Unexpected Good

God is a well of mercy that never stops flowing...

Proper 15a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Joseph told his brothers, “Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.… So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Some years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. This was not a book written from the dispassionate standpoint of a scholar and teacher. Rabbi Kushner was dealing with a personal tragedy as well — the death of his own young son. Even had he not experienced such a tragedy in his own family, he would not have needed to look very far to see many examples of bad things happening to good people. All you have to do is turn on the TV news to see plenty of examples of such tragedies. There is a whole subsection of theology dealing with just this question and I could go on and preach a couple of dozen sermons on the topic.

But for today I want to take a different approach and look at a different question, the opposite question: Why do good things happen to bad people? And I do that because of the continuation of the story that we heard this morning from the book of Genesis. We heard the start of Joseph’s story last week — how his brothers, jealous of their father’s affection, were on the point of murdering him; and how a sequence of events led them to sell him into slavery in Egypt. Today we jump almost to the end of his story — in between last week and this Joseph is framed on a charge of sexual misconduct with his boss’s wife, thrown into prison, makes use of his skill as an interpreter of dreams to get out of prison, and more than that, to be raised to a position of high power in Pharaoh’s kingdom. And he uses that power to store up supplies of food for the world-wide famine foretold in Pharaoh’s dreams — a pair of dreams that Joseph is able to interpret as a warning from God that a famine will strike the whole world.

When his brothers arrive, Joseph takes the time to indulge in a bit of payback: in the previous chapter — for they have come to Egypt to beg for food, for the famine is indeed world-wide, but have failed to recognize Joseph as their brother. This gives him an opportunity to play a few mean tricks on them — which, of course, they fully deserve. After that payback he finally chooses to reveal himself to them, in large part because he wants to see his elderly father again, and he knows that the famine is only just beginning and will get much worse. And the lesson he derives from this, is that even though his brothers did a truly terrible thing to him — he now sees that this was God’s way of working; God has taken this very bad thing and made a good thing come out of it. As Joseph would say in the last chapter of Genesis, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people.” So it is that a good thing came out of the actions of bad people; and in the end, even good things for those bad people.

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And that’s the hard part for us to understand. We expect wrongdoers to get punished, not rewarded. We expect bad things to happen to bad people. The problem is that this is a point of view that puts us in the place of God; it puts us in the position of judging others, deciding that they are bad and deserve punishment. And it isn’t really a question of being right or not — that is, it may be perfectly true that the people who we think are be bad are bad, and do deserve to be punished. The problem is that in placing ourselves in the judge’s seat and condemning others, even if we are right, we forget that we too are guilty — perhaps at times even more than those we condemn.

This is one of the hardest teachings of Jesus to wrap our heads around. How many Christian leaders seem to think that their primary task is telling other people how bad they are? How easy it is to forget that a central teaching of the Christian faith is, Do not judge! How easy it is for Christian disciples to consider themselves equal to their master, competent to judge — and even worse, getting on a high horse to decide who is a worthy recipient of God’s mercy.

We see them do that in today’s gospel reading. A Gentile woman, a Canaanite, approaches Jesus and begs him to cast a demon out of her daughter. And notice that at first Jesus says nothing. Matthew goes out of his way to include that detail: Jesus doesn’t answer her at all. He keeps silent. Is he waiting to see what the disciples will do? Will they intercede and join in her plea for mercy? Will they say to Jesus, Look at this poor woman? Jesus doesn’t have to wait long because they very quickly urge him to send her away because she keeps shouting after them. And at first he confirms their action — for he tells them that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Even when the woman comes and kneels before him, and asks for help, he says that it isn’t right to take children’s food and throw it to dogs. But she insists that even the dogs get the scraps — and Jesus acknowledges her great faith and her daughter is healed instantly.

Just as Joseph puts his bad brothers through the ringer — framing them for theft and putting them in prison — before finally revealing himself to them and forgiving them; Jesus puts his disciples to the test, and gives the woman herself a hard time, before relenting and responding in mercy.

And mercy is the point, the point we often miss. Because God is judge, we tend to want him to act like a judge, particularly when we agree with the guilt of those who are accused. We want to see the judge hand down a hard sentence when other people are before the court. We want to see that hard sentence passed, and that the guilty are punished as they deserve — we want bad things to happen to bad people. And so we want to see God act as a stern judge.

Except when we are the ones standing before him. That’s when we want God to be merciful. The problem is that God doesn’t change — God is always just and always merciful. God is always bringing good out of bad. Joseph’s brothers do a terrible thing in trying to kill him and getting him sold into slavery. But God uses that very action to put Joseph in the position to save the lives not only of his brothers but of countless other people, as God gives him the wisdom to understand Pharaoh’s dreams, and to store away enough food to last through the seven-year famine that will afflict the whole world.

Jesus teaches his disciples a lesson about mercy in this gospel we heard today — a lesson about mercy and faith. For recall how just last week he chided Peter, when he sank in the water he tried to walk on: “You of little faith!” Yet here — in front of Peter and the other disciples — he praises this Canaanite woman, this Gentile pagan, without doubt a worshiper of false and foreign gods, he praises her and gives honor to her “great faith.” Imagine how Peter felt at that moment!

Jesus answers the prayer of one who is not among his lost sheep, who is not his child, who is no better than a dog in the household. He does good for one who deserves no good — not because she deserves it but because he is merciful. Mercy is what it is all about. All, as St Paul said, are under disobedience, so that God can show mercy to all. It’s all God’s mercy, grace, and favor that saves us. I’m reminded of a quote from Mark Twain: “When you get to heaven, you will have to leave your dog outside. Admission to Heaven is by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would come in.”

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In his letter to the Romans, Paul the apostle makes that point in big letters. All are placed under disobedience so that God may show mercy to all. There is none perfect, no not one; and yet God causes his sun to shine and the sweet rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. God is a well of mercy that never stops flowing.

God may have seemed, Paul says, to have turned on his people, his chosen ones, the descendants of Joseph and his brothers, the people of Israel. But Paul insists that their disobedience is temporary and their punishment is temporary, for the very purpose of allowing the good news of salvation through Christ to be extended out beyond that Jewish household to those very Gentiles whom the Israelites think are no better than dogs, unworthy of salvation and doomed to destruction. God is showing mercy to the Gentiles and will do so for Israel in due time. Good things do happen to bad people: for God is merciful. God takes the twisted, broken mess of our lives, what we in our foolishness or our selfishness have spoiled or ruined, and God cleans us up, repairs us, restores us — redeems us.

There is a refrain in the Psalms: his mercy endures forever. Let us give thanks for that at all times — for his mercy endures forever; not seeking God’s judgment, for others or ourselves — for his mercy endures forever; but trusting in God’s mercy — for his mercy endures forever; that even the disobedient and the sinful will find redemption and release — for his mercy endures forever.+

Tipping the Scales

However low you go, or however you go low, God will raise you up.



Proper 25c 2013 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
O Lord, have you completely rejected Judah? Does your heart loathe Zion? Why have you struck us down so that there is no healing for us?

Today we conclude our series of readings from the letters of Paul to Timothy. As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, Paul has been encouraging Timothy in the struggles that he faces with and among the congregation over whom he has charge. People have been caught up in controversies about the interpretation of Scripture, indulging in false teaching, and wandering away into myths. People have been casting doubt on Timothy’s authority, in part due to his relative youth, but also in rebellion against the very gospel message that he delivers. And at every stage at which people have sought to cut Timothy down, Paul has encouraged him to remain strong and to fight the good fight with all his might, to proclaim the gospel fearlessly, and in the knowledge that God’s power is with him.

Now Paul himself, it seems from the passage we read today, is about ready to retire from the combat. As he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Using once more the analogy of a footrace, he portrays Jesus as the scorekeeper and judge who will give him his crown at the end of the race — the race he has run so faithfully.

But not before Paul will have what the English call a bit of a good moan first — you know what that’s about! Sometimes you just feel better when you let it all out and complain for a bit — not to make a habit of it, but just to let off a little steam of frustration. Contrasting the heavenly grace he expects with the earthly problems he has encountered, all the things he has been running through, Paul complains that everyone has deserted him and no one has supported him — except the Lord himself. In fact, Paul is using how low he has been to show just how powerful God is — who can lift up one who has been abandoned and betrayed. The message Paul shares here with Timothy, based on his own experience, is, No matter how low you have fallen in your own confidence, no matter how much you have been cut down by adversaries or problems, God will raise you up.

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Today’s gospel presents us with a different kind of up and down — but ends with a similar message. Jesus portrays two people: a proud and self-righteous Pharisee and a humble and penitent tax collector. I almost picture them standing on a seesaw or teeter-totter: the Pharisee high and lifted up, and the tax collector down in the dumps. For it seems that the very reason for the Pharisee to be so high is because he is so pumped up and proud of himself, because he sees himself in relation to others, whom he regards as sinners worse than he. It is the weight of the sin of those on the other side of the scale that gives that Pharisee his boost, his exaltation, his pride. He has no consciousness of sin in himself, and he plays that off against those whom he regards as “obvious” sinners — thieves and adulterers — or even like this tax collector here.

But enough about him — as I can imagine he learned better when he finally did face the Almighty judge at the end. (And let’s hope he was ashamed of himself and at the last accepted God’s forgiveness!) I would rather focus on that tax collector down there.

Jesus portrays him as being low in comparison to the Pharisee being high. If you picture that seesaw I mentioned there is no doubt that the tax collector is on the heavy end of the scale. We do not know what his sins are — unlike the Pharisee who declares what his sins aren’t and catalogs a few of the things that he imagines make him virtuous, the tax collector does not enumerate his sins — he merely repents. He beats his breast in that ancient act that forces home to me that it is I who am at fault: (for when I beat my breast I am forcibly reminded of my own physical reality and presence! And maybe we all need a little of that spiritual CPR, now and again, to remind us of where we are, and help us rediscover the true meaning of our lives.)

Jesus promises that this man, this man on the low side of the scale, who has humbled himself will return home exalted and justified. And so the message here is that it is by lowering yourself that God will raise you up. As a proverb (3:34) quoted by both James (4:6) and Peter (1P 5:5) puts it, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Or, as someone with even greater authority, Mary the mother of Jesus, put it: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the humble and meek.”

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So the clear message appears to be consistent through all these readings: whether you have been brought low by others, have fallen low in your own estimation and disappointment, or humbled yourself in the knowledge of your sins — however you came to be low, or however low you came to be, God will raise you up. Let the teeter totter as it may, and swing us down even so low that we can feel the warmth of hell-fire toasting our feet — even then God can and will bring us up again, so long as we turn towards the one from whom our help and rescue comes. Even if we don’t look God’s way with our eyes — for recall that the penitent tax collector was so cast down he dare not even raise his eyes to heaven — even if we don’t look God’s way with our eyes, if that is towards God that our hearts are turned, God, who after all looks into our hearts and knows us better than we know ourselves, will also know that we have turned our hearts towards him, and God will raise us up from where we have been cast down, or fallen, or lowered ourselves.

God is not like that famous statue of Justice — the one who holds the scales but wears a blindfold, blind to the relative weight of sin or innocence, and simply allowing the scale to tip as it may. God is also not like the Egyptian god Thoth, who weighs the heart of the dead against the feather of innocence, and condemns all of those whose hearts tip the scale towards guilt.

No, my friends — and it is a good thing for us — God is neither blind like Justice nor a mere secretary like Thoth recording the result shown by the scale. No, my friends, the good news for us is that God tips the scales in our behalf, for the mercy of God is greater than the justice of God, and although God is just, the heart of God is love and mercy and forgiveness.

When God sees we are cast down by the assaults of others, God will raise us up. When God sees that we have abased ourselves in our own eyes, discouraged or despondent, God puts a powerful arm around us and raises us up. And when we are sunk low in the depths of the knowledge of our own faults and failings, God pushes that lightweight Pharisee from the other end of the seesaw and presses it down with a strong arm and a mighty hand — and O my friends, are we in for a ride!+

Memory of Persistence

Keeping on keeping on, urged towards justice and blessing...

Proper 24c 2013 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

In keeping with the theme for the readings today, we persist in hearing from the letters of Paul to his disciple Timothy. Today we hear Paul urging Timothy on, like the coaches who accompanied Diana Nyad on her swim from Cuba to Florida. Look at all the encouragement Paul pours out: “Continue in what you have learned… I solemnly urge you… be persistent… endure… do the work… carry out your ministry fully.”

As with most of Paul’s letters, we only have one side of the conversation. That is, we have no copies of the Letters of Saint Timothy to Paul. But common sense tells us that Paul does not write a letter such as this — full of the voice of a coach offering encouragement — if Paul has not heard, either from Timothy himself or perhaps from some other messenger, that there is something about which Timothy is discouraged.

We don’t have to look very far to find indications of what is causing Timothy’s discouragement. People are challenging his teaching — which involves passing along the gospel that Paul has passed along to him. As we saw in last week’s passage, people are “wrangling over words,” that is, perhaps arguing over different interpretations of Scripture.

In a verse we don’t hear between last week’s portion and this week’s, Paul complains that some people are giving in to“profane chatter” as he calls it, that will “spread like gangrene” because some — and Paul is not afraid to name names — “some have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place.” Paul denounces these people as frauds who are just trying to take advantage of people and make themselves rich.

In today’s passage he alludes to those who have “itching ears,” who choose teachers to their own liking instead of listening to the truth, putting their faith in myths rather than in the sound teaching that Timothy is trying to offer them.

In the midst of all this trouble — and doesn’t it sound familiar, even in our own day? — Paul urges Timothy to press on, to keep the faith and to spread it. Four times in this relatively short correspondence, he uses the phrase, “The saying is sure” to introduce some fundamental doctrine to which he urges Timothy to hang on as he would to a life preserver in a flood. The message to Timothy is persistence.

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Our other readings today reinforce this theme of persisting, holding fast, and not giving up. The story of Jacob’s wrestling match with God takes the image of holding fast literally. The amazing thing is that, not only does Jacob wrestle with God — or God’s messenger — but that he gets his adversary to cry uncle! Jacob simply will not let go until he gets that blessing, and so he receives the blessing; he becomes a father of nations, and he gains a new name, Israel — which means “he who contends with God,” whose face he sees, and yet lives — even though he is left out-of-joint and limping.

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The gospel today shows a different kind of persistence, in the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. Whenever I hear this parable I can’t help but think of those women who for many years stood in the public squares in Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, and Guatemala — all of them holding up photographs and posters with the images and names of Los Desaparecidos — the “disappeared ones” — their brothers, sons, husbands and fathers abducted by political authorities with no more care for justice than the unjust judge in today’s parable. They persisted, in a testimony to their faith that justice will eventually prevail, and that right will triumph in the end. Sadly, some of them are still waiting.

In the parable, however, we aren’t given the details of what the widow’s complaint is, only that she has an opponent, and the judge — who has no fear of God or respect for people — is not rendering a decision. Perhaps he is looking for a bribe, perhaps he just doesn’t care enough to take up her case, or perhaps — in spite of his not having respect for people — he doesn’t want to cross whoever her unnamed opponent is. Whatever the reason, justice is delayed — and as the old saying goes “justice delayed is justice denied.” Finally, though, in this case, we hear the end of the story, and the persistent widow wears the unjust judge down.

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Jesus then gives us a moral to this parable, as he spells it out, and it is an example of a teaching technique that the rabbis called “light and heavy” — a teaching device very common among the rabbis, and used a number of times by the Rabbi Jesus. We heard an example of it some weeks ago when Jesus confronted those who were upset with him for healing that woman on the Sabbath: and he confronted them by saying, if you will rescue an animal on the Sabbath how much more a human being.

This teaching technique of light and heavy was very popular with the rabbis, and Jesus uses it again and again; even in perhaps his last teaching. Even on the road to Calvary, as he carried his cross to his crucifixion, when he met the women weeping for him, he ended by saying, “If they do this when the wood is green, what will they do when it is dry.” Light and heavy — simple and hard.

So too here the “light” is the unjust judge and the “heavy” is the just God. If even an unjust earthly judge will eventually give in and do justice for those who appeal to him, how much more will the just God hear and respond to his people when they cry out to him for justice. Light and heavy.

As with Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, this is Jesus’ encouragement to the disciples, “about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” — if an unjust human will finally do justice, will not the just God ultimately do justice as well — and far more powerfully, with far more weight?

And as with all of Jesus’ teaching, this is directed to the church to which Paul ministered and Timothy ministered — and to which all of us minister in the church today, for we are his disciples. I don’t just mean the ordained ministers but each and every one of you, as each of you has some ministry, some service in the gospel to the spread God’s gospel on earth, to let all hear of the kingdom and its coming. We are, all of us, called to persevere and persist in our work and in our prayer.

As I said a few moments ago, when I was listing some of the problems that Timothy had to face: some things haven’t changed since the first century. There are still people who will get deeply into arguments about words, using the Scripture not as a medicine for the soul but as a weapon to bash other people over the head. There are some who engage in profane chatter and spread false doctrines or their own half-baked ideas instead of relying on the wholesome gospel truth of Christ and his saving life and death, and life again. There are some who prefer myths and fantasy to the tested and assured doctrines of salvation, or who have itching ears and seek out teachers who will tell them what they want to hear, instead of challenging them with the demands that Christ places upon us. And there are some who are willing to be such teachers, willing to give people what they want to hear, and make a fine living out of it, creating personal cults with devoted followers — and we’ve seen the tragic results of such things in places like Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate.

I’m tempted almost to cite our Lord’s pessimistic — it seems — closing comment, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Will he? Will he find it hear among us? Everywhere the church seems to be in decline; it is so much less a part people’s lives today than it was even thirty years ago, even twenty years ago; while the “new age spirituality” section at Barnes & Noble takes up several shelves — and anyone with itching ears for salvation through crystals, or yoga, or transcendental meditation can find plenty to occupy their time — and fill the pockets of those who are ready to provide such spiritual junk food.

But, to quote Saint Paul, “as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” For we have studied the Scripture together, persistently examining it and exploring it for all of the benefits that can be found in it: a light to our feet upon the way. We have recognized that the inspired Scripture is useful — this is no fantasy game! We are called and challenged, my brothers and sisters, to persevere in these disciplines of prayer and devotion and work, ministers of God as much as Paul and Timothy, each of us equipped with varying skills and differing talents, all of which can be used to the service of God and to spread God’s kingdom. Only let us persevere, and blessing and justice will be ours at last.+

Why God Came

God tests us, but loves us, and forgives us...



Proper 19c 2013 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…

There is a strange phrase at the end of today’s Old Testament reading: “The Lord changed his mind.” Well, it certainly looks as if God changes his mind. It starts when God tells Moses to deal with his problem people as if they belonged to Moses: “Your people, who you brought up out of Egypt!” Sounds like many a parent when a child acts up! Have you ever been told, or perhaps even said, “Look at what your son has done! He sure didn’t get it from me!”? Well, God is giving Moses a hard time on account of the Israelites. And God is prepared to give them an even harder time! So Moses tries to placate God, to intercede. He suggests that if God wipes out the people he will get bad press back in Egypt. And God appears to change his mind, and let the Israelites be.

Well, yes, that’s what the story says. But let’s not forget who wrote the story: Moses. There is a rule when you study history, sacred or secular: consider who is writing it. From Moses’ point of view he is the calm one, the reasonable one. It is God who is flying off the handle.

There is another, better explanation for this passage, that takes account of the rest of Scripture: which shows that God is not likely to fly off the handle; God is not “flighty.” God is wise, powerful, loving, and just; but not flighty or given to whims. As the prophet Samuel would later say, “God is not a mortal to change his mind.”

So maybe Moses misses something in this event, in what is going on here. God is indeed testing his people Israel, as he will continue to do. But in this particular moment God is testing Moses. God wants to know what kind of leader Moses is. If God gives him the chance, will he say, “Yes, God, wipe them out! Make a great nation out of me!” Is that the kind of person God wants to lead his people, a people he’s loved and cared for throughout their bondage in Egypt? the people he’s delivered with signs and wonders, and to whom he has promised a land flowing with milk and honey, a people God loves even when they act up, as any loving parents love their children?

Of course not. Moses doesn’t reveal himself as as someone who would willing to condemn his fellow Israelites, to wipe them out so that he can be the founder of the new kingdom; he passes God’s test. Moses doesn’t grab the chance to become the father of a great nation; in fact he “reminds” God of the promises God had made to the real fathers, the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God then sees that Moses would even talk back to him, even confront God himself on behalf of his people; he will be a mediator, an advocate, to stand between God and his righteous judgment of those fellow-Israelites (as bad as they are) and beg God to be merciful.

So it isn’t that God has a change of mind or of heart, but rather that God finds that Moses is a man after his own heart. For the heart of God, is love, not destruction, it is mercy and forgiveness. As Jonah would discover hundreds of years later, in very similar circumstances, when God confronted him after he got upset that God didn’t wipe out Nineveh, and said to Jonah, “Am I not to care for this whole city — and you’re upset about a little sun shining on your head because the bush withered?!” People get to know God better when they face God — you know that!

There is a wideness in God’s mercy that goes beyond the measure of our mind: God’s grace is amazing; so it is understandable that Moses might have misunderstood what was going on that afternoon when he thought he calmed God down. Moses passed the test, he passed the trial, without even realizing he was being tested or tried! You might be able to picture God smiling to himself years later, looking over Moses’ shoulder as Moses wrote those words, “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”

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No, brothers and sisters, it is not in God’s nature to change his mind as a mortal does. For God is single-minded in loving, in forgiveness, and in willingness to put up with us in our error, our wandering, and our sin. The mind of God doesn’t change. Thank God!

Saint Paul knew this well. He had been a terror to the church. As he says of himself, “a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence.” God didn’t change his mind about Paul; but God changed Paul. God didn’t wait for Paul to come to his senses. God met Paul on the Damascus road, while Paul was carrying in his bloody hands the death warrant for more Christians. God met Paul, a man who thought he was God’s own hatchet man on earth, who thought he was doing God’s work while he was killing God’s servants — and God knocked him senseless to the ground.

Jesus Christ appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus, revealing himself as one who forgives even before repentance; who comes to us while we are yet sinners; who reaches out to us even when we are at our most impossible, tooth-gnashingly, frowningest, mean and ornery and self-righteous, “I don’t need your help thank you very much” selves. Christ revealed himself as the Son of God who is love and who does not change his mind but whose mind is always towards the best for his children.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be reading from the Letters Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy. Today we heard, from the first letter, those familiar words, “The saying is true and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” These are familiar and comfortable words. We don’t often hear Saint Paul’s punch-line: “...Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.” Paul knows that the grace of God is poured out precisely where most needed, on the dry, hot, mean and angry ground of his own self-righteous self. The water of grace wells up in the desert waste where I am the only lone who is right, and everybody else is wrong and needs fixing.

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Jesus tries to tell the Pharisees and scribes the same thing. They have a chance to join him at the banquet, and instead they stand outside grumbling that he shares his table with sinners. “Just look at the company this Jesus keeps. Guess that tells what sort of a character he is. Birds of a feather!”

You know they were right! Those Jesus calls to supper tell us just what sort Jesus is. This is a true saying, and worthy of all to be received. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; to find the lost coin, the lost sheep. He came into the world to find the unloved, the disposable, the outcast, the misfit. He came to find those who know their need of God, and those so far-gone they have lost hope even in God.

But he also came to save the ones like Paul, the self-righteous ones who don’t even know they need saving; who think they have God in their hip-pocket, the ones who think they have it made. Those are the hardest sort to save, since they don’t even know they need saving! Jesus calls them to supper; some will respond, but some, rather than joining the feast, will stay outside, shaking their heads and grumbling. They cluck their tongues and shake their heads, deaf to the voices of all the angels in heaven rejoicing and shouting out loud that the lost has been found, and are sitting down right now to the banquet with the king of heaven. Outside, shaking their heads, they fail the test God put to Moses, hardening their hearts in the time of trial, and imagining they are righteous when they are absolutely and completely wrong.

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And it still happens. Time and again people who profess and call themselves Christians fail that test; they crumble in the time of trial, failing to refrain from self-righteousness, judgment, and prejudice — sometimes even violence — choosing instead to condemn and reject those they judge not up to their standard, forgetting that they too must answer to the one just judge of all.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. That bomb was set by the Ku Klux Klan, men who thought they were righteous, who wore on their chest the sign of the cross in a circle, believing themselves just and righteous, secure in their racial superiority. They didn’t just bomb an empty church building to destroy the property of that congregation. They set the bomb to go off at 10:15 on Sunday morning when they knew that church would be full of people, and killed four little girls who were down in the restroom combing their hair, getting ready for the Sunday service. It was Youth Sunday that day, so the place was full of kids and proud parents. And a group of men who thought themselves to be doing God’s work blew up that church.

God is just. God sees it all, and God doesn’t change his mind.

When it comes down to it, there is only one right answer for this test, a test that some so often fail when their limited hearts face God’s abundant grace. There is only one right answer in the time of trial, one right response to the prosecuting attorneys: the clucking tongues and shaking heads, the angry hands full of blood, and the self-righteousness of hypocrites. There is only one right testimony. It is a saying that is sure and worthy of acceptance, that Christ Jesus — our only mediator and advocate, our defense attorney in the time of trial — came into the world to save sinners — among whom, thanks be to God, we have had the grace to acknowledge ourselves numbered, and have accepted God’s welcome to come to this place and sit at his table. Blessed are those who know their need of God! Blessed are those invited to the supper of the Lamb!

May God shake self-righteousness and hypocrisy from the fabric of his world, bringing of all his children, even the most stubborn and resistant ones, even the ones who don’t even want to be seen dead in that company, into the banquet hall. So that we may then on that great day, join with Saint Paul and all the saints who once were sinners, in giving glory and honor to the great unchanging mind of our loving God, giving “to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, all honor and glory forever and ever.”

Child's Play

SJF • Advent 2a • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

Advent is the season of the church year in which we prepare our minds and hearts for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only the yearly commemoration of his coming as a newborn infant to the stable in Bethlehem, but in watchful preparation for the as yet to be realized coming in glory at the end of time, when he will judge the quick and the dead in perfect righteousness. So we find ourselves, in Advent, somewhat torn between two images: the sweet Christ Child in the manger, and the transfigured, majestic figure of the everlasting Judge and King, whose coming is foretold by the wild prophet John the Baptist.

On this Sunday, however, the two images come together. We see this in the prophet Isaiah’s description of the peaceable kingdom, the vision of God’s just and righteous reign. At first the vision of the one who shall come forth from the root of Jesse sounds like the same mighty judge John the Baptist promises. Here is one upon whom the Spirit rests, who is full of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. Here is one who shall judge with righteousness and equity, whose very voice strikes the earth like a rod, whose breath slays the wicked.

But then the imagery shifts. Suddenly all is peaceful: wild beasts of forest and field no longer prey on the domesticated animals of pasture and barnyard, but graze and nestle beside them. The two worlds, wild and domestic, come together in peace. And, wonder of wonders, all this harmony is orchestrated, brought about and led not by an army of lion-tamers with pistols and whips, or a crowd of Australian alligator wrestlers with cages and anesthetic darts, but by a little child. Even more surprising, infants young enough still to be nursing, and others just starting on solid food, can play with snakes in perfect safety, the symbol of human enmity with the natural world from our infancy in the Garden of Eden — the serpent — has lost it’s poison, and has become a plaything for the children of Adam and Eve. The peaceful lordship that turns the curse of Adam on its head, the peaceable kingdom established on God’s holy mountain is, simply put, child’s play.

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Now, this is not frivolous talk. Few things are more serious than child’s play. I really mean that. Have you ever watched children playing? Children take their play very seriously, and the more deeply involved in play they are, the more intense their concentration. Where else but in play do you see actual wrinkles form on the foreheads of children? Where else but in play do you see little tongues appear at the edges of tiny mouths, as tiny hands struggle to make a puzzle come out just right, a doll’s hair be styled in high fashion, or a plastic peg hammered down just so with a plastic hammer into a plastic hole? No, children at play are quite intent on their playing!

Children in a snowball fight are as focused on their battle as any general. And I dare not even mention the intensity of a child apparently glued to a Game Boy, or a Wii or a Nintendo or a PlayStation! And a five-year-old girl hosting a tea party for her dolls and teddy bears will — should you be honored with an invitation to such an event — enforce upon you a protocol as polished and rigorous as a state banquet in the White House. The Cabbage Patch twins must always be served first, in recognition of their youth, while Barbie, being a mature young lady, is expected to be patient, and Pooh Bear has to be watched lest he sneak a cookie before the proper time. As you balance the tiny saucer and minuscule teacup, savoring the invisible tea and make-believe cake, you are apt to marvel at the child’s knowledge of etiquette, and her stern resolve to enforce it.

Yes, the prophet was right in describing the kingdom of God in terms of child’s play, for child’s play is not frivolous. It is just that we tend to forget this as we grow older. As we grow older, out of the pure and clear world of childhood, we adults are apt to begin making compromises, to settle on less than we really want, to move from the clarity of the black and white into those shades of grey. And we tend to see this as maturity. We gain peace at the cost of principle. We become judicious; we weigh profit and loss ratios, and we deal and we compromise; and we settle. And how often do we end up with far less than justice and righteousness for the sake of an imaginary peace — a peace that turns out not to be peace at all.

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But the judge, the judge eternal described by Isaiah, comes to us with the ferocious intensity of a child, a single-minded child who can look straight through our adult compromises to the burning truth of our failures. He does not judge by what he sees or hears, this eternal judge whose coming we await. What? A judge who pays no attention to evidence? What kind of justice is that? Who wants a trial before a judge who passes sentence before he hears our excuses and our explanations and our rationalizations?

But my friends, this is the justice of a child, of the child. The child who knows what’s fair and what’s not, and from whose ringing sentence, “It isn’t fair!” there is no appeal. The child who knows when her parents have been arguing, however much they try to pretend it’s all O.K. for her sake. The child knows when he’s being lied to, however good our intentions, and his piercing eyes see through us as if we were so much cellophane. The child who knows the rules for snowball fights and tea-parties, and dispenses the firm justice, the laws of equity, of the playground. The child who knows how to tame animals more real than the ones of flesh and blood, the animals of the playroom, where Pooh Bear and Barney the Dinosaur take tea together, and the Lion King eats cookies from a plate. And all the while, the child hostess oversees this feast with serious attention, and a sense of what is fair and right that puts any adult tribunal to shame.

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This is what the Justice and Lordship of Jesus is like, the just, clear, and focused reign of the Son of God. Under the watchful eye of this child who comes forth from the root of Jesse, all our excuses and compromises and rationalizations are laid bare. All of our efforts to bend the rules are exposed. All of our lording it over one another, preying on each other like wolves and bears and lions, is shown up for what it is.

But the good news is that this Child of God who comes to judge us is merciful as well as just. Though he sees right through us, perhaps because he sees right through us, he will also save us, for though he sees how shallow we are he knows we are worth saving. And his loving justice can begin to transform us, and redeem our corrupted nature as surely as it undoes the curse of Adam. The old curse is done away with, transforming serpents into playthings, undoing the ancient enmity between the wild and the domestic. Under the miraculous rule of this divine child-king even our own rough nature is transformed, our rough coats of wolf-grey fur, soften and turn to plush. Our shaggy lions’ manes are trimmed and turn bright yellow, festive with bows and ribbons. Our leopard spots turn into polka-dots. Rough grizzly bears grow plump and soft and dip their blunted claws into a jar plainly labeled H-U-N-Y. And all of us together gather around the tea-table, colorful bows around our necks and ribbons in our hair, as the Child pours us our tea, and feeds us cakes, and we partake of the sacrament of peace — coming to God’s kingdom, at long last, precisely and exactly as he said we would have to come: as children.

May we then, dear sisters and brothers in Christ, be ready to enter the heavenly child’s-play of the this miracle child, the just and righteous rule of the Son of God, whose infant hands possess all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and forever more.+

Risky Business

SJF • Proper 26c• Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

While the Gospel is full of people whose lives were changed by contact with the saving power of Christ, I’ve always been attracted to the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector from Jericho. And that’s not just because Zacchaeus is the biblical hero of short people! Rather it is because of the wonderful risk that Zacchaeus took, and the answering risk that Jesus took in response to it.

This biblical event is like one of those old medieval paintings with two panels facing each other, each of which tells half of the story, but which also reflect each other in meaning or theme.

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The first panel shows us the little tax-collector climbing a tree, getting up above the crowds so that he can see Jesus. Now, it is important to think for a moment about what prompted this little man to do this; tax collectors normally don’t climb trees! We can be sure that Zacchaeus has heard something about Jesus, maybe only the noise of the crowd, but wants to know more. The text does not tell us what exactly he has heard; perhaps he’s heard about the healing miracles, or the wise teaching Jesus has given as he has moved from town to town. Perhaps he’s heard that this Jesus has gotten on the wrong side of the Pharisees — which is the neighborhood he himself lives in and knows quite well! Or perhaps he’s heard of the experience of his colleague, the other tax-collector Levi, who invited Jesus to his home for dinner and ended up with the name Matthew. Perhaps Zacchaeus has heard about some of the stern stories Jesus has been telling about rich people and their fate — the same stories we’ve been hearing in the gospel over the last few weeks — and being a rich man himself, is perhaps becoming a bit worried about what might lay in store for him! Or perhaps all he hears is the noise of the crowd and naturally wonders what is going on to cause such a commotion.

Whatever the impulse, it is enough to inspire this little man to action. Being a short person myself, I can understand the frustration he must feel when the crowds block his view. When I was in England last week, in London, I missed most of the changing of the Guard. Not the big show at Buckingham Palace but at the Horse Guards nearby; and not on the parade ground where they troop the colors but in the inner courtyard, where are there are just two horses and 14 guards — but still only saw the two on horseback, because I was at the back of the pack! I got a better view, to be honest, of the backs of peoples hands as they took pictures with their cell phones.

So I understand what it is like. But more importantly, I can also understand the power of the call of Christ that must be at work in him to allow him to set aside any sensitivity over his height, and take a risk. This little man — rich though he is — you must understand, is not a popular man in Jericho; he is an outcast in his own town no matter how rich he is; as I noted already, he is a man considered a hopeless a sinner by the religious leaders. And no tax collector, good or bad, is ever particularly popular with those from whom the taxes are collected. It wouldn’t be too far off, if we were to do a modern version of this story, to picture Danny DeVito in the role of a local loan-shark or swindler. That is how the people of his time regard tax-collectors, who make their living not so much by the legitimate collection of taxes, but by bribes and extortion, and the hand that goes this way — you know what I mean: behind the back, under the table! Out of sight. Such people — people who make their treasure that way — treasure as well what little respect they get — remember how important respect was in the world of the Godfather! — and to risk the ridicule of climbing a tree, risking the contempt they already know from their neighbors.

What must be the power of the grace of God at work in this tax-collector that he risks making a fool of himself by climbing a tree so he can see Jesus. He knows he will look ridiculous, but he doesn’t care. He wants to see Jesus, and so he nails his pride to that tree. Perhaps he knows, somewhere in his heart, that this is the most important thing he ever does in his life; the most important thing: to see Jesus Christ.

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That’s the first panel of this picture. The second panel shows us Jesus doing something equally surprising and equally risky. He calls Zacchaeus and tells him to come down, and invites himself to the tax-collector’s house to be his guest.

Jesus flies in the face of convention in doing this, as outrageous in Jericho as he’s been elsewhere in his ministry, mingling with folks the Pharisees and scribes think are beyond the pale, the riff-raff, the low-down. But Jesus is, after all, only doing what he was sent there to do: bringing salvation to a son of Abraham dispossessed by his self-righteous brothers. Jesus flies in the face of custom and tradition, and evokes a change in a man who was thought past hope. The change in Zacchaeus, the thankful response to salvation crossing his threshold, as he turns his life around, literally turning his riches around and returning half — half — to the poor, and four times over to anyone he has wronged. He experiences true wealth, the sure and certain knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness, the Good News in all of its fullness, compared to which all the treasure he has accumulated over the years is, as Saint Paul called his learning and pedigree, so much rubbish.

But that is still to come. For now, the panel shows us Jesus calling Zacchaeus, and the tongues start to wag at once: “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” You’d think by now the religious leaders would have gotten the message, but clearly they still haven’t got a clue. They don’t understand who Jesus is, why he is there, what he is doing, what risks he is willing to take. All they see is their own outrage: that nasty little sinner Zacchaeus, and Jesus going with him as his guest. In the panel painting you can see them heading off to dinner, while the crowd stands in a huddled group off to the side, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.

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That’s the second panel. Now I have a surprise for you. Maybe not such a surprise if you’ve seen those medieval panel paintings. Because just as in a medieval altar piece, these panels fold open, to reveal something else. When we fold open those two panels, a third panel is revealed, that draws the themes of the first two into one. It shows us someone else taking the greatest risk of all; someone else lifted up high, someone else regarded by the crowds as a sinner, ridiculed, jeered at, mocked at. It shows us the crucified Christ. For the same Jesus Christ, accused for dining with a sinner would himself one day be lifted high upon a tree, not so that he could see us, but that he could be seen. Hanging there in the shame of the cross, he would once again be called a sinner by the leaders of the people, but be justified by God’s love for his only begotten Son when he raised him from the dead. He would reveal himself thus to the whole world for the sake of the whole world. He would open the treasury of true riches that cannot be stolen by thieves, corrupted by rust or moth, or stored up but never used for the good they could have done, if only we would use them. Jesus reveals his love in his death, not just for the sons of Abraham, but for every son and daughter of the living God, his Father in heaven, and our Father in heaven. Jesus reveals himself as the friend of sinners who seeks out the lost and will not rest until all are gathered at his feet to fall in worship and adoration, to marvel at this one man whose death brought life and immortality to many. And so the central panel shows Christ in glory upon the cross, the tree he climbed for us, not so that he could see us, but that we might see him, and be drawn to him, and be saved by him.

But for now let us close the panels — in our gospel readings, Jesus is still on the road, and Calvary lies up ahead, where we will revisit it in a few weeks, when on the last Sunday before Advent we will once again look upon the king in his glory upon the cross. Let us return to that scene in Jericho, the one on the outside of the panels, with Zacchaeus going off to dinner with Jesus, as the crowds mutter in the background.

The Gospel does not record if or how Jericho changed because of Christ’s visit to Zacchaeus’ house. Jericho may not have changed, but one of its citizens did, and we have seen the beginning of that change in the gospel. But going forward from that do you not think that from then on guests at Zacchaeus’s table were treated differently, as they treated him differently, now that he had changed from being a corrupt tax collector to one who went out of his way to pay back four-fold anyone he’d ever wronged. Regardless of how high or low, we can be sure that they were greeted with joy, and respect, treated with humility, and served with open hands. We can also be sure that Zacchaeus retold that story time and again, the story of the day he risked making a fool of himself for Christ’s sake, climbed a tree to see the king of glory as he passed, and shared his table with the one who would one day take the greatest risk of all, and share himself with the whole world upon the cross. May we too risk the embarrassment of seeking Christ and being Christians in a world that seeks its own way instead of the way of God, today and every day of our lives, risking being Christians even if people think we are foolish to be so, climbing a tree if need be, and striving to see Jesus, and welcoming him into our hearts, to the glory of God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. +