We're Caught in a Trap

Proper 25C; Luke 18:9-14; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, 10/27/2019

Jim Melnyk: “We’re Caught in a Trap”

So, Jesus, a Pharisee, and a tax collector walk into a bar and the bar tender asks, “Hey, is this some sort of a parable?” And we have to answer, “Yes, yes it is – and it’s a marvelous example of a parable at that.”

On the surface we feel pushed to make a judgement between the overly supercilious Pharisee and the repentant tax collector. The contrast between the two is obvious, pushing us to choose the tax collector over the religious leader. But as New Testament professor Amy-Jill Levine makes clear, “Once we negatively judge one character and promote the other, the parable traps [us].”[1] Inevitably we choose, and so with apologies to Elvis, we’re caught in a trap – therefore we must take the time to look back and figure this parable out.

Luke introduces this parable by telling us Jesus’ audience is those who “trust in themselves that they are righteous and regard others with contempt.” Being 18 chapters into Luke’s gospel by now our immediate thought is that this must be addressed to the religious leaders with whom Jesus contends. You know, the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and such. But while there may actually be some Pharisees hanging out with the crowd at this point in the narration, Jesus is in reality speaking to his many disciples following him along the way – challenging them to avoid getting too full of themselves – perhaps a real temptation by those who find themselves close to their charismatic leader and friend.

Once we realize this parable is being told for anyone who trust too much in their own righteousness we are freed to take a closer look at both the Pharisee and the tax collector, and what Jesus might actually be trying to tell us about repentance, forgiveness, and grace.

In order to understand what Jesus is doing with this parable we must look at Pharisees in general, and this Pharisee in particular, with early first century Jewish eyes. Our twenty-first century Christian eyes have been indoctrinated with negative stereotypes about Pharisees. In fact, the term Pharisee is often used in our culture as synonym for hypocrite. While Luke’s portrayal of Pharisees is a bit more ambivalent than Matthew’s, in the end it’s mostly negative. However, Levine reminds us, “For the majority of Jesus’ Jewish audience, the Pharisees would have been respected teachers, those who walk the walk as well as talk the talk.”[2] Paul, our patron saint, was a Pharisee, and he viewed his being a Pharisee as “a marker of distinction,”[3] rather than a character flaw.

Jesus tells us a story that includes a Pharisee whose prayer is a caricature of self-absorption rather than a comment on the piety of all Pharisees. Jesus creates in this Pharisee a straw dog of self-righteousness that according to Levine would have had any Pharisees listening in chuckling. And those listening would have found themselves surprised at his prayer.

Tax collectors, on the other hand, are treated much more kindly by Luke than Pharisees. Beginning with the opening stories about John the Baptist and continuing throughout the gospel, it is the tax collectors and other sinners who are seen as repentant and ready to enter the kingdom of God.[4] In Luke’s gospel Jesus calls a tax collector, Levi, to be a disciple and breaks bread with a repentant Zacchaeus. Luke’s late first-century readers would identify with the tax collector in this story simply because of the way they are treated throughout the first seventeen chapters of the gospel – they are “invariably sinners on their way to becoming righteous.”[5]

But tax collectors were notorious sinners in first century Palestine, and Jews in Jesus’ day “would beg to differ [with Luke’s characterization. They would have seen] the tax collector [as] the agent of Rome and not the agent of God…. The tax collector would have been presumed to be corrupt,” as we see with those addressed by John the Baptist in Chapter three – where he admonishes them to “collect no more than the amount prescribed.”[6] The tax collector’s presence in the Temple is a surprise – and while those listening to Jesus may have understood such folks could be justified, they wouldn’t have been overly happy with that prospect – nobody likes to see their enemies raised up and forgiven.

And what we might begin to realize is that Luke’s portrayal of Pharisees and tax collectors would not have fit the conventional wisdom of early first century Jews who would have struggled with a Pharisee who is almost cartoonish in his prayers, and a tax collector who is not only in the Temple, but who prays for forgiveness. The characters in this parable and the outcome would have turned Jesus’ listeners on their ears.

