Sermon September 27, 2015: 17th Sunday after Trinity

Some years ago I learned an approach to understanding the Gospel.  There are actually three rules to this approach.  The first of the rules is, ‘the Gospel is always astonishing’. The second rule is ‘The Gospel is not fair’. Finally, ‘in the Gospel, God always acts first’. 

Now I must admit that I don’t always use these rules.  However, I have found that when I do they can be helpful in trying to figure out what the Gospel is saying to me in the current moment.  I thought of this approach when I read today’s Gospel.  Specifically, I was surprized/astonished when I read that Jesus went to the house of the chief Pharisee.  Now, if I had been asked I would have said that this is the last place that I would expect Jesus to be.  It is like Daniel going into the lions’ den voluntarily.  Jesus was never reluctant to criticise the Pharisees and hold them to account for their approach to religion and their seemingly making a god of the law e.g. the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath.  

Here we have the Gospel with Jesus breaking bread at the chief Pharisee’s house.  We might have thought that perhaps the fence—or should I say chasm—that separated the Pharisees from Jesus might have been mended and bridged. 

But we are disabused from that possibility almost immediately.  We are told, “that they watched him.”  In effect they had invited Jesus to dinner to do what they always seemed to do; try and catch him in some faux pas of religious law so that they could condemn him and his message.  That, of course, in itself is a breaking of the rules of hospitality.  That is not what a host should do.  The host should welcome a guest and put him or her in the place of honour. 

The drama unfolds and we have what seems to be a set-up by the host.  There is a man among them who has dropsy.  Now I wasn’t actually sure what dropsy is.  I looked it up on the source of all knowledge—I Googled it and found out.  It is the old term for Oedema which is an observable swelling caused by accumulation of fluid in the bodily tissue.  So it seems that this man—who had a condition that Jesus couldn’t miss—was invited there to be bait to trap Jesus in a blasphemy.  They probably thought that Jesus might be moved by his condition and heal him.  And as we are told it is the Sabbath and therefore he would have performed work on the Sabbath and broken the Holiness code.

However, Jesus is no fool (except perhaps for Christ). He beats them to the punch-line so to speak.  He asks the assembled religious leaders and lawyers, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?”  They know that they have been caught in the trap they set for Jesus so they do the only thing they can and say nothing.  He goes ahead and heals the man.  He doesn’t however stop there.  He uses the opportunity to show them what they should know as religious leaders.  He shows them that the law does allow work to be done if it is for compassionate reasons.  They would rescue an animal that was in need of saving.  Would not God expect the same for His people? 

He then gives them the final lesson—the icing on the spiritual cake so to speak.  He gives them a lesson in true hospitality and shows them what the spirit of the law is.  He shows them that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  They are not to hold that they are the important ones.  They are to humble themselves. They are to be poor in spirit as Jesus will later tell us in Beatitudes.  Then they will be blessed. 

  

Where does this leave us?  Do we then have to remember to show true hospitality to other?  That sounds fairly easy doesn’t it?  If we invite someone to dinner we should not do it for nefarious reasons.  All well and good.  However, with Jesus I don’t think we get off that easy.  Jesus is calling us to true humility in all aspects of life.  It is like the Pharisee who is beside the tax collector praying “Thank God I am not like the tax collector”.  We are like that when we hold ourselves to deserve the best seat at the table in all aspect of life we are not humbling ourselves as we are called to do by Jesus. 

When we engage with someone what kind of an internal conversation do we have?  Do we compare ourselves to the other person and see where we are better or not as good as that person?  Do we put that person in a category of worthy of our friendship or even our attention?  We consider if this person is worth our while.  What do we think about those who are struggling? Do we categorize them as the worthy poor who should get our help or even the help of government?  So we think that refugees don’t deserve our help because they are probably terrorist anyway.  Jesus didn’t worry about the worthiness of the man with dropsy—he healed him. 

Admittedly it is hard to overcome what seems to be our natural inclination to judge others. However, Jesus also said judge not lest you be judged.  It is hard not to judge and in some cases we need to judge; is something positive of negative; is someone acting for the benefit of others or out of selfishness?  But when we judge we are called to see the child that God has created in each person we meet.  We are called to see Jesus’ face in the face of the homeless person and the neighbour we don’t get along with.  We are called to love one another as Jesus loves us.  It doesn’t seem easy but we are called to travel that road.  It is a journey we were called to take at our baptism and it is one that continues all our life.  Amen.

It's Not Fair It's Grace

There is a commercial which has been on TV recently.  It presents two cute little girls about four years old – one with brunette and one with blond hair sitting in a children’s play area - at a child sized round table with a pleasant looking middle aged man in a suit.  The man asks the brown haired little girl if she would like a pony.  The girl looks surprized and pleased and eagerly nods her head enthusiastically.  The man puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a toy pony and gives it to the girl.  She accepts it quite happily and begins to play with it.  The man then turns to the blond haired little girl and asks her if she would like a pony.  The girl of course answers in the affirmative as well after all what little girl or boy for that matter not want a pony – even a toy one. 

