Sermon for Friends Congregational Church
“Remembering Who You Are”
Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Psalm 84:1-7; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; 16-18; Luke 18:9-14
Some times we forget about who we are, and we don’t even know it. But it can be pretty obvious that we’ve forgotten who we are when we start identifying with others that are not like us at all. We might love movies about revenge because we identify with the main character: chewed up and spit out by the world at every turn. But if we take a more humble look at our lives, we might come to admit that we’ve got it pretty good.
We might identify with a politician because their strong stance on issues and tough demeanor resonate with us. We identify with this person, but if we held their worldview up to ours, or their voting record on different decisions up to how we might handle them, we might come to find that we don’t identify with that person or even their political party.
Or you might spend your younger adult years making choices and decisions that go against the grain of anything your parents encouraged you to do, anything they used to do and anything they approved of or agreed with, because you vowed that you would never be like your parents. And your life might be worlds different from Mom or Dad now, but when you look humbly into the eyes that stare back at you in the mirror, you could discover that you are so much like your parents, it’s not even funny.
Jesus doesn’t say it outright when he tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, but it’s implied for sure: Christ instructs us to humbly remember, acknowledge and embrace who we are.
Stacy and I spent a couple of days in Fredericksburg this weekend, where the culture insists that you relax or go back to where you came from. Now, as you all know, I’m a Longhorn. Well, when we checked out of the place where we stayed, the woman behind the counter said, “Y’all headin’ back now?” I said, “Yes, ma’am. We’re leaving right after lunch.” She said, “Where ‘bouts you live?” I said, “It’s not that bad a drive. We live in Bryan.” And the woman said, “Oh. Isn’t there a little college over there.” And without catching on to her humor yet, I quickly replied, “Yes ma’am, it’s in College Station, which is right next door to Bryan.” And then the woman said, “Yeah, what’s the name of that little college there?” And I said, kind of defensively at this point, “Texas A&M.” And then the woman behind the counter grinned from ear to ear, and laughed this sinister laugh, as if she were the devil himself, and she said, “I just like to give you Aggies a hard time.”
I was beside myself. I walked out the door with Stacy and I was thinking, “Wow, what’s next? Someone might tell me an Aggie joke and I’ll just say, ‘That’s not funny.’” You have to remember who you are. If you don’t, then Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector will carry no weight in your life.
Do you identify with the Pharisee or the tax collector? Two men go up to the Temple to pray. Do you identify with the Pharisee, who exclaims a litany of self-righteousness, or do you identity with the tax collector who presents himself humbly before God? Do you identify with the one who says, “I do this good thing and that good thing, so thank you, God, for making me such a wonderful person,” or do you identify with the one who just beats his breast and says, “Have mercy on me, God, a sinner?”
Now, before you answer that question in your mind, I want to say a couple of things: First of all, Pharisees aren’t all bad. You hear the word ‘Pharisee’ and you think of an authoritative legalist who’s always out to get Jesus like Wyle E. Coyote is always out to get the roadrunner. That comes from centuries of interpretation that only pinpoints the moments when Pharisees are called out by Jesus. The fact is, Jesus associated with Pharisees quite often, and these guys knew the law and the Prophets more articulately than anyone in those ancient times. So, Pharisees aren’t all bad.
Secondly, I want to say that we all identify with the Pharisee, so don’t worry about answering that question after all. Half of Jesus point is that we are the Pharisee in this story, because if we can’t understand that, then we can’t understand the parable at all. Jesus makes an example of this self-righteous Pharisee, who says, “Thank God I’m not like other people,” because he’s making an example of the reality that we live in. He’s talking about us!
The Pharisee prays a prayer of thanksgiving to God for all that he has and all that he does. This world is all about what we have and what we do. Here’s how our Pharisaic prayers might sound, “I thank you, God, because I drive a good car, a better car than most; I live in a good house; I got my flu shot the other day; I have a good job; I enjoy a splendid retirement; I have a handsome 401k; I have an undergrad degree, and a few more for good measure; I have been published; and I go to church in a place that I am proud to call my church.”
And wait for it: “I thank you God, because I take better care of my children than other parents; I give more time and attention to my pets than other so-called animal lovers; I volunteer more service hours in my community than most people spend working for pay; I champion and contribute to every activist cause worth mentioning; I give to every mission offering my church ever takes up; and, yes, I tithe. Thank you, God. Thank you for all that I have and all that I do.”
Those might not be our exact words, but that is a snapshot of our lives. That is how other people see us—how they define us. And often that is how we identify ourselves. “I am all that I have and all that I do, and thank God that I measure up.”
Sisters and brothers, listen to the parable of Christ this morning. Listen to the judgment of God and the whisper of the Holy Spirit: God’s grace surpasses our ability to earn it. God’s grace is greater than our ability to earn it. And so, as we have heard before, there is nothing you can do to make God love you any more, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less.
Remember who you are. Remember, acknowledge and embrace who you are. You are a child of God made in the image of a Creator who is love, and who stands for mercy, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation, and who can’t stand greed, or the certainty of human judgment or the uncertainty of human equality.
Now that we remember who we are, we are charged to live into our true being. Jesus wants us to simply be true to ourselves, and that starts with humility: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Walking humbly with God prompts us to do things with our lives, like helping others and observing the Sabbath and giving our time and money to the church; but let us not be fooled into thinking that those products of our being are things we do to earn God’s favor. These actions we take and decisions we make and offerings we share are given from the core of our being so that others would witness to the truth of God’s love and find their own place in the Temple, away from the noise of this competitive, self-righteous world, to kneel and pray to God, “Have mercy on me, O God.”
Being people of faith means that we never give up on moving away from identifying with the self-righteous Pharisee, and we never give up on moving toward identifying with the humble tax collector. And our hope in that journey is that we would all share the words of Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me…”
This week, when we return to work and school and leisure and routines and homework and research and sorting out relationships, let’s take a moment to remember who we are. Before you boot up the computer or flip the switch to ‘brew’ or even open your red stewardship devotional, remember who you are. Now, what does that identity call you to do in the name of Christ?