First Friends Meeting
Luke 18:9-14
‘The Trouble with Church…’
Doug Gwyn

It was late last spring, I started this series on the parables of Jesus. Even now, after Labor Day, we’re still going. I assure you, however, that ‘the end is near’. Just a couple more after this one. There are still others, but I read them and think, ‘what would I do with that?’ The parables of Jesus are the perhaps richest part of his teaching. Little stories that keep surprising and troubling us 2000 years later. In many cases, neither my message nor the messages that have come out of open worship have been able to tidy up these parables. Many of them are as ambiguous and vexing as life itself. Yet in each case, there’s a glimmer of light, a door left slightly ajar, a lingering question, or a puzzling gap that leads into the realm of mystery. That’s kingdom of God that Jesus tells us is already unfolding, always unfolding among us, if we have the eyes to see it.

In some cases, the key to the story is only hinted at. Or there’s something missing that we have to fill in for ourselves. Susan has just read one of those. Luke explains that Jesus told this story because some people around him were self-righteous and judgmental toward others. But if we think that this is just a problem with Pharisees, we’re kidding ourselves. This is a human problem. But it creeps especially into religious life. We see it in churches as much as anywhere.

The scene is the temple in Jerusalem, the holy place, where you go to ‘get right with God’, right? Two men are standing there praying. The Pharisee comes before the Lord in his Sabbath-day best, religiously speaking. He thanks God that he’s not like other people – like that tax collector standing over there – he fasts twice a week, he tithes faithfully. I’m sure the list went on. And every religion has its lists – the right things to do. He’s checking them off and looking real good there in the temple. He’s even careful to thank God that he is the way he is. So he’s looking at that tax collector, saying ‘there but for the grace of God….’ He thinks he’s being humble.

Now, we could just sneer and go on. But let’s give the man his due. Don’t we all catch ourselves doing this now and then? We take some satisfaction in our accomplishments. We may even remember to thank God. And really, if faith is about becoming better people, we have to invest our egos in it. Yes, we pray for God’s guidance and God’s strength in our hearts to live more virtuous lives. But along the way, as we do our part, we are putting ourselves into it. And even if our progress is by God’s grace and not our own effort, even our surrender to God’s grace is no small accomplishment. In fact surrender is a lot harder than striving. We tie ourselves in knots trying to let go and let God, don’t we? And when we see some progress, it’s OK to feel good about it. But we do have to keep an eye on it. It’s easy to forget how weak and hopeless we were at some points along the way. It’s easy to start comparing ourselves with others who don’t measure up to our accomplishments. We tend to create moral and spiritual standards that fit ourselves better than anyone else. We tend to create God in our own image, a god that fits us like a glove. But that beautiful outfit can turn out to be a straitjacket.

But let’s leave the Pharisee standing there in his glory, and turn to the tax collector, standing there in the temple near the Pharisee. Near enough to hear the Pharisee refer to him unkindly. Remember that in Jesus’ time and place, a tax collector was one of the worst social pariahs. Not just because people hated paying taxes – that’s perennial. But the Romans allowed a tax collector to collect an extra percentage from people for his own gain – and sometimes it was exorbitant, legalized robbery. Let’s not romanticize this tax collector as some kind of misunderstood outcast, a ‘rebel without a cause’. This is a social parasite. But he knows what he is. He’s in the temple. He’s standing before his Creator. He’s in that place of weakness and hopelessness that we all reach sometimes in our lives. He may be at the threshold of a breakthrough. Or he may just be there for a little self-flagellation, a little breast-beating. A bit of religious masochism. That too is a well known phenomenon. Jesus isn’t making a hero out of this guy. Nor should we. Jesus is simply saying that on that particular day in that temple, that tax collector is more reachable than that Pharisee. There’s greater possibility for change and breakthrough. The Pharisee, at least on that particular day, is stuck with his own good sense of himself, wrapped up tight in his checklists.

I think the tax collector is a cautionary example as much as the Pharisee. In the Christian tradition, people can cycle around permanently in self-hate. It can seem like a virtue, because you’re always a miserable sinner, throwing yourself upon the mercies of God. God is good, I’m bad. But won’t take you very far. It does no good to have your ego invested in a negative self-image. In other cases, people wax eloquent about their former, sinful life. In churches where people give testimony about their conversion, the story of their life before conversion often sounds much more interesting than their reformed life. Garrison Keillor tells a story of a reformed alcoholic who really came alive when talking about how bad he was before he gave up drink and found the Lord. Keillor writes that the man wore his red nose like a medal of honor.

But our real heroes and heroines of the faith are those whose lives become more interesting once they are on the spiritual path. This summer a group of us read about the life of John Woolman, the Quaker prophet of colonial New Jersey. There was great adventure and creativity in his long years of faithful service. Phil Johnson last week told me of a newly published collection of Mother Teresa’s letters. We think of her as someone constantly empowered by a sense of God’s presence and power in her life. But it turns out she suffered long periods when God seemed totally absent. Her tireless work in the streets of Calcutta were her way of keeping the faith, in spite of everything. She kept showing up for God, even when she couldn’t sense God showing up for her. That’s the kind of stuff our heroes and heroines of faith are about.

The more I sat with this parable this week, the more I realized that something is glaringly missing here. Maybe Jesus intended for us to notice its absence. These two men hear each other’s prayers to God, but they don’t talk to each other. These two men are locked into separate realities, as long as they talk only to God and not to each other. It’s a sharp contrast to the ministry of Jesus. He was always bringing very different people together around himself. People who often chafed at each other. They were offended that Jesus seemed to accept people so indiscriminately. That indiscriminate love of God in Jesus is a perennial scandal to this day. It keeps us having to deal with one another in this room week by week. It keeps us extending the invitation beyond these walls. Evangelicals and universalists, straights and gays – yes, even Republicans and Democrats!

We sometimes call our open worship together the ‘Quaker communion’. It’s when we move most fully into God’s presence. We sit in the quiet radiance of God’s love. We open our hearts to God’s light and let ourselves be clearly seen by God. That’s something that happens privately in that silence, each of us before our God. But we also know that we’re in it together. And we know that each one of us contributes to the divine hush in this room by being as still and as present to God as we can be. When we practice this stillness together, it more powerful than any of us can accomplish on our own. Then, if someone is moved by the Spirit to speak out of that silence, they speak out of an experience we are sharing together. That’s powerful. That still thrills me.

But perhaps the most sublime part of our worship comes at the very end. Ted Jockel reminded me of it this week. We join hands and sing our benediction together. It crowns everything that has happened among us in this room. It celebrates and consecrates this time we have shared. It’s not a blessing coming from the front of the room, from ‘the pastor’. No, it’s coming from all of us, all over this room, toward all of us, all over this room. It’s a mutual blessing – we bless one another. We extend God’s peace to each other. That’s piece that’s missing in the parable. Jesus wisely leaves us with a problem in that parable. Our struggle with the parable – and with each other – is the solution. One week at a time.