God Looks Up at Us!

 

Today's Gospel is a perfect Gospel story for reformation Sunday.

It says everything that Martin Luther wanted us to know about God.

The Reformation is the moment when theology changed in the Church.

It is the moment when things shifted from what we do, to what God does for us.

In this story, we could focus on Zacchaeus.

We could talk about what made him go out to see Jesus that day.

We could talk about him climbing a tree.

We could talk about how he changed his ways after this encounter.

But the story is really not about Zacchaeus.

In fact, all Bible stories are not really about the people in them.

They are stories about God.

Stories about how God interacts with us.

How God uses grace and love to entice us to faith or change our lives.

We usually make the mistake of focusing too much on what we do, and not enough on what God does.

More than anything else that is what the Reformation was about.

Luther wanted people to focus on what God was doing for them, instead of people focusing on what they could do to please God.

 

And in our story this morning there is an important moment that happens.

Jesus is walking down the road and he looks up.

He looks up to see Zacchaeus in the tree.

Why is this important?

Well, when we think about God we usually think of God looking down on us.

We think of an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud looking down and looking for ways that people are misbehaving.

And then thinking of elaborate ways to punish those who have done wrong.

 

What we get in Jesus is the opposite.

We get a God who looks up at us.

Who searches us out.

Who finds us in the place we find ourselves and invites us to a different place.

Notice in the text that Jesus doesn't stop and chastise Zacchaeus.

He doesn't stop and say, "Zacchaeus how dare you steal money from people!"

Instead, Jesus stops and invites Zacchaeus to a meal.

 

I have been thinking a lot about Jesus in our story this morning.

How it changes drastically how we think about God and ourselves.

How we desperately need a God who looks up to us, and not down on us.

We need a God who helps us grow with invitation rather than scolding.

 

This week I went out to eat for lunch with someone every day.

(I have said this before but it needs saying here. At least half of my job is eating lunch with people."

And every one of those lunches was about life and the difficult things that we face.

About losing someone we love, about trying to raise children, about trying to navigate relationships at work, about paying bills, about trying to do the right thing.

Life is so complex.

It is beautiful and wonderful, but also so difficult.

Do we need another person in our lives to tell us what we are doing wrong?

Do we need another voice in our heads telling us that we have failed in some way?

Do we need another tally of the ways that we have not lived up to some expectation either of others or ourselves?

 

I would argue that we don't.

Most of us know that life is hard and that we haven't quite got it figured out.

I am going to guess that Zacchaeus knew that he was not well-liked.

I am going to guess that he knew that he wasn't living up to other people's standards, or God's standards.

I am going to guess this because he went out to see Jesus that day.

He was looking for something.

But the way that Jesus interacted with him.

The way that Jesus invites him to a meal.

The effects are so much better than being told by another person that he has failed.

 

I am wondering if you ever had a moment or moments like that in your life.

Moments where you know you messed up, and you knew it was your fault.

But instead of judgment and condemnation, someone offered you grace and mercy.

 

It has happened many times in my life.

One time when was when I was in college.

There was this semester when things in my life were not going so well.

I had lost my grandfather and was grieving that loss.

There was this college chaplain who was new and she was not easy to get along with.

I was not doing well in my classes.

I was partying a lot.

I am not sure why it was all so out of control, but it was.

That semester I think I got two Cs and two Ds.

It wasn't good.

I really thought my parents were going to be really upset.

Instead, they were compassionate about it.

They wanted to know what was going on, they wanted to talk about why things didn't look good.

We talked about things.

When I went back to school I went to the chapel one night by myself.

And I prayed that God would be with me that semester.

I prayed that I might come out of the fog I was in.

I heard God reply to me that it was going to be ok.

I heard God invite me to come down and get back on track.

That semester I made the dean's list.

Grace and mercy are better than ridicule and the law.

 

My parents and God looked up at me in my tree and invited me to come down.

They invited me to do better.

I think this is what the Reformation was about.

It was about knowing the God we have in Jesus Christ.

