This is the sermon I prepared for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Oct. 24, 2010.
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Readings
Jeremiah 14:7–10, 19–22
Psalm 84:1–7 (antiphon v. 5)
2 Timothy 4:6–8, 16–18
Luke 18:9–14
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Prayer
Hear us, O Father, as we pray to you. By your Spirit, forgive us our sins, so that we may know the joy of your grace, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Message
We all love a good story about the underdog.
We enjoy the tales that tell how the lowly upset the mighty,
the weak outwit the strong,
and the humble supplant the proud.
A two-bit southpaw brawler from Philadelphia
gets a shot at the heavyweight title.
His opponent, the champion,
sees it as a great publicity stunt.
But Rocky runs the streets of Philly,
trains in the musty gym with Mick,
flies up the steps at the art museum,
finally makes it to the top and raises his arms.
Then he goes the full fifteen rounds against the champ,
leaning more on willpower than technique.
Remember the 1991 World Series?
Two teams, the Twins and the Braves,
both going from worst to first.
They battle for seven games,
until Jack Morris pitches ten shutout innings
and the Twins defeat the Braves in seven.
No matter who won, the underdog triumphed.
Then there’s the history of an army
cobbled together from rough regiments
of poorly armed farmers and merchants.
It was a citizens’ militia, ill-clad, undertrained,
spending almost as much time
getting away from the British army
as actually engaging in combat.
But then, after years of struggle,
that militia wears down the greatest empire in the world
and gains the freedom of thirteen sparsely populated colonies
strung out along the coast between ocean and wilderness.
These are the stories we love.
They are tales, both imagined and true,
of underdogs clawing their way to the top.
What we love is the reversal of fortune,
the exchange of status and power at the end.
We love these stories because we identify
with the underdog, with the unexpected hero.
Nobody reads or watches or listens to these stories
because he or she enjoys the feeling
of being taken down a notch or two.
No one likes having one’s power and privilege snatched away
at the last moment, the final page, the closing scene.
This is just the way we are.
We simply and innately identify
with the upstart, the outsider, the underdog.
And so, when we hear this day’s Gospel,
and if we are honest with ourselves,
the first character we imagine ourselves to be
is the humble, penitent tax collector.
He is the one who, in the end,
is blessed with the reversal of fortune.
He receives the word that grants him God’s grace.
That’s the unexpected outcome,
because, after all, he was the tax collector,
despised and ostracized by his community.
And the other man was the Pharisee,
the respected and religious pillar of that same community,
the one who prayed proudly that he was better than the rest.
It’s clear who was the underdog
and who thought a little too highly of himself.
But the catch is that while we imagine ourselves
in the humble and penitent position of the tax collector,
we are—because of our attitudes—
most of the time, in most cases,
really most like the Pharisee.
We come to church regularly.
We give our offerings consistently.
We volunteer our time gladly.
We say our prayers daily.
We wear our crosses faithfully.
We try to give God glory and honor.
We make space for him in our lives.
We want others to know we are Christians.
We do all these things with good intentions.
We begin with acts of humble obedience.
But, almost without fail,
we find them turning, ever so gradually,
into our causes for pride.
We end up saying to God,
“I thank you that I am not like other people:
celebrities and politicians,
the inactives and the unchurched,
hoarders and addicts.
You know, God, how faithful I have been,
how I how shared my time prudently,
how I have lent my talents carefully,
and how I have given offerings moderately.”
But, the real truth does not quite line up
with our version of the way we see things.
God our Father executes his great reversals,
upending all our comfortable arrangements.
Early on, Luke’s Gospel gives us a hint of the reversals to come.
Mary, our Lord’s Mother, breaks into song,
responding to Gabriel’s announcement that she will give birth.
Mary sang,
“[The Mighty One] has thrown down rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things;
the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:52–53, NAB)
And later, when Jesus announced his ministry,
he read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah:
“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,
to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
To announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God,
to comfort all who mourn….” (Isaiah 61:1–2, NAB)
And then, today’s parable tells us again
how our Father’s judgment and mercy
turn the tables on us.
The parable teaches how he executes his great reversals.
As Jesus said, when he finished telling his parable,
“…all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14b, NRSV)
So, where do we see ourselves in the parable?
Our instinct is to identify with the tax collector.
After all, we like the way the story turns out when the underdog triumphs.
The truth of our lives, however, is that we are proud,
puffed up with our accomplishments,
and we have more than a little of the Pharisee’s attitudes in us.
But the real, good news is that our first instinct was right—
if not for the right reason.
We are truly the other people;
we huddle amid the thieves and rogues.
With the tax collector, we stand at a distance,
we beat our breasts, and we each cry out,
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13b, NRSV)
His judgment drives us to make that confession,
humbling us, lowering us to our knees.
As Jeremiah said on our Lord’s behalf:
“Truly they have loved to wander,
they have not restrained their feet….” (Jeremiah 14:10a, NRSV)
And then his mercy raises us up,
exalting us, lifting us to our feet.
His grace responds to the confidence
the people placed in the LORD through the prophet,
“We set our hope on you,
for it is you who do all this.” (Jeremiahs 14:22b, NRSV)
This is how the reversal works.
In the end, we go “to [our] home[s] justified…;
for all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14, NRSV) Amen.