Spirit Come, Kingdom Come
October 25, 1998, Luke 18.9-14
Rev. Kate Dunn, Rutgers Presbyterian Church, New York
"All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." This is the lesson given by Jesus at the end of his parable about the pharisee and the tax collector. As I read it last week, it seemed a clear enough message, a typical Lucan reversal story, in which the poor, the helpless, the dependent, and the lowly enter the kingdom of God. But of course, Jesus can make things seem deceptively simple. So I pulled out my trusty American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language to look at the definition of the word "humble".
As an adjective, "humble" is defined as: 1) "having or showing feelings of humility rather than pride; aware of one's shortcomings; modest; meek; 2) Showing deferential respect. 3 ) Lacking high station; lowly; unpretentious." As a verb "humble" means: "1) To curtail or destroy the pride of; humiliate. 2) To give a lower condition or station to; abase." All perfectly straightforward definitions. While I was right there in the dictionary, I looked at some of the related words, and if you'll bear with me 1'11 share them with you.
"Humility" is defined as "the quality or condition or being humble i lack of pride; modesty." "Humiliation" is described as "1 ) The act of humiliating; degradation 2) The state or condition of being humiliated; disgrace; shame 3) religious mortification." John Donne is referenced in this definition for his saying: "Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification," that is, of being made holy. The word "humiliate" is defined as "1) To lower the pride, dignity, or status of; to humble or disgrace; [to] degrade. 2) To subject to humiliation; [to] mortify." Since both "humiliation" and "humiliate" referred to mortification and mortify, I read the definition of "mortify". In addition to being a synonym for "humiliate", mortify also means "to cause to die."
I've spent the week mulling over these words, trying to discern what Jesus really meant by being humble, or humbling oneself, or having a spirit of humility.
At first I thought about the humbling moments that I believe are part of all human experience, certainly a big part of mine: those little incidents that drop us down a notch or two and make us realize we're not quite as together as we thought we were. In a New Yorker article last spring entitled "The Art of Failing" James Atlas quotes Martin Amis as saying: "We live in our failures. We don't go around congratulating ourselves~ or our successes. It's those terrible gaffes, those terrible flops that make our hands fly to our faces, that make us stop dead on the street and babble to drown out the memory."
Perhaps you all can recall one or two of these moments. I'll share one of my own from
my first year of attending this church, prefacing it by saying that I have a very poor
visual memory for places and faces. I started coming here while John Sisely was the
interim minister. I had known John for years from the Utica Presbytery, and saw him quite
a bit during my first few months at Rutgers, both on Sundays and during the week. One day
I was at another church attending a memorial service and a nice man stood next to me and
talked to me for quite a while. I kept up a very general conversation, while trying
frantically to place him.
Finally I decided to come clean and said, "I'm so sorry, you look awfully familiar to
me, but I just don't know how I know you." He said, "Kate, John Sisely, nice to
meet you." That was years ago, but I still blush.
Occasional incidents like these may renew, temporarily at least, our sense of humility. My initial internal response at the time was "Oh God!" For a moment there I felt very humble, and my focus was on God to get me safely through the embarrassing situation.
But such incidents of embarrassing mistakes, or faux-pas, only touch the surface of the term "humble". There is, of course, the more sadistic side of the word, the torture of oneself or another person in order to humiliate and mortify, and you remember from the definitions I read that "mortify" has the connotation of causing to die. There are all different levels of this kind of humiliation, but all them originate, I believe, from drawing comparisons.
In Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's wonderful parenting book, Siblings without
Rivalry:, they speak of the insidious damage that making comparisons, whether positive or
negative, can cause within families. They stress that there is no need when criticizing,
or giving praise to one child, to ever refer to another sibling. They give the following
cartoon illustration using two scenarios. In the first, the mother tells her son:
"You're a big boy. You don't leave your things lying around like the baby." The
cloud above the boy's
head shows him thinking, "I'm better than the baby." In the second scenario, the
mother says: "I see you picked up your blocks, your truck and you even put away your
puzzle pieces." The boy then thinks, "I'm a good cleaner-upper." When the
mother compared the boy to the baby he felt competitive and superior. When she described
his accomplishment and made no comparison, he just felt good about himself.
Like many other techniques of good parenting, the value of not making comparisons extends to other relationships as well, including, and especially, our relationship with God.
It would be a mistake to see the pharisee in today's parable as an arrogant, self-centered, prideful man. There is no reason not to see him as he presents himself. a good, upstanding leader of his community who responsibly fulfills his religious obligations. As one commentator put it, "He is the faithful, dependable, tithing type who pay the salaries of ministers so they can preach on the parable of the Pharisee and the publican!" (Craddock, 210). Let's look at his prayer: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people; thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.'" How many of us have not prayed similar prayers? Thank you God that I'm able to appreciate the blessings you've given me, unlike some people I know. Thank you God that I'm not as mean-spirited, or manipulative, or back-biting as so-and-so. Thank you God, that I'm not a liar. Thank you God, that I'm not a murderer. Thank you God, that I am the way I am, and not like: you fill in the blank.
