“Guidance From A Taxi Driver”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – June 12, 2016

Centenary United Methodist Church

Luke 4:36-50

    Today we are going to consider some of the darker thoughts that continue to enter people's minds and hearts every day.  Not only do they keep coming on a daily basis, but if they are left unchecked, they will define the quality of our future. These thoughts are why people do not get hired.  These thoughts are why people cannot get along with others.

    The best way to understand these thoughts is to see their results in someone's life.  The Pharisee in our lesson was thinking, "If this man really were a prophet, he would know who this woman is who is touching him; he would know what kind of sinful life she lives."  

    Making judgments about others is a characteristic that comes with the territory of being human.  The problem with such thoughts is that they are never accurate.  There are always two sides to every coin.  We only succeed in dividing people into particular categories.  What we claim to see reveals a lot about who we are. 

    During an earlier chapter of my life, our church fellowship hall was the meeting place for the largest chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous in the area.  It had over one hundred members.  Since I was already the Minister of Youth at the time, I was invited to be the volunteer staff coordinator for Alateen.  These are the teenagers that have an alcoholic parent.

    Before I could take the position, I had to spend months in Al-anon meetings to experience how the older members were coping with living with an Alcoholic.  I had to read the Big Book as well as a number of companion texts.  Finally, I had to attend AA meetings and go through the same process with them.

    During my first meeting with this group, I was astounded to find physicians, attorneys, professional athletes, state legislators, scientists, engineers, clergy, architects and school teachers.  Nearly every profession was represented by people that had become caught in the vice grip of alcohol dependence.  

    Another surprise for me was their empathy and compassion for each other.  Men and women attended meetings so intoxicated that they could hardly walk.  The only judgment expressed by others was compassion.  It was amazing to see such caring for people that I thought had joined the ranks of the least of these by choice.  I was dead wrong!

    A County Judge that knew me pulled me aside that evening and said:

Dick, I want you to understand something -- alcohol has given everyone in this room a level playing field.  All of us realize that we are one drink away from being an out-of-control drunk.  We have all been there. We are not protected by the level of our income, job status or accomplishments. We know we are collectively fighting a common enemy that wants to take away everything that we are and have.  Each of us has to stay focused on this program that has the power to enable us to take back our lives. Those of us that have remained sober for years owe our lives to AA.

    As we turn to our scripture lesson, what was it that brought these seemingly diverse people to this occasion? The Pharisee was an accomplished individual who was not indebted to anyone.  He had wealth, health, prestige, name recognition, and a host of credits for his generous donations to one cause or another.  Often Pharisees opened their homes to the public when a visiting rabbi had been invited to teach. 

    What brought the woman to the Pharisee's dwelling that day?  I have always envisioned her as one that stood in the back of a crowd listening as Jesus taught.  His words penetrated her mind, "Forgive others in spite of how many times you have been offended." (Matthew 18:22)  "God will forgive you in same way that you forgive others." (Matthew 6:12) 

    An early tradition suggests that she was the woman brought before Jesus just before she was to be stoned to death.  She was the one who listened to Jesus say to the crowd, "Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone."  (John 8:7)  Her heart was bursting with love for Jesus because of his message and because it was he who saved her life.

    Whatever Jesus was sensing from the facial expressions of his host, he directed his thoughts at him.  He cited all the ways Simon had missed the mark on displaying the hospitality commonly afforded to anyone who arrived at someone's home.  Jesus then directed the attention of the Pharisee toward the woman who was bathing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair.  He said something most insightful, "The love that she has been demonstrating to me proves that her many sins have been forgiven."  (Luke 7:47) 

    What alcohol does to the mind and body, our judgmental attitudes do to our spirits.  All of us are inflicted with the well-established habit of fault-finding. Jesus was displaying how love heals broken spirits.  Love creates a new human being by wiping clean the slate of misdeeds from our past. Jesus was free to love her.  The Pharisee was still held prisoner by his judgmental thoughts.

