The Waking Dreamer: Cultural Religion

Showing posts with label Cultural Religion. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

God’s Unlimited Love

Luke 15:1-10[1]

From time beyond memory people have held certain beliefs about God. One of the most common of those beliefs is that everyone has to live up to some standard in order to be “accepted” by God. Whether it’s offering animal sacrifices, or adhering to a moral code, or even a matter of what you do and don’t eat or with whom you do and don’t associate, there has always been some kind of condition placed on being accepted by God. That’s where religions come from. They’re human creations, built on the belief that in order for us to be accepted by God we must perform the prescribed rituals.

Unfortunately, the Bible isn’t immune to this notion of God. You’ll find whole chapters in the Hebrew Bible devoted to outlining who is “clean” and who is “unclean.” As I’ve mentioned before, the book of Numbers is about how anyone who sinned deliberately, or complained against God, or even got too close to God in a way they weren’t permitted, would be struck dead. And the image of God in Deuteronomy can be equally troubling—anyone who sins must be executed to prevent an angry God from destroying the whole people. The reason offered is that “the LORD your God is a devouring fire” (Dt 4:24)! And that view of God isn’t confined to the OT. We heard an echo of that verse in a reading from the NT recently (Heb 11:29).

The problem with this view of God is that it leaves access to God in the hands of those who most benefit from making sure the people know who is “holy” and who isn’t. Whether it was priests or popular religious leaders, they all seemed to curiously benefit from reinforcing the idea that people aren’t “good enough” to be accepted by God. There’s always some way in which people fall short, there’s always something else that has to be done, always another sacrifice to be made. And the result is that it always keeps God just out of reach of “ordinary” people.

I think we see that kind of attitude reflected in the way the scribes and the Pharisees complained about Jesus in our Gospel reading for today. The scribes were the experts in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and the pharisees were the zealots who were devoted to fulfilling completely and without fail even the most trivial matters defined there. For that, they believed themselves to be the “righteous” who are applauded throughout the Hebrew Bible. Of course, anyone who didn’t live up to their standards was a “sinner” in their eyes. And they went out of their way to avoid any contact with “sinners,” because they believed sin was “contagious,” like a virus. Sharing a meal with “sinners” would have been like sharing a bath with a whole group of contagious people. So they grumbled and complained: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2).

In response Jesus told two stories that illustrated how God extends his love to all people, without any restrictions or limitations. The first is a story of a shepherd who has a flock of 100 sheep. One of them goes astray, and rather than staying to make sure the other 99 are safe from all dangers, he leaves them to search for the lost sheep. When he finds that one sheep, he is so overjoyed that he invites his friends to celebrate with him. Jesus then told a second story about a woman who loses a coin. That might not seem like a big deal, but in this case, her entire “nest egg” consisted of ten coins. So she literally turns her house upside-down looking for the lost coin. And when she finds it, she’s so overjoyed that she invites her friends to celebrate with her.

One thing about these two stories has always fascinated me. “Celebrations” in those days would have involved food. They involved throwing a party. It makes me think of the shepherd with the sheep that had gone astray. Did he serve roasted lamb at his party? It seems ironic, and extravagant! I also wonder about the woman. Did she spend the coin she had just put so much effort into finding to put on the party for her friends? Again, it seems ironic and extravagant to celebrate finding a coin by spending it to throw a party for friends. And in both cases, that’s precisely the point.

God’s love is so unlimited and extravagant that Jesus says that there is “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Lk 15:7). That’s not the impression you get from reading some parts of the Bible. Some of the Psalms especially seem to restrict God’s “joy” to the “righteous” and to consign “sinners” to hell with no further thought. That’s what the scribes and pharisees believed. But Jesus used these stories, along with his willingness to befriend and even share meals with “sinners” to make clear what it meant to believe in a God who is “merciful and kind, patient and full of unfailing love” (Ps 145:8). As Gene Peterson puts it in the Message, that kind of a God “is good to one and all; everything he does is soaked through with grace.” (Ps 145:9, MSG).

That’s the God whom Jesus called “Father.” The one who showers the blessings of sun and rain on all people alike (Mt 5:45). And if we pay careful attention to the stories of those who fully embrace God’s unlimited love, we’ll realize that God never leaves us where we are or as we are. I think that’s why so many prefer the “God” of the religions. If you can keep “God” within certain prescribed rituals, you get to go about your life as you please. But a God who claims us with his unlimited love will claim all of life. A God like that isn’t going to leave us where we are or as we are but is likely to take us to places and call us to do things we could never have imagined.

Tuesday, August 03, 2021

Filled?

John 6:25-35[1]

When I was growing up, culture observers often referred to the young people of 1970’s and 80’s as the “me generation.” After the idealism of the civil rights movement, many young people became disillusioned. A sense of responsibility to family and society began to be replaced with seeking “self-fulfillment” and “finding yourself.” Perhaps the best example of this was the sitcom “Seinfeld,” which was explicitly created as a “show about nothing.” If you’ve seen the show, you know that characters are all noticeably self-absorbed. This outlook on life became embodied in a culture obsessed with entertainment and possessed by the quest for more possessions. We became a people seeking by any and all means to be “filled.”

Unfortunately, that shift in our culture also affected our approach to spirituality. Rather than seeing the church as a place where we can live out our commitment to loving God and loving others, church became another “product.” “Church shopping” became a common feature of life. People began to speak about church as a place to be “fed” or “filled,” rather than as a place where they could serve. And if your church didn’t “feed” or “fill” you, you went looking for another church that would. We became “consumers” of religion just as we are consumers of any other product.

While it’s easy to blame this on “people these days” being too shallow, I think we have to reckon with the reality that people have always had a complicated relationship with religion. From the dawn of civilization, people have used religion as a means to an end—whether that end might be a happy home, or prosperity, or protection from threats. Those of you who have joined us on our journey of reading through the Bible may have noticed that, from the very beginning, the people of Israel demonstrated a shallow commitment to God. The prophets continually called them from their own pursuits to love God with all their hearts and to reflect that love in the way they lived.

It should come as no surprise to us, then, that the crowd that sought out Jesus after he miraculously fed the 5000 didn’t “get it.” As Jesus told them in our Gospel lesson for today, “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (Jn. 6:26). Jesus almost scolds them for seeking him out not because they recognized that God was working through him, or because they were drawn to the new quality of life he offered, but simply because they ate a good meal (cf. Jn 6:11). They were “fed” and “filled,” literally speaking, and they wanted more!