But the conclusion of the parable can be even more explosive for the listener if we allow ourselves to be challenged by how we translate the Greek phrase we read as “rather than.” This man (the tax collector) went down to his home justified “rather than” the other (that is, the Pharisee). Amy-Jill Levine points out that a perfectly correct translation of the phrase para ekeinon can also be “alongside.” In other words, this man, that is the tax collector, went down to his home justified alongside the other, that is, the Pharisee.” It’s as if the communal aspects of the Pharisee’s faith has a positive, redemptive, impact upon the repentant tax collector’s life and faith.

Jesus challenges us about the judgements we make regarding others. Do we pick the Pharisee who seems to be doing everything he’s supposed to be doing – even though he is, as one of our Wednesday Bible Study participants remarked, a bit of a windbag? Or do we pick the tax collector who courageously stands before God in the Temple and confesses his greedy alliance with Rome, and yet we have no idea if he actually changes his way of life? Remember, “Once we negatively judge one character and promote the other, the parable traps [us].”[7] Jesus is tricky-smart that way.

What if the whole point of the parable is not about picking the right character in the story, but rather about not picking at all? About not judging? What if it turns out the Pharisee and the tax collector are actually two sides of the same coin?

What if the parable is about recognizing when we’re being a bit too full of ourselves and not full enough toward others? What if the parable is also about recognizing our ability to really mess up in our lives, hurting ourselves and others, and turning away from the love of God in our lives? What if the parable is about finding the right attitude in our own hearts and then amending our lives to be in sync with what it means to love God, to love our neighbor, and even to better love ourselves in a healthy way?

Two Episcopalians went up to the National Cathedral to pray. One the backbone of their church, always there when the need arose, and rather smugly comfortable with their place in the order of things. The other always wrestling with doing what was right, often failing, but now willing to acknowledge the brokenness in their life. And as it turns out, God loves them both, just as God indeed loves each of us.

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[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, 192

[2] Ibid, 176 (paraphrased)

[3] Ibid, 177

[4] Luke 3:12; Luke 5:27; Luke 7:29

[5] Levine, 173

[6] Ibid, 174

[7] Levine, 192

 

It’s Not How Much

Proper 22C; Luke 17:5-10; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 10/6/2019

Jim Melnyk: “It’s Not How Much”

          How much faith is enough faith? Not much, according to Jesus. Not much. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,” Jesus tells his disciples, “it is enough!” Now a mustard seed isn’t exactly the smallest seed in the world, but it’s pretty small – only about 1-2 millimeters in diameter. The mustard plant, that can be as troublesome to farmers as weeds, isn’t the largest plant in the world – it’s more like a bush that can grow up to ten to twenty feet high. One would do well not to underestimate what a seed as tiny as a mustard seed can produce.

            The Apostles say to Jesus, “Increase our faith,” as if they don’t already have enough faith to follow, or as if faith is a commodity that can be added to or taken away from by Jesus. In the end you have to already have faith in order to consider asking for more – and Jesus tells his followers that what they have in hand is all that is ever really needed. Basically he tells them, “You can shake the world with the little amount of faith you see peeking out from behind the curtain of your soul.”

            Have you ever thought about what just a little bit of faith can do? I first learned about William Kamkwamba from Masitala, Malawi years ago through our son Jake who was teaching Earth Science at Greene Early College High School in Snow Hill, NC at the time. Jake was using Kamkwamba’s story, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, to help teach his science students. It’s an amazing story.

            It was the year 2002 and a fourteen-year-old youth, kicked out of school because his parents couldn’t afford eighty dollars in school fees, was about to change the life of his struggling village. Malawi was locked in the jaws of a terrible draught. “Consequently,” according to reports, “thousands of people [had already] died. [William’s] family and others were surviving on one meal a day. The red soil in his Masitala hometown was parched, so that his farmer father could not work or produce any income. But amid all the shortages, one thing was still abundant: wind.”[1]