The God who walks among us.

The God who knows our weakness.

The God who looks up and invites us to a meal.

The Reformation was about faith in a God of grace, instead of one who is burdening us with the law.

As Martin Luther once said, "The law says 'Do this', and it is never done. Grace says, 'believe in this' and everything is already done."

 

We have enough people in this world that look down on us.

We have plenty of people that tell us we are no good or don't live up to some standard.

We are judged all the time.

It is nice to know that God is looking up at us.

 

As we move into the unknown future with all of its complications.

As we move through life, with all of its challenges.

I think it is even more important to remember what Jesus taught us, and what Luther remind us of.

Because when life is complicated one way we often try to control it is by making new laws, and by bemoaning the fact that other people are not doing the right thing.

It makes us feel better sometimes to think we can control people by simply making them feel bad about themselves.

 

But Jesus has shown us that God is not interested in that.

God looks up at us.

God finds us in our tree.

God says, "Hey I have been looking for you. Come down and let us talk about it over a meal."

And through that grace, we find our footing.

Through grace, we find the people God has called us to be.

May God continue to find you.

May we continue to celebrate and give thanks for that life-changing grace.

Amen

It's a Trap!

 It would seem that today's Gospel is rather straightforward.

Don't be a self-righteous religious person.

That could be the whole sermon.

(Maybe some of you want that to be the whole sermon.)

However, as I have lived with this text this past week I see it is as more complicated.

Jesus' story is a trap.

It is a trap because no matter what position you take you end up being a self-righteous religious person.

 

Many texts in the Bible contain both law and Gospel in them.

They speak to us about something that we should do but don't.

And they tell us about the forgiveness and mercy of God.

Today's Gospel is such a text.

Depending on who you identify with you get both law and Gospel.

 

Let me explain by telling you a story about something that happened to me this week.

I had lunch with someone from our congregation.

We had a very nice lunch.

This person told me a story about someone else in their profession who was cocky.

This person never admitted that they made mistakes.

And in the story, the fact that they would never admit to making mistakes made things worse.

I was thinking about pastors I know who do the same thing.

I was telling stories about other pastors who could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by simply admitting that they had made a mistake.

I then said something like, "I don't understand. I just admit the mistake and things go much better."

 

After I left the lunch I thought I was going to use those stories we shared as an example today of what not to do.

I was going to tell you don't be like those cocky people.

You know those people who think that everything they do is great and think that they know everything in the world.

You know those people who are so cocky they try and tell you what you should and shouldn't do.

You know those people….

And suddenly I realized what I had done.

Do you hear it?

I became self-righteous.

I was judging someone else based on what I would do.

 

And that is the trap of our Gospel this morning.

It is turning being humble before God and others into the law.

It is saying that a true person of faith would be humble.

A true person of faith would never act like the religious person in our text this morning.

True Christians don't brag about themselves.

I better go out and be more humble.

And let me tell you that once you try to be humble you are not humble any longer.

 

Not only that but that is part of the history of the interpretation of this text.

It has been used over the years to be anti-Semitic.

To say that Christians are better people.

Christians don't have the law, and Jews only have the law.

See what happens to Judaism, you end up with the Pharisees.

You see how easily we fall into the trap.

Now we are better people, or more faithful people because of this.

Let us never forget that all the disciples are Jewish, Jesus is Jewish.

There is plenty of Gospel in Judaism.

And there is plenty of law in Christianity.

We cannot self-justify ourselves by being against other people.

 

So you see how easily we fall into the law trap.

We humans are really good at this.

We are good at taking what Jesus means to be a parable about grace and turning it into, "you better be humble or you will turn out like that guy."

 

So how do we avoid the trap?

This is what my mind could not figure out this week.

I got it twisted up so many times, and every time no matter what I say it all sounds like the law.

And maybe that is the point.

 

When we can't outthink, outwork, out scheme God.

When we come to the end of it all.

When we are left with no more self-righteous propositions.

When we can't see the fault in our neighbors, because our own faults are too much.

