“…The key to right relationship … with God, with each other, with ourselves … is humility. So, what is humility? Well I’ll tell you what it isn’t. Humility is not God saying “You suck … just admit it” and us believing it. Humility is not making yourself small to suit the comfort of others. Humility is not a false modesty of failing to acknowledge the power and beauty each and all of us have as images of the divine.
“The Greek word Luke uses here is “tapeinós,” which means “God reliant.” The key to right relationship … with God, with each other, with ourselves … is being reliant on how God sees us for how we see ourselves. And God’s love … the love of the revolutionary Jesus … is a love without judgment or condition.”
Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, October 27, 2019.
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From the Gospel according to Leonard Cohen:
“The voices in my head
They don’t care what I do
They just want to argue the matter
Through and through.”
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What do the voices in your head say?
I know they are there. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t have at least one. If you’re like me, you’ve got a whole Greek chorus of them.
They are voices of judgment.
…of shame.
…of fear.
And no matter what we do, they make themselves heard in whispers and shouts. Paralyzing us with uncertainty and miring us in self-doubt.
What do the voices in your head say?
And what did they say when you heard this morning’s Gospel?
Today’s Gospel reading is often abused and misused. It is abused and misused because of its power to activate those voices in our head.
We hear Jesus say, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, while those who humble themselves will be exalted.” … and those voices in our head start launching into their TED talks.
Maybe I know I’m not very humble and feel like I should be. And the voices say, “Shame on me.”
Maybe I know I’m not humble and I feel like I shouldn’t be. Maybe I have a whole world full of people outside and some powerful voices inside trying to keep me down, telling me I should be, that I should present smaller than I am… and the last thing I want is some preacher man telling me that Jesus agrees with them, that I should be less rather than more. And the voices say, “Shame on you.”
Maybe I think I am humble… and I hear Jesus’ words and start to feel pretty good about myself. Well that’s no good either, because as soon as I start feeling that way, that voice inside says “ah … ah … ah … there you go exalting yourself!” And we’re back to “Shame on me.”
I mean … damn! Listening to this story, the only way to win with this Jesus seems to be if I am humble and feel bad about it! I mean, Jesus says the only one who was right with God at the end is the one who acknowledges that he is a sinner.
And the church has been happy to use this. We have been happy to tell people for nearly two thousand years that the moral of this story is “you suck … just admit it.”
We have been happy to use this because as long as we as the church are making you feel unworthy, we can tell you that you need the church to become worthy.
So right now, I want us to try putting those inner voices on mute for a few minutes. And I want to try to unpack what I am beginning to understand that Jesus’ might be saying in his TED talk this morning.
Because Jesus knows all about the voices in your head. Jesus had them, too. They are a part of being human.
And so, Jesus tells this story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
First, the Pharisee. The Pharisee is the religious leader who is supposed to be righteous and pure because he says all those righteous and pure things. The Pharisee is … well … me. And the community puts all their hopes for their own righteousness on the Pharisee. And as long as the Pharisee lives up to that image, the myth of righteousness, the myth of purity is sustained in the community.
As long as the Pharisee lives up to that image, two things can happen. First, we can feel like we share in that righteousness and purity because we are part of the community of the Pharisee. And … we can watch and learn from the Pharisee how to project that image, ourselves, too.
Only problem is … it’s just an image. How do I know? Because remember … the Pharisee is me. And not just me. The Pharisee is human. The Pharisee is all of us. And that means the Pharisee wrestles with all the same stuff that everyone does. The Pharisee screws up 50 times before breakfast just like we all do. Purity is a myth for the Pharisee as much as it is for everyone else.
And yet, the Pharisee prays,
“I give you thanks, O God, that I’m not like others – greedy, crooked, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes on everything I earn.”
The Pharisee is doubling down on purity and righteousness. And the question we need to ask ourselves is “Why?” The question we always need to ask is “Why?” Because the love without judgment of the revolutionary Jesus knows that actions don’t happen in a vacuum. Whether we are aware of the reasons or not, the reasons are always there.
And so we ask, “Why?” Why does the Pharisee pray like this?
The answer the church has traditionally given is “because the Pharisee is an evil, narcissistic, hypocrite…. Don’t be like the Pharisee.” And while those labels might accurately describe behaviors of the Pharisee that certainly need to be dealt with … and while those labels almost surely will make us feel better about ourselves by comparison, labels rarely, if ever, answer the question: “Why?”
So why does the Pharisee pray this way? My hunch is at least in part it is because the Pharisee has those voices in his head, too. Voices reminding him of the disconnect between what he really thinks, feels and does and the image he is projecting of a purity he has been taught to believe he should be able to achieve.
Consciously or not, the Pharisee feels that disconnect, and he doesn’t like it. He hates it for the same reason the rest of us do. Because being made in God’s image means integrity is something deep inside we know we should have. And so, the Pharisee’s internal TED talk of shame begins.
You’re not what people expect you to be.
You’re not what you think you should be.
Other people are going to notice.
They’re gonna find out about you.
They’re gonna find out that You. Are. Bad.
I know this one pretty well.
The Pharisee wants those voices to stop … who wouldn’t? So he looks around for anyone who will make him look better and feel better about himself by comparison. Because he may not be perfect, but at least he will be able to cherry pick his own virtue and feel more virtuous, more pure than this other guy. And then he can feel good about himself … and others can feel good about him … because it could be worse. He could be like that other guy.
Jesus in this story is identifying one of the primary methods of oppression of self and others. Convincing us that our inner voice of shame can and must be feared and silenced … and that a really good way to do that is to convince ourselves that we are superior to somebody else.
The Pharisee knows he doesn’t measure up to the standard of purity the community holds him and to which he almost certainly holds himself. So when the TED talk of shame starts, he takes inventory of the things he does that don’t give him that disconnect
…I fast.