            Though exiled from school William spent his days in the library. He read about how windmills could be used to harness the wind and create energy. The teenager thought to himself, “If they can make electricity out of wind, I can try too.”[2] Armed with a book, and undeterred by fellow villagers who thought he was either crazy or bewitched, William scoured local scrapyards for items “including bicycle parts, plastic pipes, tractor fans, and car batteries. To construct the tower, he collected wood from blue-gum trees. ‘Everyone laughed at me when I told them I was building a windmill. They thought I was crazy,’ [the boy] said.”[3] But God didn’t give William a spirit of cowardice that caused him to give up, but rather a spirit of power, and love, and discipline. And William persevered![4]

            Kamkwamba tells us in his story that the day he was ready to try out his windmill everyone in the village gathered around in its shadow – including those who had mocked him for months. He tells us “still they whispered, even laughed. It was time.”[5] William climbed his tower, released a bent piece of wire that had held the windmill’s blades in place, and then watched as the spinning blades picked up speed. Then to the amazement of everyone in the village except for William, a tiny light attached to the wires from the windmill began to glow weakly at first, and then “surged into a magnificent glow.”[6]

            In the years immediately following Kamkwamba built four more windmills – one of them thirty-seven feet tall. There was enough electricity generated to pump water in his hometown, and people from his village and the surrounding area would come to charge their cellphones.

William was only fourteen when he was kicked out of school. But he managed to change the face of his hometown.

The apostles say to Jesus, “increase our faith,” and perhaps we’re meant to ask, “How much faith is enough faith?” William Kamkwamba’s story might answer, “It doesn’t take much if we open ourselves to its power.” In the end it’s not about having enough faith – or about getting more. Late theologian Walter Wink says we shouldn’t be thinking about faith as a quantitative thing.  Rather it’s about how open we are to the faith we already have. It only takes a bit of faith. Faith, Wink tells us, is qualitative. “Even the slightest amount can be overwhelmingly effective, because it is not faith in our own faith, but simply faith in God, faith that God is God, that God is able to act in the world.”[7]

            Truth is, the Apostles already have enough faith. They just need reminding. They are part of the seventy followers of Jesus who had been sent out to preach the Good News and heal the sick. Luke tells us the seventy had “returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’”[8] Who in the world would need an extra shot of faith after an experience like that? Perhaps they needed a boost because even then Jesus had already set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross – and that, my friends, is a mighty daunting and harsh reality.

            Like the Apostles in today’s readings, we always have faith. But sometimes we lock it away – like we might lock a vintage car in the garage, trying to keep it pristine and safe. The trouble is, we don’t often take it out of the proverbial garage for a spin around the block. We don’t want to risk our faith being challenged by life’s road hazards – obstacles that might cause it damage – or cause us to doubt.

Or, as Walter Wink surmises, we actually might be placing our faith in the wrong things. “We [end up believing or trusting] in money, or power, or seduction. [Or we simply] trust that things will turn out bad. And our [misplaced] faith becomes…self-fulfilling.”[9] But, Wink tells us, [if] “we have even an inkling of trust in God and the brazenness to exercise it, that, says Jesus, will be enough to change the very face of reality.”[10]

A windmill made from scrapyard supplies isn’t much to look at. In fact to most of us living in a world of factory-finished, architect-designed, wonders, it might even look like junk – like a joke – like someone’s science project gone awry. But William Kamkwamba could see beyond the brokenness of all the individual parts and how they could fit together to do something glorious. And that conglomeration of castoff junk ended up bringing water and light to a village living on the edge of oblivion.

Likewise, a mustard seed isn’t much to look at. And, according to many, a mustard shrub isn’t too amazing either. As some would define it, as “an ordinary, common bush ubiquitous as a weed in Palestine.”[11] We may not believe it at times, but Jesus tells us we have the faith to “see beyond [the seed’s] unimpressive exterior,” to see in that seed a harbinger of the coming kingdom of God. And see within ourselves the seeds that are the very kingdom coming alive and changing the world.

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[1] Synthesis Commentary, 10/6/2019

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

[4] 2 Timothy 1:7

[5] William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

[6] ibid

[7] Walter Wink quoted in Sojourners Online, Preaching the Word, 10/6/2019

[8] Luke 10:17

[9] Wink, Sojourners Online, Preaching the Word, 10/6/2019

[10] ibid

[11] Synthesis Commentary, 10/6/2019