Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Psalm 138; Genesis 18:20-32; Luke 11:1-13
Pours a glass halfway with water and asks:
Is this glass half full or half empty? If you’re coming off of a weekend that didn’t give you much time to relax, and you’ve still got a lot of work to do this afternoon before another week begins. And you didn’t get enough coffee this morning before you showed up at church, and on the drive over here you realized that you forgot to put on deodorant, then this glass might appear half empty.
But if you’re coming off of a very relaxing weekend, or a weekend full of rewarding events that you didn’t want to ever end, and the coffee was just the right temperature as you sipped it on the drive over here, but you spilled some of it on your clothes, this glass might appear half full.
I think it’s fair to say that if you tally up the things that you did or didn’t do in any given week, and you bring that perspective in here to worship, then whether there is a glass on this altar or not, we all look around this sanctuary and think that the glass is half empty or the glass is half full.
This is the mentality that the man in this morning’s gospel parable carries to bed with him. Jesus tells a story about a man who tucks his children in for the night and closes and bars shut the heavy door on his home before crawling into bed. And as this man drifts off to sleep, he thinks about the day gone by and carries in the back of his mind the notion that his day was a glass half full or a glass half empty.
Jesus recognizes that we all think that way. It doesn’t matter if we’re just waking up in the morning or driving down the bypass during the lunch hour or crawling into bed at night. We have an outlook that sees the world in terms of a glass that is half full or one that is half empty.
And Jesus personifies this worldview in terms of a man who is trying to get some sleep in the comfort and safety of his home. But then, at midnight, a stranger comes knocking on the door asking for something to eat. This stranger is desperate and he needs some help. He just needs some bread. But the man in the house says, “Do you realize what time it is? You’re going to wake up my kids! We’re trying to sleep in here. Go away!”
And then Jesus invites us into the story and says, “Now, it doesn’t matter how you’re feeling at that midnight hour. It doesn’t matter if you’re feeling glass-half-full or glass-half-empty. If that stranger sounds desperate enough, and if he knocks on your door long enough and loud enough, you’re going to be like this man and say, “Fine! I’ll get you your bread. Just keep the noise down. Hold on!”
The glass being half full or half empty is the lens that helps us make our decisions in every day life. And Jesus understands this. He reminds us that in the end we’re human and that we will help someone in need. That’s a good assurance. It’s nice to know that in the end we’re all inherently good.
But then Jesus turns around and calls this thinking evil. And Jesus says that the good news is that despite this evil, we have the free will to do what is good.
I want to assure you that Jesus is not condemning us with this parable today. Jesus says that our hesitancy to help someone in need based on our general outlook is evil, and so, we have a tendency to be evil. But Jesus doesn’t tell us this to condemn us. Jesus tells us parables and offers us teachings all the time to challenge us. Jesus is saying two things: 1) if you are evil and can do good deeds, imagine how much greater God’s good deeds are, God who IS good, and 2) if you realize that you have a tendency for evil, what are you going to do about it?
First, let’s pinpoint our tendency for this evil that Jesus is talking about. I want to suggest that our temptation to look at the world as being a glass half or a glass half empty is pride. Pride is the stumbling block that keeps the glass half full or half empty but never full.
Pride makes us bigger than others, so when your day is good, your day is better than anyone else’s in your mind. And when your day is bad, then it’s worse than anyone else’s. My glass is half full or my glass is half empty because I am filled with pride.
And pride demands results. Pride wants accolades. Pride wants recognition. And pride is in the church.
You ever bring a grand spread for our fellowship time after the worship service, and later on you think, “No one said thank you,” or, “No one said anything about my coffee cake?” You ever do a bunch of work for a program at the church or a project of some kind on one of our committees, and you think, “People don’t appreciate what I do enough,” or, “That’s the last time I do something for the church!”
In the critically acclaimed film, Lilies of the Field, a drifter looking for work is driving around in the desert. And when he needs water to cool down his car’s engine, he ends up at the home of five nuns. He thinks he’s just passing through, but the Mother of the Order insists that the drifter stick around and help them get a project off the ground. They want to build a chapel so the handful of folks living in their desert community can have a place to receive the sacraments and worship. But they have no manpower to get this accomplished. Well, along came a drifter.
By way of charm and stubborn insistence, the nuns convince this man to stay with them and get their chapel built. And he works on this chapel all day long, brick by brick, all by himself under the hot sun. Other people in the community take notice to what this stranger in their midst is doing for the nuns, so they start offering him materials: bricks, mortar, wood and tools, and he keeps working on this chapel all by himself, day after day.
Weeks go by, but there’s only one wall completed at this point, so the people of this desert town start to help the man, and instantly his productivity is exponentially increased. But the drifter resents all this help. In his eyes, his work has been stolen from right under his nose. The workers are scrambling like ants all over the foundation of the chapel he started, and the bricks are flying and the other walls are coming up. But the drifter just wanders into the nuns’ kitchen, slumps himself in a chair and scowls.