But Jesus challenged them to go beyond their superficial motives and seek something deeper than simply another meal. Jesus consistently refused to give in to their requests for “one more sign.” I think he recognized that those who came to him simply because they saw something miraculous would always need one more miracle. And so, whenever they asked him for a “sign” to enable them to believe, he refused. I think part of what we’re to learn from this is that a faith that constantly seeks some kind of external confirmation is not really faith at all.

So when they asked him what they should do, he answered them straightforwardly: “believe in him whom [God] has sent” (Jn 6:29). Unfortunately, they were not able to see their way clear to do that. They were still looking for “proof.” So they asked him to repeat the sign of feeding them miraculously. But he warned them not to seek the fulfillment of their lives in the “food that perishes” (Jn 6:27). Rather, he pointed them to “the bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33).

The tragedy in this episode is that the vast majority of the people in this crowd that thronged to Jesus were not looking for a way to become more committed to God. They were simply looking for another way to be “filled.” And so they missed the fact that the “bread” that Jesus was talking about was not something they could serve up on a plate. Rather, he was talking about himself: he was the “bread” that would truly satisfy their hunger. He was the one who would give them the life they longed for.

We are a society of people constantly looking for ways to be “filled.” We run from one thing to another trying to fill the empty places in our hearts, whether through achievements, success, prosperity, influence, fame, approval, possessions, people, or even food and drink. But the truth is that all the things we use to try to “fill” ourselves only leave us empty, dissatisfied, always wanting something more. One of the great ironies of life is that we find the most fulfillment when we give our lives away to others as we share the love we have received from God.

Our gospel lesson reminds us that the only “bread” that can truly satisfy our hunger is the life that God offers us through Jesus. But believing in the one whom God sent means more than just acknowledging Jesus as God’s son. And Eternal life is about more than just a way to have assurance of life after death. It’s about experiencing God’s love in such a way that instead of spending our lives looking for ways to be “filled,” we respond to Jesus’ call by committing our lives to following him and his ways. It means “signing on” with him and with the life he lived, and the life he calls us to live in service to others. Only when we do that will we find ourselves truly “filled.”

Monday, September 09, 2019

How Much Will It Cost?

Luke 14:25-33[1]

We have a tendency to hear what we want to hear, at least to some extent. There are some things that challenge us deeply, and we don’t much like that. They are hard for us to truly hear. One of the most memorable phrases from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is, “I have a dream that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” But there are other parts to the speech. Dr. King also said that in the Declaration of Independence, the “architects of our republic” wrote a “promissory note” that all races “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And he chided America for writing people of color a “bad check” instead! That's hard for most of us to hear.

I’m afraid we have applied our “selective hearing” to Jesus’ words as well. There are some of Jesus’ teachings that we cherish. Sayings like, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Or “Let the little children come to me” (Matt. 19:14). Or “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). These are words that reassure us, that comfort us, that encourage us. But there are other teachings of Jesus that we (purposefully I think) ignore. Like the one about tearing out your right eye or cutting off your right hand in order to avoid sin!

Our lesson for today is probably one of the most ignored teachings of Jesus. This chapter contains some of the most deeply challenging demands Jesus makes on those who would follow him as disciples. Here Jesus says to the crowds, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26)! I would say that has always cut deeply against the grain for those who heard this. In fact, even Matthew’s Gospel softens the harshness of this saying a bit: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37).

Of course, in this passage Jesus also says that those who do not bear the burden of the cross and who do not give up all their possessions cannot follow him as disciples. Those are deeply challenging demands as well. But I think the part about hating your parents, your spouse and your children, your brothers and sisters, and even your own life is probably the most challenging to us. It’s positively offensive. Family ties are some of the most important ones to us. Why would Jesus try to sever family ties that the human race has cherished through millennia?

I think part of the answer may be found, as is often the case in Luke’s Gospel, in the introduction to the passage: “Now large crowds were traveling with him” (Lk. 14:25). This isn’t the only place in the Gospels where Jesus speaks rather harshly to the crowds that followed him. On one occasion he scolded them for following him simply because they had their fill of bread (Jn 6:26). On another, he chided them for the fact that “this generation is an evil generation” because they came to him seeking some miraculous sign upon which they could rest their faith (Lk. 11:29). I think Jesus knew that many in the crowds that followed him had their own ideas about who Jesus was and what he had come to bring them. He rather bluntly rebuked that shallow spiritual “thrill-seeking”!

I think, however, that these “hard sayings” Jesus spoke were not just for the spiritual “sightseers” who flocked to him. They were also meant for his disciples. Jesus warned them that his commitment to God’s kingdom and God’s justice meant that he was going to be cruelly executed on a cross. And he also warned them that they would share that fate. Elsewhere he says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). Interestingly, the word for “bearing” the cross is a different one here. It is a word that implies bearing a burden that is heavy, and continuing to bear that burden over time. I think Jesus was pressing his own disciples as to whether they were “willing to stay with [him] all the way.”^{^[2]}

Another part of solving this problem can be found in the parables Jesus tells to explain the point of what he is trying to say. In both of them, the point of the parable is that it’s a normal part of life to calculate the cost before launching a venture. And that seems to be the point of Jesus’ demand that in order to be his disciple one must “hate” one’s family, continually bear up under the burden of the cross, and give away all possessions. More than once, Jesus made it clear to his disciples that they must count the cost of following him. Following Jesus would be the way they would truly find their lives, but it would also cost them all that they held dear.

I don’t believe that Jesus wants any of us to literally hate our families, any more than he literally demanded us to go get ourselves executed or to give up everything we own. I think the point of this passage is that the commitment to following Jesus is one that takes precedence over every other commitment in life. But it also stands as a warning: those who choose to follow a Savior who was cruelly executed must recognize that decision will come with a cost. And yet at the same time, the promise is that, however much it will cost us to follow Jesus, only by losing our lives for his sake will we truly find our lives.

[1][1] ©Alan Brehm 2019. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/8/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Fred Craddock, Luke, 181.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

The Plumb Line

Amos 7:7-15[1]

As many of you know, I spent a year studying in Germany over 25 years ago. It was an amazing experience in many ways. The pace of life was much slower, by design. I lived there the year “the Wall” came down and East Germany along with the rest of Eastern Europe opened their borders. One of the interesting aspects of living abroad was getting accustomed to the housing arrangements. Some aspects of that experience were more “interesting” than others. If you’ve been abroad, you know what I’m talking about!