When there is nothing more to say or do.

When we tried all the options, none of them work.

Then we are ready to say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"

 

God take away my pride.

God takes away my judgment of others.

God take away my foolish belief in my own ability to be humble.

Maybe, even then we can see grace for the religiously self-righteous.

Maybe, we can see that fasting and almsgiving and even self righteousness are simply an attempt to make them feel better about themselves.

And it is the same impulse that I have.

 

I like to tell stories about what a great pastor I am.

I like to believe that I know what I am doing.

I like to think that my success is somehow my own making.

I like to think well of myself.

And I am happy to tell a story about someone else who, "doesn't get it."

 

But maybe there is no use for that before God.

There is no use before God for our bragging and our self-important speeches.

Instead, there is only grace.

Grace for you and me.

Grace from our love of laws, and easy answers.

Grace for our love of judgment of one another.

 

I don't know where the tax collector found that grace to pray that prayer.

I don't know how he got to the temple that day.

I don't know the disappointments he faced or the struggle of his life.

I also don't know how the religious person got there.

I don't know the struggles he faced either.

 

What I know, and what you know, is that Jesus in Luke's Gospel comes for both of them.

Luke's Gospel is one of universal salvation.

Jesus in Luke's Gospel saves tax collectors, soldiers, religious people, non-religious people, deaf, lame, rich, poor, and everyone in between.

Jesus in Luke makes it known that God is there for all people.

And that God extends grace to them all.

 

I take solace in that today.

Because I can't seem to get out of the trap.

Try as I might I end up back in the law, and I forget the Gospel.

I end up trying too hard to be the person God wants me to be.

I forget that it is only when we have tried everything, and everything we have attempted fails us, that we come to the moment where we surrender to God's beautiful and terrifying grace.

 

May God lead you out of that trap too.

May you be able to pray ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 

And in that letting go may you see God's grace.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer Helps Us to Keep Walking For a Better World

 So it is campaign time again.

For me, this can only mean one thing.

It is also silly season.

That time when politicians promise us that they can solve all the problems if we only elect them.

Inflation is no problem, just elected me or my party and all will be well.

Are you worried about climate change, no problem vote for me and it will be done.

And then there are the countless ads debasing the other team with name-calling.

In fact, this seems to be most of our political discourse these days, calling each other names.

 

The thing that has me upset this political season is that every politician who is running for office wants to win by piling on immigrants.

Every single one of them is trying to see who can be meaner and tougher on immigration.

They are trying to scare us into voting for them on the backs of poor migrants of color in South America.

They are casting them as the bogeymen who are coming to take over our country.

I mention this today because I try really hard to not be cynical about the world, and about people, and politicians make that really hard.

It seems that politics are not about actually helping people, but about getting elected and having power.

It seems to be bringing out the worst in us as people.

That all of our pettiness and self-interest come out when we discuss very serious issues like immigration.

We talk a lot about our Christianity but seem to leave our compassion and mercy at the door when it comes to certain issues.

 

For those that don't remember, before the pandemic twice a month people of faith gathered at the ICE building in Manchester to pray and walk for our immigrant siblings.

We pray and walk for justice, compassion, and love.

We would pray and walk that the walls of this world that separate us would come down.

I got to do that again a couple of weeks ago.

I was walking with one of the Latine advocates from Manchester.

She was sharing her story of being bullied, looked down on, and made to feel less than as a child because she was an immigrant.

It was also a story of her resilience in the face of it all.

 

I started to really care about the immigration issue in seminary about 20 years ago.

I had the pleasure of serving in a Latine congregation, during my first two years of seminary, and I saw firsthand the struggles of immigrants and the injustices they face.

And since that time it has only gotten worse and our politics meaner.

My friend who I walked with in Manchester has been fighting this fight her entire life, much longer than me.

Here we were walking, talking, praying for something new to happen.

In faith, in hope, we walked and prayed for a new day to dawn.

I wish I could vote for a pro-immigrant candidate this election but there is no one to speak up for them.

 

So all I have is prayer.