The Mother of the Order is sitting directly across from him, and he finally blurts out to her, “That was my project. This is a violation of our agreement. I was supposed to build you a chapel.” And she says to him, “Well, it’s being built. What do you care who gets it done?” The man says, “Listen, I didn’t get much of an education, and I’ve never had much of an opportunity to build something or make something from the ground up with my own hands. This was supposed to be my baby.” But she says to him, “I prayed for a big strong man to come our way to help us build a chapel. And you came. And when you came, people started donating supplies to build. And when you started working, everyone started working. And now that chapel is almost finished. You helped get it started. Do you think God really cares how it gets finished?”
Pride doesn’t just get in between us and God. Pride gets in the way between us and our neighbors. The glass is half full in Sodom, and it sounds like God wants to knock the glass over. But Abraham is a glass-half-full kind of guy. He suspects there might be righteous people living in that community, so he confronts God and says, “God, please don’t kill me for asking you this, literally, but what if there are righteous people living there? The glass if half full here, God. Are you going to knock it over and destroy the righteous along with the wicked? I mean, what if there are 50, just 50, righteous people living there. Won’t you spare them?” And God responds, “If there are 50 that are righteous I’ll spare everyone. I’ll save them all.”
Abraham’s intentions are good. He’s looking out for the righteous, but that’s all he’s looking out for. And God says that as long as there is some good there, there is hope, and that’s what matters. As long as there is some good there, the glass is not half empty, the glass is not half full, but the glass overflows with righteousness. Sounds like some good is a lot of hope.
The opposite of pride is humbleness. And look here at our God of judgment practicing humility. “If even ten of them are righteous,” says the Lord, “They’re all going to be alright.” Our God is a humble God who insists that we love one another. The only way for us to love our neighbor, though, is to get over our pride. Pride is so contagious that it takes an invitation to humility to get over it.
My dad is always was a serious man. You still won’t catch him laughing unless he’s at a family function or watching Monk. He has always been very dedicated to his work as a lawyer. So, when I was growing up, I remember my father always dressed in a suit, always intently focused on whatever he was reading, and always carrying himself in a manner that left no room for playfulness. And I was always so proud of my dad.
Then one year at the church it was time for the children’s choir to perform a musical about the story of the Mayflower. The sanctuary was pretty big, and the choir loft was located in the corner opposite the pulpit. If you were in the congregation, you can see the preacher and the choir at all times. The choir loft had been transformed into a setting for a boat, and the children were all dressed in their pilgrim outfits sitting there waiting for the musical to start.
They had two adults cast as narrators for the musical. They were going to be kind of the matriarch and patriarch of the adventure—the Abraham and Sarah of the boat. Dad was playing the lead male pilgrim, but I didn’t know that he was going to be in a costume. Dad came in from the side wearing a black shirt with a white collar, black pants that stopped midway down his shins, leather shoes with giant buckles on the tops and a giant black pilgrim hat that looked like it was made with construction paper. And of course, staying true to the time period, the man was wearing his glasses.
Now, when I first saw Dad in this getup, I practically covered my eyes in shame and said, “No way.” And then I looked again and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” This wasn’t my dad! Hector De Leon action figure comes with suit and briefcase, not pilgrim hat and knickers! But then Dad started narrating the play, and the kids started singing, and I looked around at the congregation, and they were enjoying every minute of it. So, I got a little bit more comfortable with the whole thing and started getting into the musical.
And then the kids started dancing, rocking to a fro, and that’s when the unthinkable happened. Dad started dancing with them. My dad, the serious one, was rocking from side to side with a boat full of singing children. And then I, the stoic teenager, who’s glass was always half empty, I started smiling. Then I started laughing, and I was so happy about this whole thing, that I forgot all about what Dad was wearing—it didn’t matter. I was so happy. This was so good.
When my dad, the serious one, put on that pilgrim outfit and danced with the children, he took a public step toward love, in my eyes, by practicing humbleness. And when I witnessed him taking that step I joined him. That’s the way it goes. When we take a step away from pride and toward love, others notice, and they are humbled, and they take steps with us. And every day God wants us to take a step away from pride.
Pride is what enables us to sap the humanity from another human being if we’re not careful. Pride is what enables us to look at a man on death row with disregard because we view him as inhuman. Pride is what helps us get over the images of dead bodies floating in the aftermath of Katrina, because they are faceless and inhuman.
And pride keeps us so stone cold serious that we lose our souls in the clutches of indifference. Pride is what enables us to accept the view that only men can be superintendents, doctors, loud preachers and presidents, and women are more suitable as teachers, orderlies, quiet church members and senators. And pride is what enables so many in our Christian community to meet gay and lesbian people of faith with the slogan “love the sinner, hate the sin,” as if that is reconciliation and acceptance.
No, in all of these half-truths and misperceptions, our glass is only half full because of our pride. And though the Lord is on high, he watches over the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. God knows us, but with every step we take away from pride, the more God watches over us, and the closer we walk with Christ.
All that God wants is for us to love one another. When we do that, we come into communion with God. That requires us to be humble before one another so that this world would become humble before God. Still, we fumble with the relentless outlook of the glass being half empty or the glass being half full. We fumble with our pride.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
My glass overflows. My glass is not half empty. Your glass is not half full. If we’re going to take a step toward love this morning, it’s going to take some humility. Are we ready to take that step?