They ‘R Us
Scriptures: Jeremiah 14:7-10
Luke 18:9-14
Do you know the expression “comparisons are odious”? Of course you do; it goes back a long way – in fact the earliest recorded use of this phrase appears to be by John Lydgate in his Debate between the horse, goose, and sheep, circa 1440. After that it was used by several authors, notably Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne. But I digress. That’s what happens when you Google a phrase and then surf the Internet – you tend to go down all kinds of rabbit tracks. Anyway, whenever this saying is used it’s usually in the context of someone feeling superior to someone else. Lydgate, in that debate between the horse, etc. goes on to say that comparisons engender hatred. That may be a little strong, but it’s not too far off the mark.
But we all do it, don’t we? There seems to be something inherent in human nature to want to one-up – to live better than the fictional “Jones” – to find some way that I am greater, bigger, higher, more advanced (find whatever other synonym you can for “superior”) than someone else. We look for it in terms of achievement (“my sermon is better than the one I heard at another church last week”). We look for it in terms of possessions (“I’ve got a swimming pool in my back yard, and you don’t”). We look for it in terms of social status (in the deep South, especially after the Civil War, those who were categorized as “poor white trash” could still feel they were social superiors to blacks, no matter how “poor” or “trashy” they might be).
There are two problems with comparisons (oh, there’re probably more than two, but let’s just focus on a couple for now). One: they lead to a “we-they” mentality – those who live up to my standards or are like me and those who are on the outside. We’re well into a season now – the political season, that is – where this kind of “we-they” mentality is especially acute: my opponent, the other party, red and blue states. Politics seems almost by necessity to make us think in “we-they” terms. Another result of this mentality is the kind of profiling that led to thousands of Muslims or Arabs being detained after 9/11 and members of racial/ethnic groups being stopped by the police just because of the color of their skin.
Two: comparisons lead to a sense of pride – pride in achievements, pride in possessions, pride in social status – which in religious terms means a kind of self-righteousness
Perhaps most unfortunately we make comparisons in our spiritual lives. We want to be more faithful, more giving, more mission-oriented, even more humble (which is pretty close to being an oxymoron). This is one of the most slippery and easily-transgressed aspects of our spiritual lives – how to keep from making comparisons about who is more “religious” (whatever that may mean) and how that affects the quality of what goes on in our spirits – which is another way of saying what God wants from us.
At its base that’s what’s going on in this familiar story of the Pharisee and the tax collector at prayer. Over the years as we’ve heard this story we know which of the characters we should identify with, and it’s certainly not the Pharisee. Over 20 centuries of interpretation have taught Christians that Pharisees were self-righteous legalists who opposed Jesus and wanted his ministry stopped. But if you were here in September when we recognized the importance of the High Holy Days for Jews, you’ll remember that I talked about how this is a somewhat inaccurate picture of the Pharisees. I said at that time that by the time the gospel of Luke was written the Pharisees had become the dominant group in Judaism, and in fact after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD the Pharisaic sect was re-established as Rabbinic Judaism --
which ultimately produced normative, traditional Judaism, the basis for all contemporary forms of Judaism. Oh, Pharisees were concerned with ritual purity and with upholding the law all right, but they could also emphasize the availability of forgiveness to all. Many Rabbinic texts from the Pharisaic period, indeed, much of Jesus' teaching, for example the Sermon on the Mount, is consistent with that of the Pharisees.
So, it isn’t simply the fact that this man is a Pharisee that sets him up as the “bad guy” in this story, but rather it is the attitude he takes toward what he should be praying for. In fact, when Jesus’ listeners first heard him start this parable they would have assumed that the Pharisee was going to demonstrate positive characteristics, and it would be the hated tax collector who would be criticized for having the audacity to come to the temple. But, of course, Jesus turns things on their head. Twenty-one centuries later we know, don’t we, who we are supposed to identify with – this outcast, this lower-than-low-life, this man whom everyone could feel superior to finds God’s mercy because he recognizes that God’s grace exceeds his ability to earn it. Yes, we say, we are like the tax collector and not like the Pharisee.
And yet. There’s a story about two pastors who fall to their knees at the front of the church, crying out to God, “I have sinned. I am unworthy. I am unworthy.” Just then a janitor walks in, and observing their display of piety he also falls on his knees and joins them in their refrain: “I have sinned. I am unworthy. I am unworthy.” One pastor turns to the other and sneers, “Now look at who thinks he’s unworthy!” When I heard this story it reminded me of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as Wayne and Garth of “Wayne’s World” kowtowing with their “We’re unworthy” act. The humor in that act was that it always came across more as self-aggrandizing than as humility.
