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“Our Judgments Reveal Our Identity”
Sermon Written By Rev. Dick Stetler – June 14, 2020
On the occasion of church’s closure due to COVID-19 Virus
Centenary United Methodist Church Psalm
33:1-12; Luke 7:36-50
Our Gospel lesson for this morning is filled
with countless themes that continue to impact our lives today. The
presence of these themes may give us information of what our Creator has
in mind for our growth: Each of you will continue to experience these same
themes over and over again until you figure out how to break free from
the responses you have trained yourself to make. Only when you take
responsibility to break free will you graduate to your next level of
understanding. The setting where Jesus' drama unfolds is in the
courtyard of a Pharisee. Most Pharisees were not only upper-class
citizens, but also, they were very well informed about the Hebrew
scriptures, particularly those pertaining to the Laws of Moses and the
Prophets. The Pharisees were among the most righteously
disciplined people that the world has ever seen. Pharisees not only
knew how to walk the talk; they also knew how to be on the
public's stage with such flare that their appearance often created quite
a spectacle. These men were easily recognized by their exquisite
dress code, their knowledge, and their economic success. They were
living icons of what Hebrew Truth looked like. Their
appetite for perfection made them beam with pride.
Frequently, Pharisees invited visiting rabbis to
their homes. When such an invitation was accepted by a rabbi, the host
provided a public buffet of food and wine for anyone in the community
who wished to come. Guests
were provided comfortable places to sit or recline amidst the spacious
gardens of the host. Each visitor hoped that he or she would hear some pearl
of wisdom that the visiting teacher might give them. Our Gospel lesson today discussed a drama that took
place at the home of Simon, who was a prominent Pharisee. Among the walk-in guests
on this occasion was a woman whose shameful reputation was apparently
well-known. She knelt at Jesus' feet and washed them with her tears and
then she dried them with her long hair. Then she rubbed expensive
perfume on his feet and kissed them repeatedly. This was quite a scene
for the host and the other guests. Eugene Peterson translated what happened next with
these words: When Simon the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw
this, he said to himself, 'If this man was the prophet that I thought he
was, he should know what kind of woman this is who is falling all over
him.' One of the lesser known realities of our
spiritual nature is that we seldom see things as they are. We see
things as we are. To
the Pharisee, this woman was for sale for any man who wanted her.
She was damaged-goods. The Pharisee could not hide
his lack of comfort for what he was witnessing. He was horrified
that his invited guest had to stoop to indulge this woman by allowing
her to continue touching him in this manner. However, from Jesus' perspective, her spirit of
selfless giving appeared to him as a light coming from a shattered
lamp. Last week we considered Jesus last words to his disciples.
Rather than taking sides on a number of social issues, it was
better to be a loving presence that does not bring judgments to life's
numerous circumstances. In this setting, Jesus was living what he
had been teaching. All through the Gospels we learn that Jesus knew
how to accept people with the same understanding and compassion wherever
he found them. The only people who challenged Jesus' comfort levels
were those who knew their faith well and had closed their mind to
growing beyond how they have been trained to think. Jesus was
tolerant and patient as he taught even the elite to broaden their
understanding. (Luke
5:30f) A man in a former church sent me an email that
contained a story called, The Law of the Garbage Truck. This law
describes one of the themes that has cycled and recycled through human
experience for thousands of years. The theme is about the choice we
frequently make when we have to respond to someone who displays
insensitive and calloused arrogance. How do we prevent ourselves
from stooping to their level with our responses?
One day a man got into a taxi to take him to the
airport. As the taxi was
driving in the proper lane, suddenly a limousine darted out from its
parking space right in front of them. The taxi driver slammed on
his brakes, skidded, and missed the limo by just inches! The
driver of the limo whipped his head around, lowered his window, and
started scolding obscenities to the taxi driver. The taxi driver just smiled and waved at the man.
The response appeared as authentic and sincere as the taxi driver's
smile. The passenger asked him, "Why did you do that? That
guy almost ruined your car and his stupidity could have sent us to the
hospital!" This is when the taxi driver taught his passenger what
he called, The Law of the Garbage Truck. He explained: Through years of practice, I have learned that many
people are like garbage trucks. They live among us full of
frustration, full of anger, and disappointments. As their
garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it from time to time and
sometimes they dump it on us. We must teach ourselves not to
personalize their responses when this happens. That is who they are. It
is best to smile and wave, wish them well, and move on. If we choose
not to do so, we may take their garbage and begin to spread it to other
people at work, at home, or on the streets when we are driving.
Mature people do not allow garbage trucks to take
over their day. Love the people who treat you well. Pray for the
ones who don't. Life is ten percent of what you make it and ninety
percent of how you take it. No one ruins your day unless you
allow it. A theme that has recycled throughout history comes
in many forms. Sometimes they confront us as a religious zealot, a rude
sales clerk, a street person begging for spare change, an arrogant,
uninformed supervisor, or a person who peddles gossip.
These people surround us and,
in some instances, we might be one of them. The minute we
surrender our peace to them, our irritable attitude tells us that we
still have much to learn from The Law of the Garbage Truck. After noticing the unmistakable facial expressions
of disapproval from the Pharisee, Jesus told a story about a man who
loaned money to two people. One man owed the lender 500 pieces of
silver and the other 50. When the lender learned that neither man could
repay the debt, he chose to forgive the indebtedness of both of them.