All I have is my faith in God's promise of a new day, a better day.

Jesus brought the hope of that promise into focus.

It is how Luke's Gospel starts with Mary singing about the reversal of the world.

"God has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the pride in the thoughts of their hearts;
⁵² God has brought down the mighty from their thrones
    and exalted those of humble estate;
⁵³ God has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich God has sent away empty."

The disciples have seen this in the life and ministry of Jesus.

They are filled with expectations.

They are filled with the promise of this reversal.

What they can't see and don't know is that this will take place on the cross.

It will be Jesus' example of giving himself up to hatred and sin that will show us how to reverse the fortunes of the world.

Before our reading for today, Jesus tells his disciples that there will be difficult times ahead and that they will not see him for a long time.

He tells them that in losing their lives they will see the kingdom of God.

He tells them that the kingdom is hidden and not easily seen.

 

You could imagine that this is somewhat disheartening for the disciples.

They probably thought that Jesus with all of his power was going to ride in and kill all of the Romans and take power with them at his right and left hands.

This gets to the heart of our Gospel this morning.

"Will there be faith on earth when the son of man comes again?"

Will we still be praying to God for justice?

Will we still be giving up our lives for the sake of others?

Will we still be marching around buildings demanding compassion?

Will we still believe that God will bring justice?

Will we still believe in Mary's song?

Or will we grow so cynical that we just give up and stop trying?

 

It is not easy.

Most days I want to throw up my hands and be done with it all.

I want to stop caring, and stop walking and praying.

That is so much easier.

But then the Holy Spirit will intervene.

I will go to the march.

I will be with other faithful people who fill me with hope and faith.

 

This week a friend from camp, Joe, posted this on his Facebook page.

"My heart is heavy.

Reflecting on this journey.

I’ve made a boatload of mistakes.

I’d like to think that I’ve learned from them, but the truth is, I’m more stubborn than I’d like to be.

Not as open as I’d like to be.

Creator, help me to see my faults, help me to forgive and live in your words.

Help me to be a beacon of your love."

This prayer gave me hope this week.

It is a prayer that I pray to.

It was a Holy Spirit moment to see this, and it helped me less cynical about the world.

Maybe, if all of us could confess our shortcomings as my friend does here.

If all of us can see our own stubbornness, our own inability to see the suffering of others, our own need for God to help us love and care.

 

This is what Jesus is talking about this morning.

This is the answer to the world's silliness, meanness, injustice, and selfishness.

It is to turn to God.

To get out of our own way.

It is to get back into the streets and walk the walk.

It is to turn to community.

It is to listen closely to stories that others share about their pain and their resilience in the face of it.

And ultimately for Jesus, it is to pray.

To pray to God to give us the power to love.

Give us the courage to be like the women who pray day and night to the unjust judge.

It is to let that prayer, and those actions we do with others give us faith.

Faith in each other.

Faith in the world we live in.

And most importantly faith in God's ability to help us to love as Jesus showed us to love.

 

May you continue to pray always.

May it be prayers for justice for those living in poverty, those who are written off by politicians trying to win elections.

May it be a prayer for the promises of God's Kingdom to come to earth.

May it be a prayer that God changes your stubborn heart.

May it be a prayer that God fills you with love.

And may those prayers sustain your faith until the Son of Man comes again.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus Sets us Free From Religious Trauma

 

Almost once a week I run into someone who has experienced religious trauma.

Someone who grew up in a religious home and was told either explicitly or implicitly that they were no good.

Lots of times this is around sexuality, but not always.

People who have religious trauma carry with them shame, internal hatred, and perfectionism.

They express to me that they grew up in a "strict" religious household.

Many of them tell me they will never return to a church.

The damage that was done to them is too great.

 

For example, I once had a conversation with a man who attended a Catholic school growing up.

His parents were divorced so the nuns often punished him for this.

On day family days they forbid his parents from attending.

While the other students were off doing things with their families he had to stay in class and copy the dictionary.

Often the nuns would tell the young boy that his family was going to hell for their sin of divorce.

