Two Kinds of Lonely
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25 Year C RCL)
27 October 2019--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25 Year C RCL)
27 October 2019--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish Church of
Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
God, give us hearts to
feel and love,
take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of
flesh. Amen.
A
popular song when I was a teenager went, “I'm in with the in crowd, I go where
the in crowd goes. I'm in with the in
crowd and I know what the in crowd knows.”
Once,
the executive of a senior political leader took me aside and said, “Listen I know that you’re not like those
others. They just don’t get it. But you
do, and I’m sure you can do this just like our boss wants.”
Another
time, in the rarefied air of a research institute in religion, a senior professor
said to us graduate students, “We are knowledgeable and can handle the
truth. The many out there—pffff—forget
about them. Tell them whatever
convenient simplicity will keep them happy.”
Yet
another time, I met with my boss Ambassador Jon Huntsman and the senior editor of a
major fashion magazine. In every phrase
and gesture, every choice of clothing and mannerism, she passed the message,
all so graciously, “We are better than all those little people out there, and
we have a responsibility to lead.”
Today’s
Gospel is a parable that Jesus told against “those who belittled others because
they thought they were better than they.”
Two
men who go to the Temple to pray: One is a Pharisee who keeps all the laws, an
upright member of the community. The
other is a Tax Collector—a traitor, collaborator with the hated Romans, who
gouges money for his own profit. The
parable praises the evil man and condemns the righteous.
There
are three ways that we commonly misread this parable.
The
first is that Jesus is condemning in general the Pharisees, forerunners of all
rabbinic Judaism, as heartless hypocrites.
But at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were generally seen as the most
sincere, humble and open of the various Jewish sects. Jesus is closer to them than any other
group. The point here is not to
criticize Pharisees, but rather shock the listener into new understanding by
contrasting an upstanding lover of God with a wicked traitor.
The
second misreading is that Jesus is praising the Tax Collector’s chest-beating,
over-wrought guilt as the one-size-fits-all proper approach to God. This view is fostered and popularized by the
grim pessimism of Saint Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. But when Jesus approaches the truly
wretched, he does not beat up on them and tell them to further abase
themselves. To such people, Jesus announces the jubilant arrival of God’s
Reign.
The
third misreading is that Jesus here is trying to teach salvation by grace alone
apart from works, again, usually as contained in the writings of those
pessimistic three. While this parable may provide a facile proof-text for such
a doctrine, there is nothing in it to suggest that deeds do not matter.
So
what does it mean?
Jesus’
parables regularly turn things upside down.
An honored and righteous priest and Levite pass by a gravely injured
fellow Jew, and it is a hated and loathed Samaritan that finally helps the poor
man. A shameless father, unconcerned
about his honor, runs out and hugs, and then throws a big party for, a troubled
son who had as much wished him dead and then frivolously spent half of his
estate on detested vices.
Jesus
chooses shocking images to represent God at work: the Reign of God is not seen as a great cedar
tree or vine, but rather a vile mustard weed; ritually suspect yeast represents
the Kingdom at work, not pure, unleavened Passover loaves. Such scenes shock us out of our regular ways
of thinking, and make us stand in wonder at God at work in the world around.
The
righteous Pharisee stands in the center of things as he thanks God that he is
not like all the other sinners around, drawing attention to himself, so that he
can point out the differences between him from and those other “little” people.
The
Tax Collector stands “afar off” to the side, out of shame. He doesn’t dare raise his eyes up to heaven,
and simply asks God “have mercy on me, a sinner.” He is one of the telones, a
class of entrepreneurs who collected tolls, surcharges, and head taxes. They were a rough lot, closer to what we
would call the “muscle” of a loan shark operation than an IRS agent. They are
traitors to their people. This is what
the tax collector bemoans as he beats his breast.
Jesus
says that it is the Tax Collector and not the Pharisee who went out of the
Temple that day having been made right with God. Why?
Jesus
has chosen two stereotypes here: the
righteous, pious, and socially responsible Pharisee and the irreligious,
unscrupulous, and morally tainted Tax Collector.
The
difference between the two is in their hearts.
Though both stand by themselves, though both are lonely, there are two
kinds of lonely here. The Pharisee
isolates himself because he has contempt for others and thinks he is better
than everyone else. The Tax Collector is
lonely because he is ashamed and isolated because others look down on him, and
he recognizes that perhaps they are right.
His standing far off is actually an act of solidarity with other people,
recognizing their judgment of him. So
the loneliness of the Pharisee drives him away from other people and from
God. The loneliness of the Tax
Collector drives him toward other people and God.
There
are not just two kinds of lonely. When
we think of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector and which one was closer to God,
which one was neared to God, we need to remember that there are two different
kinds of nearness also: what C.S. Lewis calls nearness of proximity and
nearness of approach.
A hiker in the mountains comes out onto a ledge and sees, there beneath her, the small town where she wants to spend the night. It is only about 500 meters away—straight down. To get there, she must continue on the path, with its switchbacks and gradual descent. At moments, she must actually go farther and farther away from her goal—800 meters, 1400 meters as the crow flies—before the switchback turns. But all the time, she is actually getting closer to her evening resting spot.
Jesus’ point in contrasting the two men in the Temple is that from the point of view of nearness of proximity, the Pharisee is much closer to God than the Tax Collector, but from the point of view of nearness of approach, and this is in the long run the only thing that counts—the Tax Collector is nearer to God by far, despite appearances and what stereotypes tell us to expect.
A hiker in the mountains comes out onto a ledge and sees, there beneath her, the small town where she wants to spend the night. It is only about 500 meters away—straight down. To get there, she must continue on the path, with its switchbacks and gradual descent. At moments, she must actually go farther and farther away from her goal—800 meters, 1400 meters as the crow flies—before the switchback turns. But all the time, she is actually getting closer to her evening resting spot.
Jesus’ point in contrasting the two men in the Temple is that from the point of view of nearness of proximity, the Pharisee is much closer to God than the Tax Collector, but from the point of view of nearness of approach, and this is in the long run the only thing that counts—the Tax Collector is nearer to God by far, despite appearances and what stereotypes tell us to expect.
The
Pharisee here, against the better teachings of his own tradition, has let his
contempt for others and his desire to be better than others close his heart. The Tax Collector, against all expectation,
senses that he is in this with all the others.
In
a word, the Pharisee here is unable to get any closer to God or to his
fellows. The Tax Collector has made a
start at both.
If
there is any such thing as an eternal hell, I believe its doors are locked not
from the outside by God, but from the inside by the people suffering there.
They do so because they persist in rejecting the love of God, afraid of
accepting that they are in this with all the rest, one of God’s beloved
creatures.
Better
a wicked person who knows he or she is
one sorry mess than a “righteous” one with no clue as to how hard his or her
heart has become. This is the idea Jesus
seeks to convey in the parable. The
self-satisfied religious, singing “I’m in with the in crowd,” is unwilling to
relate to others except as inferiors, as “little” people.
I
pray that all of us this week can find ways to connect with others in our
lives, especially those upon whom we look down upon. Looking down upon anyone
is a sign of dire spiritual illness, a sickness unto death. It might be best to
learn to root it out of our minds, and erase it from our hearts.
In
the name of Christ, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment