God
Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner
Luke 18:9-14
First Presbyterian Church of Batesville
31 October, 2010
Dr. Robert Wm Lowry
Biblical
translation is tricky. It is difficult
to get it just right. Some translations
are word for word, others are paraphrased.
One thing they all have in common is that the translation reflects, at
least on some level, the preconceptions and experiences of the translator come
into play.
We
heard the New Revised Standard Version, a word for word translation. Let’s hear the text one more time from a
paraphrase.
Jesus
told this parable to some who trusted that they were faithful and holy and
thought that other’s faith did not quite measure up. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a tax collector who looked up to God
and said, “Have mercy on me a sinner.”
He showed humility and faith and knew that before he could even think
about the faith of another he had to examine his own. The other man was you, Robert.
The end.
See.
I told you. The translator always comes
into play!
This
is one of those texts that will not let me go gently on with my day. Whenever I find myself feeling like I have
it figured out, this whole faith thing, the Holy Spirit helps me reorient
myself to that central tenant of our Reformed tradition, that doctrine that
occupied so much of John Calvin’s time and energy; total human depravity.
Those
who were in our Calvin class earlier this fall learned an acronym for the five
points of Calvinism: TULIP; total depravity, unconditional election, limited
atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints. The T comes first not only because it is the
first letter of the word but because before we can really understand much else,
we have to understand our own depravity.
Now
like most theological doctrines, it is easy to lapse into a lazy
characterization of what total depravity means.
It is far more than a mere tendency to occasionally do what is wrong or
ill-advised. Total depravity is, as the
name implies, total. It is all consuming. There is no part of us that is not depraved
and sinful.
In
his monumental Church Dogmatics in a section titled “The Sloth and Misery of
Man,” Karl Barth articulates it this way.
With apologies for the gender exclusive language, “As the one who commits
sin man is himself totally and radically compromised. Man is corrupt even in his
self-understanding, even in the knowledge of his corruption.”
When
we begin to understand ourselves as less than totally compromised by our sins,
Barth argues, we become the Pharisee standing alone in the temple admiring his
own willingness to acknowledge his sins.
Legend
holds that Martin Luther became so consumed with this knowledge of his own
corruption that he was nearly driven to total despair in the belief that he would
never manage to unburden himself of his sins and therefore never receive the
full measure of God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
I
and I would wager to say you have stood in Luther’s shoes. One of the most common human experiences is
that overwhelming sense of falling short; short of our potential, short of the
glory of God, short of, well, just about everything.
One
of the inescapable phenomena of the last quarter century in American religion
is the growth of the market driven church.
Trading much traditional theology of what it means to be the church for
a more market-defined understanding, these congregations design their worship
services to be more appealing. Like the
car maker works to find the right number of cup holders and just the right place
to put the radio dial, market-defined churches alter and change the historic
patterns of worship to meet the desires of their consumers. One of the first things jettisoned from
worship in these congregations is the confession of sin.
A
pastor I know and respect serves a church like this in Michigan. During one of our many debates over a pint at
a pub near campus, he worked to persuade me that confession of sin is too much
of a downer for people. Why do you want
to come to church to be told how bad a person you are?
A
question you may be asking yourselves this morning!
That
conversation and the justification for it have stuck with me and I still don’t
buy it.
I
don’t buy it because I think that we lose something important when we let go a
sense of our own sinfulness and depravity.
Part
of looking in the mirror and taking stock of my own depravity, of beating my
chest and crying out to God to have mercy on me a sinner, is seeing in the
mirror my depravity reflected back to me in the form of the grace of Jesus
Christ.
It
is only when we truly recognize our own consumption by sin that we find a
glimpse of God’s great work of compassion in Christ Jesus. When I peer at my sinful face in the mirror,
it is the merciful face of Christ that looks back upon me and that, my friends,
is something I would not trade for anything in the world.
The
beauty of this parable when viewed through the lens of our Reformed tradition
is the realization that salvation is out of our hands and is instead in the
loving hands of the God.[i]
To
fully understand the implications of the grace of God recounted in this story,
consider who the characters are.
The
Pharisee is a powerful religious figure.
What particular role they played in society is a matter of debate, but
one thing is certain; they were an educated, politically powerful sect who
represented one form of traditional religious life. If you were to look in a crowd and point to
the probable person of faith, it would likely be the Pharisee.
The
tax collector is another story. Tax
collectors in first century Palestine were not benign pencil pushers like the caricature
of the IRS agent. Tax collectors were
closer to mob enforcers than bureaucrats.
If you were to point into that same crowd to the least likely candidate
for a complement from Jesus, your sights would likely land on him.
Luke,
in a stroke of literary reversal, reveals that what we assume to be true about
our own and others’ faithfulness is often misplaced. That true faith is not about demonstrating
how good we are but leaning fully on the mercy of God. Sin is not reserved for “them.” It is equal opportunity.
Over
the last week, the truth and pain of human sin have come uncomfortably close to
home in our community. Far from engaging
in a debate on ethics or morality, a member of the neighboring Midland school
board stated in a very matter of fact manner that he would not mind if certain
young people took their own lives. In
fact he welcomed it, according to his Facebook posts. Gay and lesbian people, in his view, just
deserve to die.
The
furor that surrounded his comments was justified. His language, his sentiment and his abuse of
position were inexcusable and it is only right that he should be called to
answer for his actions.
Two
days after the furor began, he appeared on a CNN news show and gave his apology
for the language he used and the hurt he caused. In that moment, we as a community and a
nation were given an opportunity to respond in one of two ways. Would we respond in self-righteous anger or
would we, acknowledging our own sinfulness, recognize in him a fellow broken
soul in need of the grace and mercy of Christ?
If
I am wholly honest with myself and with you, I have to confess that my response
is still somewhat mixed. I want
desperately to believe and trust his contrition yet part of me has doubts. In the end, thankfully for both of us,
forgiveness for him is not up to me. The
work of grace in his life and in yours and in mine depends not on any merit of
ours but solely on the mercy of God.
An
18th century English clergyman, acutely aware of the work of grace
in his life, gave the church some of its most beloved hymns. Hymns like “How Sweet the Name of Jesus
Sounds” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” When he approached the end of his life, he
penned his epitaph hoping to reflect his total dependence on the love and grace
of God. It reads, “Once an infidel and
libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa was by the rich mercy of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the
faith he so long labored to destroy.”
Most
of us know him for other words he penned, however. A hymn named “Faith’s Review and Expectation”
but better known by its opening words, “Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound.”
John
Newton spent the better part of his last half century beating his chest and
crying out “God have mercy on me a sinner” because far from being a mere tax
collector, Newton had been a slave trader responsible for the enslavement and
death of countless innocent Africans.
When
we find ourselves faced by our own sin, our own shortcomings, we do not point
to the likes of Newton and say, well at least I am not like him! Luke instead calls on us to join Newton in
his prayer to God for forgiveness and wholeness.
At
our session meeting a couple of weeks ago, Leslie reminded us that to truly
know God’s shalom is not merely to be at peace but to be whole. And it is not by any merit of our own but by
the grace of God that we will ever be made whole.
Whether
we are Pharisees, tax collectors, misguided school board members, slave traders
or preachers, we are each and every one dependent upon and supported by the
mercy of God in Jesus Christ. Because,
as John Newton preached, we are great
sinners, but Christ is a great savior.
In
the name of God the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
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