One of “weird” facts about the apartment we lived in is that the building was 400 years old! It was prime real estate, because it was right in the heart of the “pedestrian zone” of Tübingen. And yet, because the building was 400 years old, the corners weren’t quite square and the walls weren’t quite plumb. To be sure, the building had been renovated, probably more than once. It had all the necessary appliances and the décor was fairly modern. And I’m sure the walls were straight up and down when they were built. But after 400 years, those picture-postcard buildings in that quaint German University city were all leaning on each other! Four Centuries offers a lot of time for buildings to settle!

Amos, our prophet for this week, lived in a time when the commitment of the people of Israel to “doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with your God” had had time to “settle.” Those who were at the top of the social ladder were living in relative prosperity. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, prosperity has a way of undermining spiritual and moral values. As Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24). Amos could see by the conditions of the day that especially the leaders of Israel were more concerned about serving their own wealth than about serving God.

Unfortunately, that kind of obsession with wealth has a way of blinding us to our own spiritual poverty. The word of the Lord that Amos received was almost “sneaky,” in that he began by predicting the downfall of Israel’s enemies. One by one he declared God’s judgment on the nations surrounding Israel. And I can imagine that as he proclaimed his message of judgment on those around them, his audience nodded in approval. They were blind to the condition of their own spiritual house.

But Amos finally came back to the people of Israel. And he pronounced even stricter judgment on them because they should have known better: they were God’s people. And yet they failed to practice the most basic principle of God’s justice: to show compassion to the most vulnerable among them. This was the “plumb line” by which God measured their lives. But instead of practicing compassion, their mistreatment of the poor echoes like a refrain throughout the book of Amos. He said that they were “trampling on the needy, and bringing ruin to the poor of the land” (8:4). The corners of their spiritual house were not square, and the walls were not plumb.

In all of this, the prophet’s message of judgment was this: “You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed. You treat the righteous like dirt” (5:7, NLT). And perhaps the most shameful aspect of their behavior was that it was all so that the powerful in Israel could further enrich themselves. It was all so that they could live in the lap of luxury: they built “houses of hewn stone” (5:11), feasted on couches made of ivory (6:4), and drank wine by the bowlfuls (6:6). And yet, because they had not followed the “plumb line” by caring for the most vulnerable, the walls of their spiritual “house” were leaning so badly they were on the verge of collapse.

I don’t think there is much debate about the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in our country. Income data over the last several decades makes it clear that a greater portion of wealth is concentrated in the hands of the very rich. And with some notable exceptions, they seem to be using their influence to continue to enrich themselves. In Amos’ day the solution was straightforward: “establish justice in the public square” (5:15). In our day, it may seem more complicated. But the plumb line remains: showing compassion to the most vulnerable in society. Jesus said it this way, “as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:40).

When I was in Germany, I also witnessed the fall of the oppressive regime in Romania. In the aftermath, humanitarian aid came pouring in from all over Europe. And my church in Germany sent several of us with supplies to some churches. Along the way, I met with a missions supervisor in Vienna. He observed that the church in Eastern Europe had thrived under communism: the churches were bursting at the seams. But he said the church in Western Europe had languished under capitalism. I’m afraid that prosperity tends to have a deadening effect on our relationship with God.

The antidote has always been to serve the needy. We live in a time when the most vulnerable in our society seem to be getting poorer and needier every year. And, of course, the real question is how to find true and workable solutions to poverty. I don’t pretend to know the answer. But it seems to me that the walls of our spiritual house are leaning. It is a time when, perhaps more than ever, we must hold fast to the plumb line of God’s justice: showing compassion to the most vulnerable in our world.

Monday, September 26, 2016

A New Day

Isaiah 58:1-12[1]

Most of us these days are looking for a change. We’re not happy with the way things are, and we want someone or something to come along and make things right. Or at least make them the way we’d like them to be. And we have all kinds of ideas about what that change should look like. If we just had the right job, or the right house, or the right person in our lives, then things would be the way we want them to be. But the hard and sometimes painful truth is that usually things are the way they are not in spite of what we’re doing, but because of what we’re doing. We’d much rather not have to face the fact that we have to be the change we’re looking for.

The people of Israel who were addressed by our lesson from Isaiah for today very likely had some of the same sentiments. They had been sent into exile in Babylon and everything about their former way of life had been destroyed. Their dreams had been shattered, families had been torn apart, and even the Temple lay in ruins. Then they saw the light of God’s deliverance and they were able to return to their homeland, only to find that it was still in ruins. They had left one kind of exile for another! It was too painful for them to admit that they were the cause of what they were unhappy with. They’d much rather blame the Babylonians, or the Samaritans, or the foreigners among them. They were happy to scapegoat anyone rather than face the fact that the change they hoped for was delayed not in spite of what they were doing, but because of what they were doing.

That was the message of our lesson for today. Like the other prophets of his time, Isaiah paints a bleak picture of the spiritual condition of Israel. They acted “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God” (Isa. 58:2). The people of Israel talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. They busied themselves with the routines of their worship, and wondered why they didn’t see the changes they hoped for in their society.[2] And yet, the truth of the matter was that while the Jewish people were apparently extremely diligent about worshipping God, it did not make a difference in their lives.

Isaiah spelled this out in rather stinging indictment. Even in their worship they “served their own interest” rather than serving God (Isaiah 58:3). The way they lived their lives betrayed the fact that their profession of devotion to God was a hollow one (Isaiah 58:2). In fact, Isaiah could say that they had completely missed the purpose for their worship—to transform life (Isaiah 58:6-7).[3] Over and over again, the Bible insists that those who truly know God will truly love others by practicing justice and mercy toward the destitute and disenfranchised. If the people of God do not do so, the Bible challenges whether their devotion to him is truly authentic.

Unfortunately, the people of Israel were responsible for their own problems. The conditions of their lives that they hoped would change were so in spite of what they were doing, but because of what they were doing. They made a show of faith but failed to do what was right in the way they actually went about their lives. The fact that they would withhold fair wages from their workers made it clear that their outward profession of faith did not relate to any inward spiritual reality. Isaiah didn’t let them off the hook with some theoretical ideas about how their lives should be lived. He was quite specific: they were to restore justice to the oppressed, they were to feed the hungry, they were to help those who were afflicted, and they were to provide clothing for the naked.[4]

But the picture Isaiah painted was not entirely bleak. He promised that when they repented of their ways, ways that oppressed the poor and denied justice to the weak, then and only then would they experience the change that they were hoping for.[5] Then and only then would the light “break forth like the dawn,” and their healing will “spring up quickly” (Isa. 58:8). Then and only then would the “gloom” that blanketed them turn to light (Isa. 58:10). Then and only then would they see the light of a new day dawning for them and for their people. Isaiah was so sure of this promise that he concluded his message with, “the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isa. 58:12).

