When I was a senior in high school, I decided to take a class called Writing for College. I had been warned about Writing for College.

Transcription

1 When I was a senior in high school, I decided to take a class called Writing for College. I had been warned about Writing for College. Writing for College was taught by an English teacher named Kathy Williams. I had been warned about Kathy Williams. I had been warned that although Ms. Williams was an excellent teacher, her standards were extremely high. But I had always been an honors English student. I was confident. I was fearless. I had been warned, and I signed up for the class anyway. And my first three papers came back with big red F s on them. I had been and still was a good student - but the standards had suddenly and dramatically shifted. This shifting of the standards is what Jesus does to the Pharisees at the end of this reading. The Pharisees thought they had cornered the market on righteousness - they were utterly observant of all the finest details of the Jewish tradition - they were good students of the Law. But Jesus says that righteousness far beyond theirs is required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. What did righteousness mean to the Pharisees? For the Pharisee, the only way a human being could stand before God was to live in obedience to God s law. Righteousness meant a zealous, detailed, we might say obsessive dedication to following Jewish law and tradition. The Pharisees thought they had the answer to all spiritual problems work. Merciless, gut-wrenching willpower. Righteousness meant the strictest possible adherence to the letter of the law, to ritual purity, to absolute right moral, religious and ritual obedience, for without righteousness no one will see God. It meant 1

2 unceasing effort and observance to prevent any kind of sin from sneaking into one s life. If sin did sneak into one s life, the consequences could be frightful - you could be reviled by the religious community, like the woman the Pharisees caught in adultery. And always there was the haunting fear of not being good enough, of not living up to God s standards. For the Pharisees, fear drove their relationships with God - fear of failing to earn God s love, fear of losing God s blessing, fear of losing their standing in the community. Human beings who are afraid lash out, and we see this over and over again in the Gospels - the Pharisee s own fear of being inadequate before God was so profound that the only thing they can do to ease their pain is to find someone else they can deem more inadequate, a bigger moral failure, a greater sinner. And so the inner fear hardens into an externally observant and contemptuous egoism, an I m holy and you re not! attitude. Holier than thou, as we say. But condemning others because you know you can t keep the rules yourself isn t the worst-case scenario. The spiritual worst case scenario happens to people who honestly think they CAN keep the rules. To people who honestly believe that they stand flawless before God. To people who honestly think that by their own efforts, their own sheer will, they can merit, deserve, earn, achieve, God s love and blessings. Before his conversion to Christianity, St. Paul, who wrote the lesson from 1 Corinthians we heard a few minutes ago, had been one of those people. Here s how Paul described himself before his encounter 2

3 with Jesus, during his career as a leader of the Pharisees and a deadly enemy of Christians: I was circumcised on the eighth day. I am a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, I was a Pharisee; as to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, flawless. (Philippians 3) Now when we read the Gospel accounts of the Pharisees, we re not inclined to be sympathetic. We see them as spiritual legends in their own minds, and as ready to put down others who don t find their way of life as exalted as they do. We think of the Pharisees as being a highly unenlightened and rude bunch bent on bringing God s love and blessing into their lives by force of their own personal holiness. And we Christians know better, don t we? We Christians aren t like that, ARE WE? Well, actually, I at least am not immune to this kind of crazy thinking. Actually, I kind of like it. I kind of wish I could be like that. Imagine, my ego says to me, how good it would feel to be able to say with Paul the Pharisee, O self, thou art flawless. Imagine how good it would feel to not have to depend on God s mercy. Imagine how good it would be to say I did it my way. Imagine how good it would be to be able to say I played the spiritual game by the rules and won on my own strength. Imagine how good it would feel to be safe, secure, inviolate, beyond reproach. Actually, the truth is, when my ego grows up, it wants to be a Pharisee. 3

4 But enough of me. Back to Paul. Whatever spiritual ego games Paul may have played as a Pharisee, at Paul s conversion they were completely blown away by the power and love of Christ. Paul BC before conversion, before Christ believed himself flawless. Paul AC after conversion, after Christ says this about himself: When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. He doesn t sound so flawless any more, does he? So what changed for Paul? For Paul the Pharisee, the energizing power of his life was himself. He made his choices, he lived by the rules, he kept Jewish law, he behaved flawlessly, and he expected the rewards. He hadn t received the gifts of God s spirit. He was, as he says, unspiritual. But Paul the Christian has lost his sense of denial about his weaknesses. He is more than happy to accept them, and he no longer seems to feel any desire to hide them. Fear and trembling? Hey, bad day. But Paul as a Christian knows that he doesn t have to hide his weaknesses or even his sins. He doesn t have to ruthlessly punish himself for them. He can do something better. He can trust in the gifts and power of God working through him weaknesses and all. 4

5 Paul the Pharisee was ego-centered, and self-sourced. He thought he knew the mind of the Lord. He thought he had earned righteousness before God, but he was wrong. It was foolishness, to use his word. It was a terrible spiritual dead end for him. It led him to outrageous pride, fanaticism, and even religious violence. That kind of righteousness, as Jesus says, gets you nowhere in the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul the Christian was Spirit-centered and God-sourced. He experienced the love and compassion and acceptance and mercy of Christ that was so much deeper and more powerful than his ego gratification strategies and even his sins of violence and hatred. And he was utterly transformed. Because now he had the mindset, the outlook, the spiritual vision, of Christ. In your most honest moments, which Paul is more like you? Paul who is ego-centered and self-sourced, or Paul who is Spirit-centered and God-sourced? In your most honest moments, which Paul would you rather be? In his mercy and compassion for our ego-driven and self-sourced souls, Christ makes that choice possible. Don t choose foolishly. Choose wisely. Amen. -The Rev. Michael Seiler February 9, 2011 The Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A 5