member of our church
who would not come to church if we sang Amazing Grace. "I am
NOT a wretch!" He would vehemently declare - and he wasn't, he was
a very good guy, but his name did rhyme with Warlock - which I believe is
a male witch! (I threw that in, just so you'd know how seasonally relevant
I am!) "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a
WRETCH like me!"
God seems a little prejudiced toward the sinner if the truth be
told! In so many of the parables, the supposed "bad guy" is the good guy
and the bad guy - the good - thus the sermon title, WHO'S THE GOOD
GUY?!
Today's Scripture Lesson from the Lectionary usually results in us
looking down our noses (we Christians are VERY good at that!) - looking
down our noses at the self-righteous Pharisee which puts us in the exact
category we seek to disavow! Oh, ow!
Is it possible only to be deemed "good" by being bad? Are we
missing a real opportunity here to live it up? What IS going on with this
Scripture?
We're not the only ones to wonder. The early disciples who first
heard the words couldn't believe what they were hearing. For them, it is
utterly unseemly, almost laughable to think someone who does what the
tax collector does would even dare to PRAY for mercy. They found it
scandalous that grace is offered to such a scoundrel so easily. Where
were the works of absolution? Where were the terrible nights of anguish
that prove his remorse is not short-lived? Where were the years of going
about righting wrongs, returning the extra fees collected that made him
rich while he watched his neighbors struggle to survive?
What we have to come to is the truth that mercy is at God's
discretion, forgiveness is available to all who ask for it and righteousness
is a gift, not an accomplishment.
We are imbued with what the theologians call work righteousness.
The Apostle Paul tried to warn us to clue us in: "For by grace are we
saved though faith, not works, lest any person should boast." And,
he asks a good question, "Shall we sin that grace may abound?!"
Now THERE'S an idea! But we won't be practicing THAT any time soon.
Essentially, this parable is about judging - or rather, not judging.
Let's not cast aspersions on what God wants to do in the forgiving business.
We may need some of that blanket forgiveness ourselves at some future
date.
But in the meantime, our job as Christians is not to judge but to
join those who are recipients of God's Grace - to invite them to join us.
They don't need our judgement - they don't need to see us looking down
our noses at them - as all the "righteous" people of Jesus time looked at
the tax collector.
A few years ago, I decided to be in my office five days a week,
not six as I had done for thirty years. Still, I wanted to be of service on
that extra day I now had off - so I went to a Rotary Club - in Ft. Lauderdale,
near my home. The president was very welcoming, but I can't say the
club was. They had some get togethers, but no projects where you could
do what Rotarians do - not in the weeks that I was there. It was a pretty
ritzy club, meeting in a ritzy environment and I didn't see why I should be
excluded..I had a ritzy house and a ritzy car and I could afford the ritzy
priced breakfast. . The fact was it was not about me at all. They were
having such a good time with the people they already knew and liked, that
although I was there, I was there and not there. They didn't see me and
find me wanting, they didn't find me at all - they didn't see me at all. I was
not a member of their club. I continued to attend for several weeks
when that fact became painfully obvious.
I went to the district meeting of Rotary which members of Rotary
clubs all over the district attended. Unfortunately, no one from my Rotary
Club of Miami Beach was there so I sat down with my Rotary friends
from my "extra day" club. "Sorry," one of them said, "this area is
reserved from members of our Club." I went to another table, but I
never went back to THEIR club.
Years ago, this church made a decision not to be a Club. It decided
to be welcoming to everyone despite the fact that some of the members
wanted the leadership and membership to be essentially white, anglosaxon,
country club people. Those same members, di not want Blacks,
Latins, gays or children in the church - i.e. children not white and anglo
saxon.
The Chairman of the Board, a young man, Doug Bischoff was
adamant that the church should be open and welcoming to all. I remember
him saying, "It's o.k. for my country club to be a country club, but
it's not o.k. for my church to be a country club."
Up until that effort began, people in the community believed that
this church was for the rich only. In fact an outstandingly talented flautist
who played here with the Symphony of the Americas lived in Miami Beach
as a child, told of playing jacks on the front steps of the church, wondering
if she would "ever be rich enough to be allowed to go in."
It was a club and a clique-y one at that. The problem is, and what
we are being asked to see is that without meaning to be, we are still The
Club in our own way - we are the Pharisee judging anyone who is different
from ourselves.
Years ago I read this in the Saturday Review. It shows the danger
in insisting that everyone be just like ourselves.
In cobra country, a mongoose was born one day who didn't
want to fight cobras or anything else. The word spread from
mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want
to fight cobras. If he didn't want to fight anything else, it was his
own business, but it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras
or be killed by cobras.
"Why?" asked the peacelike mongoose, and the word went
around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro-cobra and
anti-mongoose but intellectually curious and against the ideals and
traditions of mongooism. "He is crazy" cried the young
mongoose's father. "He is sick," said his mother. He is a coward,
"shouted his brothers. "He is a mongoosexual, whispered his
sisters.
Strangers who had never laid eyes on the peacelike
mongoose remembered that they had seen him crawling on his
stomach, or trying on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow
of Mongoosia. "I am trying to use reason and intelligence," said
the strange new mongoose. "Reason is sex-sevenths of treason,
said one of his neighbors. "Intelligence is what the enemy uses, "
said another.
Finally, the rumor spread that the mongoose had venom in
his sting, like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of
paws and condemned to banishment.
Moral, Ashes to ashes and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't
get you your own folks may - those in "The Club" that seek to keep
everyone else out.
So here we are on a Sunday - confident in our spirituality, enjoying
the fellowship of the church - meaning enjoying all the people we already
know and love - and, unfortunately - not seeing, not welcoming the
newcomer, the stranger, the person not yet a part of that fellowship, the
person who is different from us - not like us - but hurting for a word of
welcome.
When we hear about the Pharisee, let us be totally aware of how
very much in danger we are of becoming the very thing we look down our
nose at, because of the subtleties by which we can get into that reality
before we even realize it.
It isn't that we're bad or mean, we're simply caught up in the
enjoyment of being together with people we know and love. Yet the
church exists not for the people in it, but for the people not in it yet. That's
where our focus should be on Saturday morning when we have the
opportunity to invite people to come with us on Sunday, and Sunday after
church where we can seek out the stranger and the guest.
Every member and friend of the church - every regular attender
should be what we call in church growth parlance - a new person spotter
- who then becomes a new-person welcomer - otherwise we have heard
the parable but missed the very point that Jesus wanted to make by telling
it.
We are not the important, VIP, "Country Club" people - we are
the servants of God intent upon widening the circle of God's House to
include others than ourselves.
We are not to be the Pharissee, who felt that he was better than
others, nor do we want to be. He went home not right with God. "People
who make themselves important will be made humble, but those
who make themselves humble will be made important."
"There were some people who thought they were very good
and looked down on everyone else. Jesus used this story to teach
them." Once to every man and nations comes the moment to decide, if
we will learn the lesson or not. WHO'S THE GOOD GUY?!


Sermon Notes(Not edited nor proofed)The Rev. Dr. Garth R. Thompson Pastor, M.B. Community ChurchA sermon is a simple truth told by someone whobelieves it to people he knows and loves (Phillips Brooks)October 28, 2007 10:30 a, m. Luke 18:9-14

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heartsbe acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.