November 16, 2013

• First Sermon

  I preached for the very first time a few weeks ago. Here’s a copy of it for those interested in reading it. It was of course delivered a bit differently, but the content was the same.

  CPR for the Soul
  Joel 2:23-32, Luke 18:9-14.

  As you all know, my parents are in Korea and they send their greetings. Now, imagine my surprise a month or so back when my dad asked me, “So, Why don’t you preach one of the Sundays that I’m gone?” I really had to think about that for a moment. I mean, while I have gotten a degree from seminary, it wasn’t for this kind of work. I’m a neuroscientist not a preacher. In fact, I’ve never taken a course in preaching. I’m missing a few Bible courses here and there, and I’m not ordained, or licensed. So much for all the excuses I can think of. But I am here nonetheless, and I guess we shall see just how much of being a pastor’s kid will help me this morning.
  Now, sermons usually open up with some kind of story to draw you in, to illustrate a point. I don’t have one to tell you, but I do watch a lot of movies. How many of you have seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? For those of you who haven’t, I will only tell you of a test Indy has to pass. I hate spoilers, so I won’t ruin the entire movie for you, but it is essentially a movie about a quest for the Holy Grail, which has the power to heal and give everlasting life. Upon getting to the temple Indy must pass the first test, which had previously thwarted attempts by Nazi hired hands. They just couldn’t figure it out. Some literally losing their heads as they approached the first test. With a mortally wounded father as motivation, Indy approaches the foreboding silken spider webs, chanting the line in his father’s journal, “Only the penitent man shall pass.” And then it clicks. Only the penitent man shall pass. The penitent man is humble. The penitent man kneels before God. As Indy does so, he ducks below whirling blades, somersaults through, and avoids decapitation.

  What does this have to do with the passages we have heard today? In Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable of two men who go the temple to pray and the stark contrast between them. One way this parable has been interpreted, is to make ourselves the Pharisee. How often do we judge others in our churches? Gossip flies around as we field rumors about what such and such a person has done, while we secretly hold ourselves in higher regard. We point accusative fingers at people with “checkered” pasts who try to find restoration of their very beings in church. But, like the Pharisee who fails to recognize himself as a sinner, we are all too ready to metaphorically throw stones than consider our own sinfulness in our own ways. We somehow think that our sins are not as great as other people’s sins even though we all fall short of the glory of God. So in our parable this morning, our human judgment of sinfulness will not be the primary focus of the passage.

  Instead, let us consider the acts and non-acts of the Pharisee and tax collector. The Pharisee follows the Law. He tithes. He fasts twice a week. You can just imagine the smug look on the Pharisee’s face as he looks in the direction of the tax collector saying, “I thank you that I am NOT like other people, including that tax collector over there.” I do not steal, kill, adulterate, or even collect the Roman tax. Note how negative the thanksgiving is as he begins his prayer. The Pharisee sees himself as self-righteous because not only does he refrain from committing these sinful acts, but that by tithing and fasting he can make himself righteous with God. He is using the act of penance, or outwardly visible self-sacrificial acts as a given for righteousness. Perform these acts, and you are right with God; however, nowhere is there a confession of being wrong with God in the first place.
  By contrast, the tax collector opens himself up, confessing his sinful state, one that is inherent with his position. You have to remember that tax collectors were a despised lot. Often seen as co-conspirators with the Gentile Roman government and dishonest to boot, the cost of doing business made them unclean. While the text does not mention forgiveness, it is made implicit when Jesus describes the tax collector as the one who went home justified. We do not know how the tax collector lived, whether he really was a dishonest collector, or if he practiced the penance of fasting. The fact remains however that he was humble before God. Though he was not on bended knee, he was contrite enough to not gaze heavenly, that by opening himself to the mercy of God, to the grace of God, his sins would be forgiven. Through the faithful acts of confession and repentance, God restores the relationship between God Godself and the tax collector.

  On this Reformation Sunday where churches all over celebrate Luther’s nailing of his 95 thesis on the doors of the Wittenburg Cathedral spurring the Protestant Reformation, the difference between penance and repentance is important to recognize. Just as there shouldn’t be indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, the OUTWARD act of penance itself does not justify oneself with God. Rather, as John Wesley put it, “Godly sorrow for sin works in us an INWARD AND outward repentance; the same entire change of heart; renewed after the image of God.” In other words, fasting is not an accounting method to balance your sins, and to be done with it once you’ve completed it. Rather, fasting is a means of grace that pulls you towards repentance. It is the work of God’s prevenient grace. It is a humble opening of yourself up to divine action rather than a building up of the self through “good works.”
  The good news is that you do not have to accumulate good works to be right with God. You do not have to PAY penance to somehow atone for your sins. Only be honest with God and confess sins in an act of repentance so that God can restore the broken relationship. Confess. Penance in terms of repentance. And Restoration. C-P-R. God’s forgiveness resuscitates our souls making them alive. As a forgiven and freed people then, we are called not to just be good people, but a faithful people open to God’s divine action. It is the meaning of being freed from the bondage of sin, or the myopic sense of keeping track of good works.

  Now I know that sometimes it isn’t easy, that life is unfair and that life can be hard. The prophet Joel certainly knew this to be the case. We did not read the first two chapters of Joel this morning, but it tells of desperate times.

  Israel is in ruins, a famine across the land. Listen to what Joel says:

  “The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed.

  And if you think this is bad, you only need to look to Job for something much worse. Yet, Joel calls for repentance, prayer, and fasting.

  “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts, and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”

  So, as a means of grace, the penitent person, fasting, humble before God, perhaps even kneeling in prayer during difficult times, opens themselves to God’s grace, to move them in a new direction full of life. It is the hope of the tax collector as he goes home. It is our hope that in beating our breasts and confessing our inherent tendency to sin, that in rending our hearts open to God, that God will fill us with God healing power, to restore us. And that is indeed good news during desperate times. It is for us, one way for our souls to be made well. Perhaps it is in CPR that we find the Holy Grail.

  Amen.

  May the LORD bless you and keep you;
  May the LORD make His face shine upon you,
  And be gracious to you;
  The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
  And give you peace.

  • 3:52 pm
  • Leave a comment