Our passage for Sunday is Luke 18: 9-14,
9 He (Jesus)
also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to
the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus,
‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers,
or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a
tenth of all my income.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off,
would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and
saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man
went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt
themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
This Sunday, we continue our sermon series
on loving God and loving Neighbor with soul, mind, and strength. We explore the cross-pollination of loving
neighbor with all our mind. We spoke of
the mind already, in relation to loving God, which we call ‘prayer’. In the work that I do, as a minister, looking
to our neighbors, reaching out (my mind) from a place of believe (my soul), this work is generally
referred to as ‘pastoral care’. Being
the ‘pastor’, we add that qualifier. But
while I might have specific training and focus, when it comes to our minds, to
what we think and what we say, in terms of loving our neighbors, I believe we
all come from a place of caring.
Jesus, in our passage today, tells us a
parable of two men who went to the temple to pray. One is very easy to care for. There is need and there is brutal honesty as
he prays desperately to heaven. Even
though he is a tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman overlords of the
time, he is in need. We can deal with
all the stuff in regards to being a tax collector at another time. Right now, he hurts, he's come to the Lord,
and we are the Lord’s people who might come to a place like this to respond, to provide caring.
And then there is the other guy.
He’s a Pharisee. And what a tagline he has, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people:
thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” What Jesus calls a
man exalting himself is what might better be known as arrogance. There are a lot of people in life like
that. Neighbors…yes, everyone is. Someone to be loved…Jesus says so… Likeable?
Well…maybe not… Are these people
in need? Yah, but they don’t usually
know it.
If we were to be brutally honest and open
with the Lord as we seek to love God with all our mind, can you imagine
praying, “Lord, you want me to love this one??”
To love our neighbor does not mean we are
welcome mats to be walked all over. God
is love, and that is the measure we are called to follow. But nobody ever walked over God, not
as our Father in the Old Testament, not as Jesus in the New. In fact, God- as Father and as Son-provides many practical examples of how we could express care even for the self-exultant.
So we have some fun things to talk about.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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