One of the challenges with reading the prophets is that we don’t always know how things turned out. Did the people of Israel change their ways and find that new day dawning for them and their people? The prophets only delivered the message, they rarely reported the results. We have to look elsewhere to find the answer to that question. If we look at other historical sources to find out what happened to the Jewish people, I think we’d have to say that the results were definitely mixed. There were some—as is usually the case, a minority—who took the prophets words to heart and became the change they were looking for. But the majority of them rocked along, looking for scapegoats, professing their hollow faith, and asking God why he didn’t do anything about their difficulties.

We’re living in a time when a lot of people in our society are looking for change of some kind. Like the people of Israel, we have plenty of ideas about whom to blame for what we think is wrong. And we keep looking for someone to come along and fix what is broken. I’ve got some news for you: the problems in our society run deeper than any one person can change—I don’t care what color house they occupy. Only God can restore our society. But as the prophet Isaiah put it so bluntly, that will only happen when we recognize that things are the way they are because of what we’re doing. We will see the change we’re looking for only when we stop going our own way and start letting our profession of faith sink into our hearts so deeply that it motivates us to actually live out the justice and mercy of God. Then we as a people will see the dawn of a new day.

[2] Cf. Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 204: ““The problem is not that the people are unreligious. … No, they are hyper correct in their religious observances and delighted to exhibit their piety, but in their very exercise of religion they miss the essential point, God’s order of compassionate justice.” Cf. also William Willimon, “When In Our Music God is Glorified,” a sermon preached 2/7/1999 at Duke Chapel: “What we believe about God is to be put into practice, embodied. As Isaiah tells us, it’s no good just to prattle on about God with our lips; it’s got to take over our lives.” Cf. also J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34–66 (Revised Edition), 845.

[3] Cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 205: “This passage locates God’s central concern in the exercise of justice and the practice of compassion. Without these, all the pious motions of religion are mere ‘as ifs.’” He says further, (ibid., 205-206) that the prophet presents “a rigorously moral understanding that places the one who would be true to God on the side of the same ones whom God reached out to help and empower, those suffering injustice at the hands of the authorities, those imprisoned for acts of conscience, those denied their fair share of the land’s produce, those denied housing and proper clothing, those turned away even by their own relatives.” The appeal is an impassioned one to the heart of the community. It is a plea to reclaim authentic humanity by replacing cold, calculating self-interest with acts of loving-kindness that restore genuine communal solidarity

[4] Cf. Watts, Isaiah 34-66, 844: “All forms of bondage are distasteful to God, whether economic, political, or social. God’s people were and are intended to promote freedom.” Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, 84: “If we want to be free ourselves, we must free others; if we want to arrive at peace, we must leave other people in peace. True spirituality cannot be a solitary, selfish experience of the self, for every self exists in the network of social and political relationships. … In Israel’s prophecy, the liberation of the oppressed was part of true fasting and belonged to the laws about the Sabbath.”

[5] Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, “The Book of Isaiah 40–66” New Interpreter’s Bible VI:499, where he sums up the message of this passage well when he says, “Healing will come, the prophet promises, when the fruit of proper devotion is in evidence.”

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Alpha and Omega

Revelation 1:1-8[1]

The central affirmation of Easter is that by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God has once and for all vindicated him as Lord of all. But you and I live in a world in which we are surrounded by images and messages that contradict that central element of our faith. Between Hollywood and Washington, DC and Wall Street, the combined effect is to make it clear that Jesus is essentially irrelevant in our culture. The “lords” of our society are those with the most money, or the most power, or the strongest celebrity appeal. And they don’t typically promote the ideals that Jesus taught. The movies we watch, the athletes we cheer, the advertisements on TV, even the music we listen to proclaim the message that the survival of the strongest and the wealthiest and the most attractive is the true reality in our world.

It may be hard for us to recognize this because it has so thoroughly worked its way into the fabric of almost every aspect of our culture. If you ever find yourself in the Mall, compare the images of people that the stores use to sell their products with the actual people around you. There’s not much similarity. In fact, the “appearance” that our culture promotes couldn’t be further from who we are as a people. But we’ve gotten so used to seeing people with perfect teeth and hair and eyes and bodies trying to sell us everything from cars to clothes to prescriptions that we don’t even notice the subtle message that conveys to us: if you don’t look like this, or have this kind of wealth, you don’t really count.

This was the context into which the Book of Revelation was written. The Christian faith was definitely a minority in the Roman Empire. Christians would either rise before dawn or stay up late at night to worship Jesus as Lord. There was no such thing as a weekend or a Sabbath day in the Roman world. Every day was a work day. And as those believers made their way to homes to worship Jesus as Lord, all around them were images that proclaimed that Zeus was lord, or Caesar was Lord.[2] They, too, lived in a world that was dominated by images of the “powers that be” that contradicted the heart of their faith and the teachings to which they had devoted themselves, sometimes at great peril to their lives.

It is to that setting that the Book of Revelation was addressed. This unique part of the Bible was not written to enable the “fortune tellers” of our age to predict the coming of Christ or the end of the world. Rather it was written to the Christians of that day, living in a world that contradicted their faith.[3] One of the major purposes of this part of Scripture that so many of us avoid was to provide struggling believers with images of a different reality, a reality in which God is the one who rules over all things with “wisdom, power, and love.” Unfortunately, It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees in the Book of Revelation. Much of the symbolism seems strange to us. But at the heart of the book is the message that, despite all appearances to the contrary, God’s rule is the true reality in this world, and one day God’s rule will be fulfilled as God completes the work of making all things new.[4]

In our lesson for today, the Scripture simply hints at this by referring to God as “the Alpha and the Omega,” the one “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”[5] As you may know, Alpha and Omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. So naming God as the “Alpha and the Omega” is another way of saying that God is “The First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” In other words, we can count on the God who created all things in the beginning to make all things new in the end.[6] It’s an affirmation that we along with millions of other Christians sing every Sunday morning: “as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen! Amen!” The God who rules over this world will be the same God at the end of all things as he was at the beginning and is now: a God of infinite love.

The other affirmation in our lesson for today is that God is the “Almighty” one. This resonates with countless statements in the Hebrew Bible about the God who is the “Lord of hosts,” or the “Lord of the angel armies”.[7] The idea is very similar to another image in the book of Revelation: God is the one who “sits on the throne,” ruling over the whole universe.[8] The purpose for this is to make clear that that God is the one whose rule is ultimately true. Despite the fact that the Roman Empire proclaimed itself as the ultimate power in the world of that day, and even demanded worship of those under its influence, the book of Revelation insists that this is an illusion that will one day be swept away.[9] And, of course, Rome’s claim to power was indeed swept away centuries ago.