It's such a small line to cross over, that between expressing gratitude for the blessings in one's life, and putting other people down, exalting oneself at the expense of others, any others, no matter who they are, no matter how awful the way they live their lives, no matter what they've done. As soon as the pharisee crosses that line he is at the center of his own prayer. His focus is on himself and on those around himi he is not thinking about God.
It would likewise be a mistake to see the tax-collector as a good-hearted,
down-on-his-luck kind of guy. There is no reason not to accept his own self-presentation:
he is a sinner. As a tax collector, he was the employee of a foreign government, who by
virtue of his job necessarily engaged in a cruel and corrupt
taxation system. He quite probably benefitted financially at the expense of his own
people. He was considered a traitor politically, and because of his frequent contact with
gentiles, ritually unclean. Let's look at his prayer: "God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!" There is no mention of anyone else: only God and him. He maintains his focus
on God; he approaches God honestly, without evasions, distractions, or defenses. He
doesn't apologize for not being as observant as the Pharisee, nor does he seek to
demonstrate that he is more worthy than someone else. He accepts that God knows fully who
he is, and he comes before God with a spirit of humility, saying, "God, be merciful
to me, a sinner!"
Throughout the gospel of Luke, Jesus stresses that it is the humble before God, the dependent on God, the needy of God, and the helpless without God, who will usher in the kingdom of God which will transform our world into that realm where God's will is done. It follows that all who lack the proper humility, reverence, focus on God, delay the advent of God's kingdom. The Pharisee, by choosing to focus on the sins of others rather than seeking his own humility before God, perpetuates the status quo of the world which keeps those other people sinners. He is not free to care for them or to pray for them or to heal them he can't do it, because he lacks the spirit of humility which would give him that power.
As I said before, there are all different levels of humbling experiences, all different degrees of humiliation. The Pharisee, in his prayer heard only by God, participates in the humiliation of those over whom he exalts himself; even in his mind, by considering their worth less than his own, he humiliates them. Jesus condemns this. But there are far more vicious forms of humiliation: lying in order to harm; gaining trust in order to betray that trust; clothing one's hate with acceptance; these are all forms of truly sadistic humiliation.
When Matthew Shepard left the Fireside Lounge in the company of Aaron McKinney and
Russel Henderson on October 7, he believed they were gay like himself, he believed they
accepted him, he
believed they liked him. He certainly suffered humiliation of the profoundest kind when he
realized the error of his judgment, when he realized that they had lied to him, that they
hated him, that they intended to kill him, and that they would most likely succeed. I have
no doubt that in those horrible moments that Matthew Shepard's focus was totally on God,
and that Jesus was at his side, holding him close, helping him bear his cross.
Matthew Shepard was humiliated, mocked, beaten, tortured and killed, for telling the truth about who he was, for living the life he was given honestly. Aaron McKinney and Russel Henderson humiliated him, mortified him, caused him to die. It is not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. And yet we know that God has demonstrated before the ability to transform the direst, bleakest realities into the groundwork for the kingdom. When Jesus Christ was humiliated, mocked, beaten, tortured and killed for telling the truth about who he was, and for living the life he was given honestly, God raised him from the dead. In the second century after Christ, when many were martyred for declaring their truths, Tertullian wrote these words: "We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed." I can only add, the blood of gay Christians is seed, the blood of lesbian Christians is seed, the blood of all Christians who dare to proclaim the truths of their lives before God and humanity is seed. In 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this description of non-violent resistance: "The Negro was willing to risk martyrdom in order to move and stir the social conscience of his community and the nation... he would force his oppressor to commit his brutality openly, with the rest of the world looking on..."
When honesty, rather than fear, rules our lives, that is non-violent resistance. But of course, the brutality of the oppressor is terrifying. with Matthew Shepard's death we have come face to face with the astonishing depth of hate against gay and lesbian people, not only with his murder but with its aftermath: the comment from Aaron McKinney's father that the media presentation of the murder has been blown "totally out of proportion because it involved a homosexual"; the mocking that continued even after his death, even during his funeral, for the torment of his family and friends, and statements like that written in a letter to the columnist Frank Rich that "This Matthew guy had the devil beat out of him and now his soul is free for redemption, if possible." The human capacity for sin is unbelievable. It's truly unbelievable.
And how easy, and how understandable, it is to think and to say and to pray, Thank you God, that I'm not like that, that I'm not like those two men who murdered Matthew Shepard, or their girlfriends, or their families, or any of these hateful, vicious, destructive, murderous people, thank you God, thank you.
No. Jesus holds us to a different standard. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus would have us pray for these people, pray passionately, with all our hearts, pray with the humility of the tax collector, the persistence of the widow, the passion of Jesus himself: forgive them, God. They don't know what they're doing. Transform them, our enemies, God. The ones who hate us, the ones who would kill us, our enemies, whom Jesus Christ would have us love. And if we don't have the love, if we can't find it anywhere in our hearts that are so full of hurt and rage and bitterness and fear, then God, be merciful to us sinners. God, please grant us a spirit of humility. We want to see your kingdom come. We want to see your will be done. Be merciful to us. Amen.
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