Jesus asked Simon, "Which person do you think will love the moneylender
more?" The Pharisee, sensing that the Master was about to teach him a
lesson responded, "The one who was forgiven the larger debt."
Jesus said, "Correct." Knowing that the Pharisee was harboring feelings of
contempt for this woman, Jesus began to list the number of common social
courtesies that Simon had overlooked when Jesus arrived at his home. He
said: You gave me no water for my feet! You did not
welcome me with a customary greeting. You provided no olive oil
for my head. However, this woman has not stopped washing my feet
with her tears, drying, perfuming, and kissing them since I arrived. Jesus said something that we can easily
misunderstand. He said, "I tell you, the great love she has shown
to me proves that her many sins have been forgiven." What was
Jesus teaching a prostitute, the Pharisee, and the other guests? Perhaps
for the first time, someone was giving encouragement to a woman to grow
beyond where she was. To
the others, he was teaching how her being a prostitute had not created a
negative judgment in him about her character.
This is the point where forgiveness can become very
confusing. Why is
forgiveness so misunderstood? We demand accountability from others.
Again, we seldom see things as they are; we see things as we are. Forgiveness
has nothing to do with a person's accountability.
It has to do with only the attitude of the one doing the
forgiving. Our peace was
not disturbed because of the behavior of another person.
Accountability is always up to the ones we have forgiven.
That taxi driver in my friend's story is a clear
example of what it looks like when a person is not offended when others
act out by telling the world who they are with respect to their
spiritual maturity. He was not going to allow the childish behavior of
someone to spoil his day no matter what they do. The driver in the limousine, however, demonstrated
that he was still like a garbage truck who had just dumped part
of his load on the taxi driver. He did not care that he almost
caused an accident. He may have left the scene with even more
anger. The taxi driver never lost his peace. He could wave to
the man and even pray for him with words from a sincere heart. The woman who came into Simon’s courtyard was not
like the driver of the limousine. One day she must have stood on
the margins of a crowd listening to Jesus preach and teach and decided
that she could make more out of her life than what she had settled for.
She came in a spirit of
thanksgiving and gratitude knowing that her lamp appeared to be
broken to the other invited guests. Her lamp, however, was not shattered in
the mind of God. Jesus said, "The great love she has shown to
me proves that her many sins have been forgiven." Jesus
simply told her what was clearly evident to him – "Your past was only a
stepping stone that brought you to me.
I know who you want to become." Other gathered listeners who heard what Jesus said
demonstrated their misunderstanding of forgiveness.
They questioned, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" Jesus
was only exclaiming who he was.
What he said did not erase the woman's past.
Jesus did the same thing from a cross.
His words did not erase the hatred of him displayed by the
religious authorities. Like
we discussed last week, Jesus was only bringing a presence to
that moment. When we change how we think, when we change
our attitudes, when we change the judgmental thoughts, all such hostile
emotional patterns within our spirits will begin to fade immediately.
This is what happened to the woman who wept at Jesus'
feet. Jesus saw the light coming from what she considered
herself to be -- a shattered lamp. Our mission for coming to the earth in these forms
is for each of us to become the one-of-a-kind polished diamond that we
were designed to be. Heaven will accommodate everyone on the
level of awareness to which each has awakened. We seek our own
destiny by the choices we make, something each of us is doing whether we
are believers or not. This is where accountability has its place.
No one in this life every gets away with anything that we have
done that represented our lack of love. Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you;
go in peace. That day in the gardens of Simon, the Pharisee, was the
first day of the rest of her life. Remember, we do not see
things as they are; we see things as we are. Again, Jesus was
bringing a divine presence to a garden setting.
He still beckons us to follow his likeness and also become such a
presence.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
We thank you, God,
that life is a classroom without walls. We thank you that we have
the privilege of refining and defining ourselves each day. We have
learned that struggling helps us to establish our lasting values.
We are not the sum of all past failings, rather we have learned that
they were moments of learning while we were taking baby-steps.
In time, we learned how making better choices, create better
opportunities to grow beyond where we are. Lead us, O God, to recreate
ourselves by learning and discovering that happiness is a by-product of
serving others in what we do.
Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER
Loving God, we are
always humbled by the surprises that come to us when we learn how to
step away from our needs and desires and give to others without
counting the cost. Instead of asking you for help during our
personal prayers, how energized we are when we become your voice, hands,
and feet for someone else. We experience meaning when we give a
senior a ride to church or take them to a doctor's appointment. We
experience our purpose when we write words in a card to someone who lost
a spouse, a parent, or a dear friend. We feel of value when we
listen to someone who is challenged by one of life's fragile moments.
Thank you, God, for
calling us and sensitizing us to be in mission every day. Help us to
become more comfortable and confident in our role as
angels-in-the-flesh. May we not seek "to fix" people but learn
to guide them to discover the beauty of who they are. Help us not
to assume responsibility for managing anyone's journey but to learn how
to remain a friend that is compassionate and who knows the value of
allowing others to learn how to tie their own shoes.
Bless us today with
minds, hearts, and spirits that remain centered on our relationship with
you, however we define it. As we extend to others who we are, help
us to create a world where men and women remain free to grow without
guilt and fear as each fulfills his or her purpose for being here. We
pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught
us to say when we pray. . . |