We live in a world that is dominated by those who make claims that can seem just as false as the claims Rome made in ancient times. In the face of those claims the Scripture reassured the Christians of that day that God is the one who would have the last word. I think the message of Revelation for us today is the same. It stands as a reminder that we too can trust that God will see to it that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. That means all those who (falsely) claim to wield power over the world in the present time are only deluding themselves. Their power may seem very real here and now, but ultimately, just as God’s rule had the first word at creation, so will his rule have the last word in the end. As God was in the beginning, so he ever shall be: the Alpha and Omega.

[1] © 2016 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/3/2016 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. An audio version of this sermon is available at http://www.hickmanpresbyterian.org/.

[2] Cf. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 17: “Civic and religious architecture, iconography, statues, rituals and festivals, … all provided powerful visual impressions of Roman imperial power and the splendor of pagan religion. In this context, Revelation provides a set of Christian prophetic counter-images which impress on its readers a different vision of the world … . The visual power of the book effects a kind of purging of the Christian imagination, refurbishing it with alternative visions of how the world is and will be.” Cf. Craig R. Koester, Revelation, 132: “John’s message ran counter to the public rhetoric of the Roman era, which celebrated the peace and prosperity that the imperial rule had brought. According to the dominant discourse, Roman rule was invincible and benevolent.”

[3] Cf. M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, 40, where he argues that the point of apocalyptic documents like Revelation in the ancient world was not to answer the question “Will there be an end of the world?” but rather “Is God faithful?” He says that they “lived in impossible situations, … when children saw their parents imprisoned or killed because their faithfulness to their confession of Jesus as the only Lord made it impossible for them to yield to the imperial religion … .” In that situation the question was “how can one still believe in the faithfulness of God?” He continues, “It was the honor and integrity of God as God that was at stake, not just human selfish longing for golden streets and pearly gates.” Cf. Koester, Revelation, 132, where he reminds us that the setting was actually somewhat complex: “Readers who were overtly threatened would be aware of the challenges and needed encouragement to persevere, but those who were complacent or accommodating would not have sensed the problems. John would need to challenge them to see issues of which they were unaware, while calling for commitment that would set them at odds with the dominant social, religious, and economic patterns of the cities where they lived.”

[4] Cf. Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 40: “The whole of Revelation could be regarded as a vision of the fulfillment of the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Your name be hallowed, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6:9-10). John and his readers lived in a world in which God’s name was not hallowed, his will was not done, and evil ruled through the oppression and exploitation of the Roman system of power. But in chapter 4, he sees in heaven, the sphere of ultimate reality, the absolute holiness, righteousness and sovereignty of God. From this vision of God’s name hallowed and God’s will done in heaven, it follows that his kingdom must come on earth.”

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1.2:53, where he points out, as many do, that “the one who is and who was and who is to come” is very likely an interpretation of the revelation of God’s name in Exod. 3:14; “I am who I am.” He says, “From the fact that God is He who exists and therefore is the Living One in the supreme sense and therefore the Almighty, it follows that He is not only this, but, as this, also He who was and He who cometh, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. And vice versa, by the fact that He is the first and the last, it is indicated that He is truly He who is. the Living One, the Almighty.”

[6] Cf. Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 27: “God precedes all things, as their Creator, and he will bring all things to eschatological fulfillment. He is the origin and goal of all history. He has the first word, in creation, and the last word, in new creation.” Cf. also Koester, Revelation, 220: “Revelation recalls texts that stress the singular lordship of Israel’s God: ‘I am the first and the last, there is no other god but me’ (Isa 44:6; cf. 41:4; 48:12).” Cf. further Jürgen Roloff, A Continental Commentary: The Revelation of John, 28: “the God to whom [John] bears witness is the living and historically active God.”

[7] Cf. Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 30: the designations “The Lord, the God of hosts” and “the Lord of hosts” are used especially in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible to indicate “Yahweh's unrivalled power over all things and therefore his supremacy over the course of historical events. … The Greek pantokrator (‘almighty’) indicates not so much God’s abstract omnipotence as his actual control over all things.” Cf. Koester, Revelation, 220: “Revelation, …, refers to God as pantokrator, ascribing to him power over all things. In Revelation God’s supreme might is expressed in his acts of creation, judgment, and righteous rule (Rev 1:8; 4:8; 18:8; 19:6; 21:22; 22:5-6).”

[8] Cf. Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 31, where he emphasizes that the vision of God on the throne provides one of the major starting points for the whole book: “the vision of God’s sovereignty in heaven.” He continues (ibid.), saying that this “makes it possible for John to enlarge his readers’ perspective on their own situation by setting it within the broader context of God’s universal purpose of overcoming all opposition to his rule and establishing his kingdom in the world.” From the perspective of Revelation, God’s sovereign rule is “the true reality which must in the end also prevail on earth.” Cf. also Roloff, Revelation of John, 29: “whereas human rulers like to claim total dominion over the world and have themselves celebrated as rulers of history, …, in truth it is God alone to whom dominion over the world and history belongs.”

[9] Cf. Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 34: “The Roman Empire, like most political powers in the ancient world, represented and propagated its power in religious terms. Its state religion, featuring worship both of the deified emperors and of the traditional gods of Rome, expressed political loyalty through religious worship. In this way it absolutized its power, claiming for itself the ultimate, divine sovereignty over the world.” By contrast (ibid, 35), Revelation sees the “the view of the Empire promoted by Roman propaganda” from “the perspective of heaven, which unmasks the pretensions of Rome. Revelation portrays the Roman Empire as a system of violent oppression, founded on conquest, maintained by violence and oppression. It is a system both of political tyranny and of economic exploitation.” Cf. also ibid, 39: “it was the Christian vision of the incomparable God, exalted above all worldly power, which relativized Roman power and exposed Rome’s pretensions to divinity as a dangerous delusion.”

Monday, August 17, 2015

Beyond Imagination

Ephesians 3:14-21[1]

Another of the challenges I think we face as a people is a lack of imagination. It seems to me that we tend to turn the task of “imagining” over to someone else. The Lego set I bought as a present to take to my granddaughter Helen is a Duplo Forest Fishing trip set, complete with a car, a boat, and three animal friends! It’s very different from the Legos I played with. Anything we wanted to create we had to do with our own imagination. But these days imagination seems a rare quality. Our young people spend their time playing video games, while we who have been around the block a few times watch TV. But we’re all doing the same thing—entertaining ourselves with someone else’s imagination portrayed electronically.