Well the man signals and what come into the room but a real live pony.  Well this little girl is ecstatic and begins to pat the pony and talk to it.  The camera shifts to the first little girl who is now chest fallen.  With a puzzled and disappointed look on her face she looks longingly at the real pony the other girl has just received.  She says to the man in a pained voice, “you didn’t say I could have a real pony.  The man responds in an offhand way, “Well, you didn’t ask”.  A voiceover then says, even little kids know it’s wrong to hold out on somebody.  Why don’t banks?” 

Have your children ever said to you, “It isn’t fair!”  The commercial is playing on the idea that children have an innate – perhaps even God-given sense of fair play.  They do seem to have a radar-like sense of what they believe is fair and what isn’t.  Of course their sense of what is and isn’t fair is not always accurate because they have a very limited understanding of the world.  But what parents often respond is, “Life isn’t”

As we grow up and experience the world we come to realize that life is often not fair.  However, we still have that belief deep down that it should be.  We believe that if God is just, God will make bring fairness and justice to and unfair and unjust world. 

This desire and belief in fairness is what is being addressed in the Gospel.  Some labourers have been working the whole day – which would be dawn to dusk.  Others have been hired at various different times throughout the day.   At the end of the day that last hired were paid first.  To the surprize of all the workers they were given a full day’s wage regardless of how long they worked - half a day or a quarter of a day or even one hour.  This seems very generous on the part of the landowner.  Then it was the turn of those who had been hired at the beginning of the day.  They had great hopes that this generous landowner would give them a bonus because after all they had worked longer that those who had been hired later. 

To their surprize and dismay they find they are given the same wage as all the others who had only been working part time – some only an hour  - you can hear the cry, “It’s not fair!”

Well can you blame them?  If I was in their situation I probably would have reacted the same way.  It’s very easy in this world regardless of what you have in life to look around and cry, “it’s not fair”.  Some people seem to be have everything in life.  They seem to be people who can fall into a manure pile and come out smelling like a rose.  There seem to be people who have everything in life and everything comes easy to them.  Other people struggle all their lives and never seem to get ahead.  We have the eternal cry of’ “It’s not fair”.  Why does God allow the world that God has created to be like this?  Why is there unfairness in the world – which is bad enough?  But what is worse, why does God allow injustice in the world.  Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people and good things happen to bad people?  We hear the cry of God’s people in exile. 

Why have you forsaken us Lord?  The words of the psalmist resonates with us, “By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept for thee Zion.”

Last May I spoke about an approach to understanding the Gospel which was presented to us at Synod.  The approach proposes three rules. First, the Gospel is always astonishing. The second rule is -  in the Gospel God always acts first.  The third rule is - the Gospel is not fair.

Well there certainly isn’t a problem identifying where the Gospel is not fair.  Why would Jesus be holding up this apparently obvious act of unfairness as the right thing for the landowner – supposedly God – to be doing?  Jesus gives us his apparent justification for this action.  He says to the labourers, who were unsatisfied, “didn’t you get what we agreed upon?”  Why are you begrudging those other workers the benefit of my generosity?  Well that still doesn’t sit right with them or us – it does go against our natural sense of fairness and justice.  However, the issue is not about what is fair and what is not.

When we look at the world through the lens of fairness we are looking at it as a child would.  We look at it though our human perspective.  However, God does not see the world that way.  The Gospel is not about fairness – it is about grace and mercy – God’s grace and God’s mercy.  Grace is about receiving what you don’t deserve and mercy is about not receiving what you do deserve.  If it is about grace and mercy it can’t be fair.  Being fair is about the law.  Under the law we get what is fair.  If we break the law we are given what we deserve – that is fairness.  God’s people tried living under the law - the covenant - they found it was impossible to fulfill the law.  It didn’t work.  If those labourers had all received what was owed them that would be absolutely correct according to the law. 

God responded by sending his only begotten Son to redeem us.  He did this not because we deserve it.  He did it as the supreme act of grace and mercy.  We are no longer under the law.  We have been redeemed by God mercy. We no longer are saved because of our merit – thank God. 

We are not saved by piling up brownie points and hope our gold stars outweigh our black marks at the end.  In terms of salvation it doesn’t matter if we turn to God’s grace at the beginning of the work day of our lives or at the twilight of the work day of our lives.  It matters in terms of other things but not salvation, God’s salvation is for all of us.  Jesus Christ redeemed the whole world.  That act of grace is offered to each of us regardless of our state – which is the sinful state of humankind – we are all sinners.  All we have to do is to respond and accept that grace that is freely offered to each and every one of us.  Thanks be to God.  To that we can all respond.  Hallelujah