October 28, 2007 (Jimmie Johnson)

Jeremiah 31:27-34

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Matthew 25:14-30

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

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No parable shines as much light upon me and my experience of the Christian life as much as the one before us today. The truth of my soul is that I am both the Pharisee and the traitorous Tax Agent inside. Not a day goes by without me being self-congratulatory about my faith, my accomplishments and my dedication to God. And not a day goes by without me also taking a bath in guilt.

The way I hear this parable this morning is that Jesus is revealing to us our inner terrain as individual Christians and as a congregation in this city and among other congregations and faiths.

This parable is asking me to submit myself to trust the knife of grace to do its surgery upon my heart, your’s and our’s together. We totally miss the point of this parable if we see it as shining light upon the lives of others.
No, this is about the despised Pharisee and the despised traitor which is what a tax agent was in that culture -- a Jew selling out other Jews in cooperation with the Roman Empire in order to advance his own life. This is about the Pharisee and the traitor within me, you and all of us. Our common human condition is that these two energies are intertwined within us.

And you would hope this would make us less harsh toward one another, but rarely is this the case. In this parable, both these fellows are separated from others rather than being connected to others. Instead of our inner weaknesses bringing us together for the sharing of a common compassion, we instead distance ourselves from one another.

The first fellow separates himself from others by his religious superiority. The second guy separates himself by feeling religiously inferior.
In the language of theology, the bind described in this parable is known as alienation. Whoever functioned as the editor of this gospel called Luke, and we know it wasn’t a fellow named Luke because the earliest manuscripts are nameless.

The adding of the name Luke, Mark, Matthew or John was done to designate reliable authority and tradition not authorship and came later in our Christian tradition.

So the unknown Christians who gave us this gospel and this parable from Jesus believe the parable’s purpose was to deflate the self-righteous. But, that’s suspicious to me. Who is not self-righteous?

When I read this parable I find myself so easily going down the road of being self-righteous! Particularly, if I believe this parable is describing two distinct people or groups within the faith.

But, I don’t believe it is this morning. I believe it is describing the opposite twins that reside in my heart: a desire to make my God-commitment center stage and a like desire to make my failure and even more, my guilt center stage.

I believe Jesus tells this parable to get us to trust that in God there is more than enough grace to mercifully love and justify both the faithful devotee that we can be and the religious traitor that we can be. There is more mercy in God than sin in anyone of us at any moment in life, including when we stand in a pulpit or sit in a pew.

As regards these fellows, do you think either of them went home feeling anything but religious turmoil?

Here’s what I mean. One goes home thinking to himself, “Well, I give myself a score of 100 today -- a perfect score for the way I lived my life before God and others this day. I lived each moment with actions that distinguished me from others, particularly those whose lives bear the scars of crashing and burning and those who are moral failures. Yes, I distinguished myself today!”

And just at that moment, do you imagine as I do that a cold feeling settled upon him? It’s a feeling of isolation and disconnection not only from others but from his own very soul. The cold heaviness is the realization that he will have to do it again tomorrow and the day after and the day after.

You get the picture don’t you? Perfectionism or righteousness is a severe taskmaster. Perfectionism is a killer. It kills both body and soul and congregation.

Perfectionism can’t trust grace. Perfectionism can’t skip along the sidewalk happy and free. It can’t break into spontaneous, joyous laughter or tears caused by the overwhelming awe of realizing how much we are loved and how blessed we are with life. No, perfectionism can only do two things.

First, it will separate us from others who do not score as well as us.
Secondly, perfectionism will demand you and I succeed today and the next day and the day after, too, and demand we succeed every day that follows. No wonder such realization of our success at goodness, our proficiency at being right chill and weigh us down after the initial soaring of pride.

So, sure this fellow went home from church but not with peace. He went home seeking retreat to the one sanctuary he had: sleep. But he would not easily find rest there because as he lay in bed, he was having to devise the next day’s strategy for scoring highly again in life and faith. I know very well the heaviness of this torment.

The other fellow left church with no less a predicament. He went home soaking in guilt. You have heard me many times quote the line I got from my favorite pastor-theologian William Sloane Coffin, Jr., once chaplain at Yale, then pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan, and who died several months ago. He taught me that “guilt is often the last stronghold of pride.” He said we need to remember that guilt is sometimes the very place we make our last stand against God.

By remaining to feel guilty, we think of ourselves more highly than God; for though God may forgive us, we have such high standards that we can’t forgive ourselves.

We choose not to accept forgiveness as more definitive of who we are than our sins and guilt.

This parable casts these characters in order to alter the way we might go home from worship today. Both these men only had themselves.

My experience of the Christian life is the daily choosing, sometimes the hour by hour choosing, not to let either the Pharisee or the Tax Collector grow stronger within me and disconnect me from others but to trust the proclamation of the gospel that both the Pharisee within and the Traitor within are still loved by God.

The parable invites me to throw myself into the arms of grace. Grace is best understood as trusting there is always more mercy in God disclosed in the humanity of Jesus than perfectionism or guilt or sin in any of us. Grace hops and skips and jumps like a child on the sidewalk with the joy of hope.

On the other hand, guilt and perfectionism are both heavy, despairing burdens.

I want you to leave church today justified in the sense that through the humanity of Jesus, God infuses mercy, grace and hope so powerfully into our human condition that we enjoy this day like a child and sleep with the peace of a baby.

Let this parable unleash the holy power that will reform our human imagination and release it from bondage to guilt or the heaviness of thinking too highly of oneself.

This parable wants you to offer the Pharisee and the Tax Collector within you the grace to come home to God’s love and to keep returning to that home every day with singing and humming, with a hop, skip and a jump.

That’s because this parable doesn’t disclose the truth of our character, but rather with a joyous exuberance calls us to the confidence that God’s character is only and will always be grace shaped and free to justify us not based on our strengths or unworthiness but based upon our need.
Take both the hand of the Pharisee and the Traitor within and say, “Welcome home, children of God.” Let these twins within go home with you justified, forgiven and restored.