I’ve also run into a surprising lack of imagination in the church. Some people who talk about God seem to think they have it all down. It would seem that they know God so completely they can speak with total confidence about any aspect of the God’s character or actions. I find it truly baffling that any finite human being could think that they would have the capacity to comprehend the infinite so completely. And yet, the fact is that the throughout the ages there have been plenty of people who have made that assumption. I think it reflects a serious lack of imagination, to say the least. Surely the God who says “my ways are not your ways” is so far beyond us that we have to use as much imagination as possible in trying to comprehend him and his ways.

In our lesson from Ephesians, St. Paul speaks of this dimension of God’s character. In the previous verses he has elaborated on the “mystery of Christ” that “the Gentiles have become … sharers in the promise of Christ,” a “mystery hidden for ages” that he has now “carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:4-11). With reference to this mysterious plan, in our lesson for today, Paul praises God as the one who “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). As is often true, I like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: “God can do anything, you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!”

In Paul’s mind, the work of God in redeeming all humankind and all creation is a great mystery that nobody could possibly have anticipated. In that day and time gods were either the patrons of one people—and only one people—or they did as they pleased and viewed humanity as lower than slaves, to be toyed with on a whim. Into this world the Apostle proclaimed a God who humbled himself and became human in order to reclaim and redeem all humankind (cf. Phil. 2:5-11).[2] And St. Paul reminds us here and elsewhere that this plan for the salvation of all humankind and all creation is so mind-blowing that no one could ever imagine it. It remains as it always has been: a mystery.[3]

But we who turn to religion don’t typically do so to be stumped. We come for answers. Answers that are clear-cut, with no ambiguity or need for imagination. We prefer our God in a box. We want a God we can predict and control.[4] In our quest for certainty about God I’m afraid some of the philosophers have been right: we’ve simply created a God in our own image, or at least a God according to our designs. But the God of the Holy Scriptures bursts all the bounds of any box we try to use to tame him and use him for our purposes.

That was why the great Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth believed that “religion,” all religion, and Christian faith are mutually contradictory. For Barth, religion is by definition a human effort to make God smaller than he is.[5] It’s a way for us to take what is beyond us and classify it according to our own minds. He was definitely addressing the religion of his day, but I’m not sure we’ve changed all that much in a hundred years. On the other hand, Barth insisted that any faith that is genuinely Christian must be framed in terms of the one who is infinitely beyond our ability to “ask or imagine.”[6] And since his ways are not our ways, we must expect that we will only be able to touch the hem of the garment when it comes to what God is up to in our world.

Some of us may not like this. It can be unsettling to come face to face with this aspect of God’s nature. At one point in another discussion of God’s saving work, Paul expresses his wonder by saying, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33). St. Paul repeatedly emphasizes that what God is doing in this world is a mystery that nobody would have been able to guess. Nor would we believe it if it weren’t so boldly proclaimed in Scripture. God’s amazing plan for the salvation of all humankind and all creation is far more than we “could ever imagine or guess or request in our wildest dreams.”[7]

For that reason we might be tempted to think it’s all too good to be true. But our lesson for today reminds us that when we bump up against the boundaries of what we can understand, we must remember that God is the one whose ways are so far beyond us that we can never fully comprehend him. I think that means we have to use as much imagination as possible in trying to grasp the “the breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph. 3:18) of his loving purpose for us all. We have to remember that our faith is in the God whose wondrous plans always have been and always will be far beyond our imagination.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2015. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/26/2015 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. An audio version is available at hickmanpresbyterian.org/sermons.

[2] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:417, where she reminds us that the early Christians did not have magnificent temples or cathedrals to reinforce their faith in God; in fact, it was the “pagans” who had the impressive places of worship! She says, “It must have required extraordinary inner confidence to remain a faithful Christian with no external signs of the truth of our faith.”

[3] Cf. Cynthia A. Jarvis, “Ephesians 3:14-21, Expository Article,” Interpretation, 45 (July, 1991): 286: “The paradox held in solution in Paul's prayer is that the one who is rooted and grounded in love, who ‘knows’ the breadth and length and height and depth of that love, knows God's love cannot be contained by human knowing. The dimensions of God’s love are without limit and so defy any limits created by human claims to know.” Cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:784; and A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, 213.

[4] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 12, where he observes that we want our faith “manageable, cut to size and proportioned to our knowledge, so that we know what to do in the present situation and what to expect in the future.”

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (1933), 236: “So long as religious … activities fail to draw attention to that which lies beyond them, and so long as they attempt their own self-justification, …, they are assuredly mere illusion.” Cf. also 125, 136-37, 184-86, 236, 242, 252, 266, 413-14. Cf. also ibid., 212, where he insists that “Finitum non capax infiniti” (The finite is unable to grasp the infinite), or as Barth himself puts it (p. 494), “the impossible possibility of God—which lies beyond all human possibility.” He does not spare the Church in this regard. Cf. ibid., 332: “the Church, which is situated on this side of the abyss which separates men from God, is the place where the eternity of revelation is transformed into a temporal, concrete, directly visible thing in this world. … To a greater or lesser extent, the Church is a vigorous and extensive attempt to humanize the divine, … .” See further ibid., 332-339, 366-69. He concludes (p. 413), “the whole relationship between God and man, as set forth in the Church, is a mystery.” (emphasis original)

[6] One of the major themes of Barth’s commentary on Romans is the experience of the gospel as an “impossible possibility.” He says (Romans, 231), “Grace is the impossibility which is possible only in God.” Cf. also ibid., 92, 97-99, 105, 121, 200, 211, 216, 282, 364, 381, et passim.

[7] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 31, where he says that when we truly encounter God, “Something grander and larger than us comes along and bowls us over and dispossesses us.”

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Contradictions

Luke 10:1-11, 16[1]

Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at what the Gospel of Luke has to teach us about faith. It should come as no surprise to us that any study of faith leads inevitably to the call to discipleship. That’s what Jesus did--he called people to faith by calling them to follow him in discipleship. And we should also not be surprised that any study of Jesus’ call to discipleship also leads us to the Kingdom of God. The heart of Jesus’ message was that God’s Kingdom, which is defined by justice, grace, and compassion, was a present reality for those who responded in faith to his call.[2] Ironically, although none of this surprises us, most of us are surprised when we follow Jesus and we find ourselves faced with opposition, contradiction, and even hostility from the culture in which we live.