    One day a businessman was riding in a London taxi cab on his way to Heathrow and he encountered a wise angel at the steering wheel.  This is how the businessman described the drama that occurred and the wisdom he learned from his driver that afternoon:

We were driving to the airport when suddenly a car abruptly pulled out in front of us.  My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded and missed the car by inches!  The driver of the other car started yelling obscenities at us while making an obscene gesture.

 

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.  And, I mean it was an authentic, sincere smile.  So I asked him, "Why did you do that?  That stupid driver almost caused an accident!" This is when my taxi driver taught me a different way to look at people who are acting reckless.

 

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks.  They run around in life full of garbage.  They are angry with life and have become distracted with disappointments and frustrations that come along. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it.  Sometimes they dump it on us.  Doing so is who they are and where they are in their lives. 

 

It is best for people like us to smile and wave, wish them well and move on.  If we personalize their garbage, we might be tempted to spread it to other people at work, at home or on the streets while we are driving. 

 

Life is too short to wake up in the morning and find ourselves caught in someone's web of hostility.  It is best to love the people who treat you well and to pray for the ones who don’t.  

    The truth is that all of us miss the mark.  We are all sinners.  Our need to be polite and compassionate will often cause us to be less than honest if we are asked to express our feelings.  If all of us confessed our recognized sins this morning, each one of us could easily have something different to say. We have the freedom to find fault with each other.  Love, however, enables us to offer insights to provide guidance as we look beyond the obvious flaws.

    Lois and I were thoroughly frustrated on Thursday morning to read the Gazette's story of an Islamic mother that burned her daughter to death because she eloped with the man she had loved since early childhood. The article went on to say that one thousand women are killed each year in Pakistan to preserve their family's honor.  We cannot help but recoil from anyone holding on to such a belief.  As the taxi driver said, "This is who they are and where they are in their lives."

    Various cultures have held on to such practices long before Abraham believed that God wanted him to kill his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. (Genesis 22:2) The Jews, to this day, celebrate Passover -- a time when it is believed that God sent the angel of death to kill the first born of the Egyptians. (Exodus 11:4-5)  The idea of God engaging in murder is an intolerable idea to many of us.  Why would God ever kill anyone when none of us ever dies?

    It makes all the sense in the world to love and forgive others instantly.  Somewhere that taxi driver had learned a valuable lesson.  The fact that we are all sinners is the way life is at the moment.  Members of Alcoholics Anonymous have all recognized this and act together as equals. We need to move beyond any idea that somehow we are better than anyone else.  Why not love each other in spite of their flaws and spare all the judgments that reveal nothing more than what is within our hearts?

    What Jesus did in our lesson was to love both the Pharisee and the woman.  The goal of a teacher is to instruct students in such a way that it offers valuable guidance that will serve them for the rest of their lives.  Life itself puts blinders on our ability to see clearly.  We become distracted.  We wander from the path that we have chosen.  We develop attitudes that build barriers.  We make excuses to justify everything that we do and think.

    The London taxi driver had a hold of what I like to call a God Thing.  He instantly forgave the reckless driver and went on with his life undisturbed.  He was allowing the reckless driver to find his own way when he was ready to open his eyes to a different way of living.

    During one of our cross-country family excursions, we pulled into a McDonald's to get lunch.  After we finished eating, we got back into the car. As I was backing out of the parking space, I spotted a large night-crawler struggling to cross an extremely hot asphalt parking lot. I stopped the car and got out to save the worm's life.  I picked up the terrified creature that was squirming to get away from me and tossed it into the moist grass where the sprinkling system had just shut down.

    If any of us can do that for a worm that had no idea what was happening to it, think of what we could do for each other when we find them struggling and headed in a direction that will not produce the results that they wanted.  If, instead of judging them, we pointed to a new horizon that could make a positive difference in their lives, why not try it? 

    This is what Jesus was doing for both the Pharisee and the woman.  All he could do was point with his words.  Changing the direction of their lives was a decision they had to make.  That taxi driver received his lifestyle changing response somewhere, and now we are hearing his message.  Will we put it to use this morning when we leave our service?