 

Or the time that someone told me that their pastor once told them that if they ever played with a schoolmate who was Jewish that they would go to hell.

This was a problem for this child because his best friend was Jewish.

 

Or the time that someone told me that all they were ever told at church was that they were sinful and wrong because they had feelings for other men.

Or the time someone told me that they always believed they would go to hell because they had an abortion.

Or the time someone told me that they grew up believing that only super good people went to heaven.

They weren't allowed to watch movies, listen to music, dance, or do anything outside of going to church and reading the Bible.

Often times people express this in more subtle ways.

They say something like, "I had a really bad experience growing up in Church."

This doesn't even account for the sexual abuse some received at the hands of clergy.

All the time people are telling me that they will never come to church because of some trauma they received at church.

 

It is sad to me that this happens to people.

And as a Lutheran (I want to interject here that some of the stories I have been told also happened in Lutheran churches.) I think this happens because we bring too much law and not enough Gospel.

As Luther once wrote, "We shouldn't make Jesus into Moses".

Making Jesus about keeping laws, rather than setting us free from sin and death.

 

To me, that is what the text is about today.

It is about Jesus confronting not just leprosy, but religious trauma.

It is about how our religious beliefs get in the way of having faith in God's love and grace for us.

 

Let us start by saying that in Jesus' day people believed that any infirmity you suffered was because of sin.

Religious people believed that leprosy was a punishment for some sins.

And on top of that, you were then ostracized from the rest of the community.

You were made to live apart.

 

This is where we find Jesus this morning.

In this land between Galilee and Jerusalem.

It is no mistake in Luke's Gospel that Jesus is in this liminal space.

It was not a place that many people traveled to, or through for that matter.

Many people went the long way around to get from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Why?

Well, there were Samaritans living in that place.

We know those good religious people viewed the Samaritans as less than them.

And it is clear from Luke's telling that undesirable people, like lepers, also lived in that space.

But here is Jesus, God's only Son, traveling through the heart of it.

And not only that but along the way stopping to heal.

 

I know that we can look at healing texts, like this one, and get caught up in the miracle of healing the physical ailment of leprosy.

But the real miracle here is the healing that leads to a restored sense of faith.

The nine people that ran off to show themselves to the priest, still seem set in the religious precepts where they first experienced trauma.

While the one who returns to give thanks is giving up that life for something new.

Turning away from a system that is based in how well you perform religious tasks.

Instead turning to a system of thankfulness for the blessings of God.

To a system where all of us are free to live out our faith in the ways that seem best to us.

Because Religious trauma happens when we are trying to control people.

It happens when we use religion as a way to manipulate people into doing what we think they should.

 

What Jesus offers us is the opposite.

Jesus offers us wholeness.

Jesus offers us freedom from oppressive systems that want to dehumanize us.

Systems that use religion to control us.

Jesus is freedom from such religion.

This makes it all sadder that in Jesus' name people are traumatized by leaders who say that they represent him.

 

There are many reasons for the demise of religion in our day, but let me suggest that this might be one of the biggest.

That we have gotten it so wrong for so long that people just walked away because of things the church did to them.

 

Because what Jesus shows us over and over again is that there is no sin that God won't forgive.

All human beings have worth.

No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we have done, we matter to God.

That God is always going into the spaces that others don't want to go in order for us to know these truths.

When we find ourselves in places that are in between when we seem lost that is where Jesus shows up.

 

I believe that we are sinful.

But I believe even more in the truths that Jesus showed us.

I believe even more in God's grace and love.

I believe even more that we all have worth.

And I believe that especially those who don't think they have worth are the people that God is searching for.

 

I hope you all know today how much value you have.

You are not lost, broken, or unworthy.

You are beloved children of God.

And Jesus Christ crossed over into the worst parts of this world to show us this truth.

 

May you always know how much God sees in you?

May you know that you are saved.

May you know that you have worth.

When we know of God's love and grace for us we too like the leper who returned will have grateful hearts!

Amen