Unfortunately, our culture has given its allegiance to other kingdoms than the Kingdom of God.[3] Some give their allegiance to the kingdom of Wall Street. It tells us that we have to make as much money as we can in order to have the lives we want. Others have sworn allegiance to the kingdom of Hollywood. It tells us that only those who are young, thin, beautiful, and rich have any value in this world. Others have given their loyalty to the kingdom of Madison Avenue. It tells us that if you drive the right car you’ll be sophisticated and your life will be complete. It tells us that if you wear the right cologne or drink the right adult beverage or buy your clothes from the right store then others will think you’ve arrived and will be drawn to you. Unfortunately, more money doesn’t translate into fulfillment in life. Spending hours in the gym or spending thousands of dollars to make yourself look like a celebrity won’t give you the happiness you long for. And at the end of the day, a car is just a car, cologne is just cologne, and having the latest in fashion doesn’t make your life complete.

So perhaps we should ask ourselves what to expect when we go out into a world like that carrying our commitment to following Jesus in seeking the Kingdom of God. Our gospel lesson for today addresses that, I think. Jesus sent out seventy (or seventy-two) disciples to do what he had been doing--spreading compassion and mercy and telling people who respond in faith that “God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!” (Lk. 10:9, The Message). But there were competing kingdoms and contradictory loyalties in Jesus’ day as well, and he knew that some would not be willing to give that up. And so what were they to say in that case? Essentially the same thing: that the Kingdom of God was right on their doorstep (Lk. 10:11)![4]

And so it is for us. We are called to follow Jesus in discipleship, practicing the values of the Kingdom of God among a people who have given their loyalty to a lot of other kingdoms. And we are called to proclaim the message to one and all: the Kingdom of God is right here. Like Jesus’ original disciples, we should not be surprised that some will respond with faith and some will not be willing to give up their allegiance to other kingdoms. And we should not even be surprised when some respond to us with opposition and even hostility. After all, we are contradicting the principles that they believe define their worth as human beings.[5] People can get pretty hostile when you start messing around with that!

Of course, let’s be honest: I’m saying that we shouldn’t be surprised when that happens to us, but I think tend to be surprised when we face the contradiction of our world. After all, most of us were raised to believe that we live in a “Christian” nation. But if we look closely, it’s not hard to see that there’s not much “Christian” about our culture. Yes, a lot of people go to church on Sunday morning, but as some have said, going to church on Sunday doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger![6] And so the reality is that we shouldn’t be surprised when we experience the contradictions of living the Christian life in a world captivated by competing loyalties.

It can be discouraging to face the continual contradiction between our faith and the way the majority of people in our society live. It can be exhausting to swim upstream continually, day after day. I think we can get weary from going against the grain all the time. And exhaustion leads to discouragement. I think one of the most significant temptations for Christians in this culture is to just give up and go with the majority. It’s hard maintaining the effort of marching to a different tune while everyone around you looks at you like you’re crazy.

But I don’t think Jesus called us to follow him in pursuing God’s reign of truth and grace in order to simply make martyrs of us all. He called us to this task because he knew that his call was about what’s really true in this world. The Kingdom of God, which is defined by justice and compassion and peace and freedom, is the only true reality.[7] It is the testimony of the Scriptures from the very beginning--especially in the Psalms--that God’s reign of compassion and justice is the truth that defines our lives. All the other “kingdoms” may promise to make us happy, but only following Jesus in living out the values of the Kingdom of God can bring true fulfillment to life. God’s reign of grace and truth and love and peace is the ultimate reality before which all other competing loyalties will eventually fade.

[2] Cf. Paul D. Hanson, “The Identity and Purpose of the Church,” Theology Today 42 (Oct 1985), 345: “Though in the popular eschatology of his day the new era of blessing was to come through a dazzling display of divine power in which the cosmos would be thrown into disarray, Jesus pointed out that in everyday human acts of reconciling and healing, the Kingdom of God was ‘in the midst of you’ (Luke 17:21).” Contrast Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Luke X-XXIV, Fitzmyer, 848-49, where he agrees with W. G. Kummel that the verb form ἤγγικεν is to be understood as “has approached, has drawn near.” He adds, “The implication is that the day of the kingdom’s full arrival is still in the future.” But cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.2.459-60, where he agrees that until the final day “the restrained ἤγγικεν [has come near] must be used” but he insists also that “all the time there is a secretly implied ἐλήλυθεν [has come].”

[3] Cf. Walter Wink, The Powers that Be, 39. He calls our culture with its competing claims for our allegiance “The Domination System.” He describes this system as one that is characterized by “unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all.”

[4] Cf. Fred Craddock, Luke, 145: “the message to those who accept and to those who reject is the same: ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’ (vv. 9, 11).”

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 21: "Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it."

[6] The quote originates with Keith Green. See http://www.wordoflifechristian ministries.net/index.php?p=1_45 The logic of the statement in this form is imprecise. It should say something like, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald’s means you know how to cook a hamburger.” This sentiment originated with (in)famous evangelist Billy Sunday, who said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a car.”

[7] Cf. Hanson, “Identity and Purpose of the Church,” 358: “By keeping alive an alternative to the ideologies and systems of our Modern, materialistic, power-loving world, and by preserving reminders derived from its sacred tradition that much of what we moderns call real is an illusion whereas much that we had dismissed as illusory is in a deep sense the most real, in other words, by being faithful to a heritage which is both ancient and radically new, the church has kept alive hope for an otherwise very troubled World.”

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Pharisees and Sinners, Each and All

Lk 7:36-50[1]

There are a lot of reasons why people practice their religion. For some, it’s simply what their family has always done, and so they do it too. For others, attending church or synagogue or mosque is an integral part of their ethnic identity. Then there are those who have more interesting motivations. Some practice their religion as a way of “keeping up appearances.” For others, their religious accomplishments are a source of personal pride, and they parade them every chance they get. In recent times, especially in this country, the Christian faith has become a sanctified means of wish fulfillment: if you pray the right way or follow the right steps, all your dreams will come true. You’ll have the marriage you’ve always wanted, you’ll have perfect children, and you’ll never have to worry about your finances. As I said, there are a lot of reasons why people practice their religion.

I think our Gospel lesson for today provides us with a study that contrasts two very different people and their very different reasons for practicing their religion. Jesus attends a dinner at the home of a Pharisee named Simon. He must have been a person of some prominence, because he’s one of the few Jewish leaders to be called by name in the Gospels. Apparently, Simon had heard about Jesus and he was curious to see for himself what this rabbi from Nazareth was about. There’s no indication that Simon had any genuine interest in becoming a disciple of Jesus. The fact that Jesus wasn’t the only guest suggests Simon must have invited some of his friends to the dinner--presumably other Jewish leaders. It’s hard to tell what his motivation was on the surface of things. Was he simply curious? Did he want to question Jesus? Was he out to demonstrate that his piety was superior to this carpenter from Galilee? It’s hard to say.