…I tithe.
And then for everything else, he looks over at who he assumes the tax collector is and he says, “AND … I’m certainly better than that guy.”
And then Jesus talks about “that guy.” The tax collector is hated. A collaborator with the empire. The tax collector cannot even pretend to be pure, because his very occupation is evil – and he knows it.
And consciously, or not, just like the Pharisee, the tax collector feels that disconnect between how he acts and thinks and feels and a purity he has been taught to believe that he should be able to achieve. And he doesn’t like that feeling either. And so, the tax collector’s internal TED talk of shame begins.
You’re exactly what they say you are.
Everybody knows it.
You. Are. Bad.
Only the tax collector’s reaction is different. Jesus says, the tax collector, keeping a distance and not even daring to look up to heaven, says, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Instead of trying to silence his shame, he befriends it.
And so, his prayer is, “God, you got me. I can’t hide it. I screw up 50 times before breakfast. I fail the purity test. I don’t even come close, so I’m not even going to pretend. God, you got me. And all I can ask is, ‘Go easy on me, will you?’”
And then Jesus says something incredible. Jesus says that it is the tax collector that goes home “right with God, while the Pharisee didn’t.” And again, we have to ask that pesky question: “Why?”
And here is what Jesus says, “Because those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Because the key to right relationship … with God, with each other, with ourselves … is humility. So, what is humility?
Well I’ll tell you what it isn’t.
Humility is not God saying “You suck … just admit it” and us believing it.
Humility is not making yourself small to suit the comfort of others.
Humility is not a false modesty of failing to acknowledge the power and beauty each and all of us have as images of the divine.
The Greek word Luke uses here is tapeinós, which means “God reliant.” The key to right relationship … with God, with each other, with ourselves … is being reliant on how God sees us for how we see ourselves. And God’s love … the love of the revolutionary Jesus … is a love without judgment or condition.
God’s love isn’t contingent on us living up to anybody’s standard of purity … and certainly not one as messed up as the church’s has been, particularly in the area of how God wonderfully creates us across spectrums of gender and sexual orientation and expression.
The whole idea of God’s love and approval being a meritocracy of purity is what needs to die. Purity is a myth that imprisons us all in lying chains of unworthiness. If the Gospels are absolutely unanimous about anything, it’s that Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with a litmus test of a cultural concept of purity as a condition for God’s love.
And yet throughout history, the church has taken almost every opportunity to preach the opposite. The church has used demands for purity to condemn and cast out the very people Jesus embraced the closest. That’s not holiness. And that’s certainly not Jesus. That’s just power mongering.
In her book, Shameless, Nadia Bolz-Weber lays down this truth:
“Purity most often leads to pride or to despair, not to holiness. Because holiness is about union with, and purity is about separation from.”
Chew on that one for a second.
Holiness is about union with.
Purity is about separation from.
Doesn’t that fit better with a Jesus who continually crossed the purity boundaries of his day to be with all the people whom those boundaries had crossed over and cast out?
Doesn’t that fit better with a God who so loves the world that God doesn’t stay separate from but becomes one with us … becomes one with you?
Jesus said the tax collector was “right with God” not because God’s response to him was, “Right … you suck … glad you noticed … Hope it feels bad.” That’s not God!
The tax collector was “right with God” because God’s response to him was “Right … you are messing up big time … it’s a big club … we’ve got jackets. And … as important as your actions are – and we need to have that conversation – your actions do not change who you are. And who you are is my beloved just as you have been created. You got that? I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”
Holiness is about union with … and we are holy because God will always be with us, we will always be with God, and we are all in that love together.
The church has taken this story and by filtering it through its own purity codes and desire for control has done the exact opposite of what Jesus is trying to do with it. We have used it to further divide us one from another … and that’s not holiness.
This story is not asking “are you a Pharisee or are you a tax collector?” The love of God is beyond that kind of judgment. This story explodes our notions of purity and invites us into community where together we can be honest about all of our sins, struggles and screwups. Community that is about holiness rather than purity.
When together we can help each other remember that nothing we can say, feel or do can separate us from God’s love … then we can have the conversations we absolutely need to have about our words and actions.
Once we eliminate the fear of rejection, unworthiness and unlovability and get down with the fact that the revolutionary Jesus doesn’t hold his love back in a quid pro quo with purity … then we can have the real courageous conversations we must have about how our words and actions have and are deeply wounding each other.
We can talk about sin without fear when it becomes a conversation about healing, not about punishment. We can listen deeply to each other’s stories and finally be able to tell our own. We can explore together what reconciliation, reparation and living a new life together might look like. We can face our own sin unafraid knowing that God’s response to it isn’t judgment but saying:
“Yes … you are messing up big time … it’s a big club … we’ve got jackets. You are good. I love you.
“Yes … where your actions are causing deep pain to others, you need to know that pain, not because you deserve pain yourself but because the only way to heal is to go to the wound and tell our stories and shed our tears. Remember … You are good and I love you.
“You need to talk about sin because confession of sin is about liberation not about condemnation. About healing the wound … not about wounding in return.
“Oh, and in case you’ve forgotten … You are good. I love you.”
“The voices in my head
They don’t care what I do
They just want to argue the matter
Through and through.”
It’s time to say times up to the voices in our head.
It’s time to let shame teach us instead of define us.
It’s time to have the courageous conversations about the pain we have caused and the pain we have endured not so we can put each other and ourselves down but so together we can be lifted up.
It’s time to let go of the purity that divides and reach for the holiness that unites.
It’s time to trust the revolutionary Jesus when Jesus says:
You are good.
I love you.
We got this.
Alleluia.
Amen.