Humility is the most difficult of all virtues, because there are so many ambushes waiting to trap a person who truly wants to practice humility. We even make a joke about it: talking about the person who proclaims, “Thank God I’m so humble!” In effect, this was the case with the Pharisee: he was proclaiming his good deeds in order to show off his faithfulness. And what good deeds they were! Audrey West talks about the Pharisee this way: “He tithes! He fasts! He prays! Who among us would not want a congregation full of tithers whose giving exceeds the typical one-or-two percent? In our contexts, where ‘fast’ has more to do with fast food than with a fast from food, this level of spiritual commitment is impressive. At every seminary or divinity school where I’ve been, students and faculty complain that their prayer lives suffer under the pressures of the academic year. Yet the Pharisee manages to go all the way to the Temple to pray. In a culture where we feel overworked, overstressed and overtired, the spiritual life of the Pharisee can look pretty good.”
S. McLean Gilmour adds to this picture some special evidences of the Pharisee’s piety: private fasts were not required by the law, but zealous Jews observed them on Mondays and Thursdays. The law demanded only that agricultural products be tithed, but evidently the Pharisee tithes all of his income (although, Gilmour notes, not all of his possessions – there is a bit of a hedge factor here). And John Knox notes: “…he had imposed disciplines on himself in excess of the law’s requirements.”
So, this is a pretty impressive list of spiritual accomplishments. No wonder he felt he was justified in comparing himself to an outcast tax collector, who in his mind was worse than thieves, rogues, and adulterers, and who, I’m sure the Pharisee felt, should not even have been there in the Temple kneeling next to him.
And that, of course, is the whole point about the Pharisee’s attitude. He is condescending and hateful to another human being whom he doesn’t even know and whom he identifies solely by his occupation in order to despise him all the more. This is an ultimate “we-they” set-up. And Jesus is telling us that it is the “theys” who will be justified – who will discover God’s mercy and grace.
Why? Because this man, who happens to be a tax collector (and there are probably many other ways he could be identified), is focused on his relationship to God and what it is that God wants of him. He knows he is a sinner. That’s always the first step, that piece of self-insight. He knows that he is in need of God’s mercy. And then, most importantly, he knows that that mercy – that grace – is always there. Note the significant difference between this man’s prayer and those of the two pastors I told the story about a moment ago: their emphasis was “I” directed -- “I have sinned. I am unworthy.” His was God directed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” John Knox says, “For the Pharisee the key word was I: it repeats like a hurdy-gurdy. He thanked God, but actually his thoughts were on himself….. The tax collector…offered a cry rather than a prayer…..”
Jeremiah’s lament in our companion scripture passage is also about identifying the sins or, as he calls them, the iniquities, of the people. As with Jesus and the Pharisee, Jeremiah is concerned about the danger of spiritual pride. In this 14th chapter we have practically the direct opposite of what we heard last week in that lilting 31st chapter where Jeremiah has God affirming a New Covenant with the people: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” But here Jeremiah hears a different word from the Lord: “Thus says the Lord concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore the Lord does not accept them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.” This is more like the Jeremiah we think we know. What’s going on here is that the people are being two-faced. On the one hand, they are confessing their sins; on the other hand, they really want Yahweh to shoulder the blame. Stanley Hopper calls it: “…the contradictory naiveté of the people’s bland and unthinking piety, whereby in one breath they confess their faults and in the next lay the blame on Yahweh.” Once again, it’s a matter of making comparisons and taking sides, and Jeremiah won’t let them get away with it. Even in exile the people must find the humility to come before God in prayer focused on God and not on themselves.
When we make comparisons we are concentrating on ourselves and how we are going to look in the eyes of others. That great American social and political philosopher, Walt Kelley’s Pogo Possum, famously uttered the line, "we have met the enemy and he is us." This quotation first appeared in a 1970 anti-pollution poster for Earth Day, which is a fitting context for us today since participating in the environmental movement is one excellent antidote to self-centeredness – if we are to save the planet and all the creatures in it we have to take a wholistic view of God’s creation. Recognizing that in so many ways we are our own worst enemies is the beginning point of accepting our sinfulness. But it is also the beginning point of wisdom – the wisdom to realize that God is in control and not us – the wisdom to see that all other human beings are like we are and that we do not need to make comparisons among us – the wisdom, in all humility, to trust in God’s grace.
This is what Jesus wanted for the Pharisee and what he saw in the tax collector. He is not simply condemning the one and affirming the other, but rather he is holding out to his disciples – to us – a picture of what humanity is like (self-centered) and an image of what humanity can become (humble before our creator God, and so turned outwards towards others).
We are about to start today on a process to determine what it might mean for this congregation to officially declare itself an open and affirming church, which means offering an extravagant welcome to all people but in particular to those who self-identify as gay or lesbian. In this process that we begin today it is especially important that, for those of us who are heterosexual, we not get caught up in a “we” and “they” mentality. There are no “others”; there are only God’s people, each of whom has their own characteristics, none of which are greater, bigger, higher, more advanced than anyone else, as I said at the beginning of this sermon. To paraphrase both Pogo and the toy store: “They ‘R Us”. We need to identify with one another. Had the Pharisee been able to identify with the tax collector and not try to make comparisons between their respective religious behaviors Jesus would not have said of him, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled” – that is, made to see that they are not as great as they think they are. Instead, our goal, in the open and affirming process as it is for all aspects of our lives, is to humble ourselves – and then it is God who will do the exalting!
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
October 28, 2007