The contrast in the story is with the woman who comes to Jesus. Luke’s Gospel simply says that she was a “sinner.” Although some translations assume that she had lived an immoral life, we don’t really know that.[2] Yes, Jesus said that her sins were many, but that’s a statement that could apply to us all. In Jesus’ day, people like Simon had all kinds of reasons for calling someone a “sinner,” most of which had nothing to do with that person’s actual character. But she knows that she’s a sinner. And she knows something else as well: her sins have been forgiven. It’s hard to know what motivated her to break all social conventions and “crash” this dinner with its VIP guests. Apparently, she has had some kind of encounter with the love of God that Jesus embodied and shared with those around him.[3] And so she comes, overwhelmed with gratitude to the point that she begins to weep. And her tears flow so hard that she’s able to wash Jesus’ feet with them! As if that weren’t surprising enough, she also dries them with her hair. These were things that a woman simply didn’t do to a man who was not her husband.[4]

Apparently, she had a “reputation” in Simon’s town. Simon recognized her and looked down on her as a “sinner.” And because Jesus allowed her to even touch him, he made an assumption--the rabbi from Nazareth must not be all that he heard he was.[5] But Jesus responded to the situation by offering Simon a riddle that is pretty obvious: if two people have their debts cancelled, the one who owes the most is going to be the most grateful.[6] Turns out Jesus did know who it was he had allowed to touch him--a person who has experienced the love of God as unconditional acceptance and forgiveness, and who was deeply grateful for that.[7]

On the other hand, it would seem that Simon’s true motivation for inviting Jesus to dinner was transparent enough. As Jesus pointed out, Simon denied Jesus all the customary courtesies a host would extend to a guest. So it would seem that the dinner was an elaborate scheme to demonstrate Simon’s superiority to Jesus, the friend of sinners. I think this gives us a clue as to why he practiced his religion--it was a way for him to feel superior over those he considered beneath his level of piety. He didn’t have any real interest in anything Jesus had to say or anything he might do. Simon simply wanted to humiliate this famous upstart, demonstrating who was really at the top of the religious ladder.

Two people encounter Jesus, with two very different motivations. The one comes to Jesus out of profound gratitude for the gift of acceptance. And she is so grateful for God’s loving acceptance and forgiveness that she cannot control her tears. It would seem clear that she’s practicing her faith because her heart has been radically changed. The other brings Jesus into his home simply to demonstrate his religious superiority to the man everyone is talking about. It would seem that he practices his faith simply to make himself look good in the eyes of his peers. He seems stuck in the mindset that his “righteousness” means that he deserves God’s favor. Unfortunately, we’ve read the stories about Pharisees and sinners in the Gospels so long that we make another assumption: the woman’s sins were forgiven, but the Pharisee’s were not. But that’s not what Jesus said. He said the one who was forgiven little loves little. Despite all that Simon has done to publicly humiliate Jesus, he offers forgiveness to him as well![8] Unfortunately, Simon will have to undergo a change of heart before he can even be aware of his sins, and that they are indeed great.[9]

I think this is important because we have to realize that we all practice our faith from a variety of mixed motives. While we tend to identify with the “sinners” in the Gospel stories, if we’re honest with ourselves we have to admit that we all have some of the “Pharisee” in us as well. We all have that part of us that practices our faith because it makes us feel good about ourselves. We all have that part of us that thinks we deserve a reward for doing the right thing. We all have that part that looks down on certain people as “inferior.” And Jesus offers us all forgiveness and acceptance--whether we’re more “sinners” or “Pharisees.” The path to the kind of heart-felt faith that the woman displayed by pushing past all the conventions and taboos of her world to express her gratitude is through a radical change of heart.[10] That kind of transformation, that kind of experience of God’s unconditional love for us, can only come when we recognize that we’re all both sinners and Pharisees.

[2] Cf. John J. Kilgallen, “Forgiveness of Sins (Luke 7:36-50),” Novum Testamentum 40 (April, 1998):106, where he comments, “By positioning the phrase "in the city" as he does, Luke means to say, not that the woman was a sinner, but that the woman was considered by the city to be a sinner.” Cf. also Michael Lindvall, “Scandalous Behavior,” The Christian Century (June 1,2004):119.

[3] Cf. Kilgallen, “Forgiveness of Sins,” 109-110.

[4] Cf. Francis Taylor Gench, “Luke 7:36-50: Making the Familiar Seem Strange,” Interpretation 46 (July 1992):287: “Not only are her actions out-of-the-ordinary, but they are also a violation of norms of decorum. By removing her headdress and unbinding her hair in public, she performs the ‘greatest disgrace for a woman’ (Jeremias).”

[5] Cf. Gench, “Lk. 7:36-50,” 287: she says that Simon’s response is “formulaic and logical according to his routine way of looking at things: An indecorous act means a sinner and an inappropriate association with a sinner means no prophet.”

[6] Cf. Kilgallen, “Forgiveness of Sins,” 107: Jesus’ parable “makes clear the immensity of Simon's error: all has been forgiven, while he can only think that nothing has been forgiven.”

[7] Cf. F. Bovon, Luke 1: A commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50, 297 , where he observes that “the removal of destructive prejudices in society (the cliques that exist in all classes, from drug addicts to bankers), and self-examination (where does my sin lie?) in the individual occur not in the legal investigation of inability and in the application of written rules, but in an encounter” (emphasis original). Cf. similarly, Gench, “Lk. 7:36-50,” 288-89.

[8] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ 114, where he says that Jesus’ offer of acceptance to “sinners and tax collectors,” in effect “is breaking through the vicious circle of their discrimination in the system of values set up by the righteous. In this way he is also potentially rescuing ‘the righteous’ from the compulsion of self-righteousness.”

[9] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:797, where he says, “The question is left open whether the Pharisee Simon, who has not shown Him this love, is forgiven to this extent or can receive such absolution.”

[10] Cf. Peter S. Hawkins, “Mousetraps,” The Christian Century 118 (May 23, 2001):17, where he puts it this way: “Because the Pharisee believes that he has very little to ask from Jesus, he has little to give him in return: not a drop of water, a kiss or a drop of oil. The woman, on the other hand, knows the enormity of the debt that has been canceled. As a result, she crashes a party to make a fool of herself, skipping all appropriate expressions of thanks and soaring straight into the stratosphere of the outrageous. Forgiven much, she loves much more than good taste could ever allow.”

The Waking Dreamer