Reformation Day Sermon on How Jesus’ Teachings Should Come With a Warning Label 27OKT13

REFORMATION DAY sermon from Rev Nadia Bolz-Webber. Not a celebration of the schism dividing Protestants and Catholics, but a celebration of our needs being met by God. Give a listen....

October 28, 2013 By Nadia Bolz Weber 

If you got church problems, I feel bad for you son….

2013-10-27 NBW HFASS Sermon 2 <—– click here to listen along.
This week I began to think that Jesus’ teachings should really come with a warning label. Perhaps something like, Caution! Contents may cause extreme discomfort if actually ingested.
See, in our Gospel for today, Luke tells us that this parable was told to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and held others in contempt.  The Pharisee in the story, a devout, tithe paying do-gooder – prays what can only be described as an EGO-cessory prayer, Thank you God that I am not like those people: adulterers, thieves, rogues, I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of my income to the church. Thank you that I am not like that filthy tax collector over there. Geez that guy is pathetic, don’t you think, God?
The Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous.
Typical.
If the Pharisees were around today…not the actual ones…I mean our stereotype of who the Pharisees were – priggish hypocritical religious leaders, don’t you think if they were around today they could get like, so much done on Facebook? I mean, think how Self-righteous they could be without even leaving their living rooms! They really were born at the wrong time, because I’m pretty sure Pharisees would love the hell out of Facebook.
And as someone who has often been held in contempt by those who trust in themselves that they are righteous I’ve recently found my tolerance for self-righteous comments on Facebook to be quickly dwindling. One more pious comment on my public Facebook page from some nice Christian who is “disappointed” in me for saying the bad words and I might just lose my you-know-what.
So, when I read that this parable was told to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and held others in contempt, who knew they were right because they could easily pick out the ones who were wrong in a spiritual line up I thought, “right on, Jesus, because man do I know those people!”
If you are paying attention, you might predict that this is exactly the point where that warning label about how ingesting Jesus’ teachings will cause extreme discomfort would have come in handy for me this week in a couple of ways
First, because let’s be honest. It’s takes a whole lot of self-righteousness to be that indignant about other people’s self-righteousness.  So where Does that leave me now but to say “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner”?
Because honestly here’s an EGOcessory prayer that might be familiar: I thank you God that I am not like others: thieves, rouges, adulterers…people who don’t recycle.  I thank you God, that I am not like those People who don’t sign up for jobs at church.  Thank you that I always remember to bring my reusable grocery bags to Whole Foods, I have replaced all my incandescents with compact fluorescents and I have a rainbow flag sticker on my Prius.  Thank you Jesus.
Well, THAT’S uncomfortable.
Especially if the other guy, the Tax Collector…the one who is a traitor to his people, the guy who is totally the one percent, who hordes wealth at the expense of others, the one who litters and tells racist jokes and buys over packaged goods and has gun racks and T & A mud flaps on his truck prays simply  “God, have mercy on me a sinner”
As we know, the one who goes home justified is not the guy who bragged about doing everything right but the guy who was humble about doing everything wrong. So I guess that rather than the moral of the story being “try harder to be righteous”, the moral of the story is “try harder to be humble” right?
And there it is. Reason number 2 for why this parable should come with a warning label.
It is as though this parable is a trap and the bait for this trap is our desire to figure out the moral of the story.  Because as soon as we reach for that delicious little one inch square piece of cheddar convinced the point of the parable is that to be really righteous, to be really good in the eyes of others and in the eyes of God is to be humble, then we find the jaws of this parable snap around us because the very next thing out of our mouths can only be: Thank you God that I am humble like the Tax collector and not a bragger like this Pharisee.  Trapped.
Or in the words of Homer Simpson, D’uh!
Because the problem with always looking for the moral of the story in Jesus’ parables and especially in this parable: is that I start to assume the moral of the story will lead me to the virtue I can adopt to be righteous.  And what is righteousness but movement from vice to virtue?
But the text says nothing of the tax collector moving from vice to virtue…the text mentions nothing of repentance or self-improvement. The text does nothing to uphold any of our cherished notions of who is righteous.
Which means that the parable Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the Tax collector is perhaps not a morality tale after all, but is meant to highlight the un-fair and totally baffling grace of a God who seems entirely unimpressed by our virtue. If there is some kind of promise here then it’s not that we can use our humility to become righteous before God, the promise is not in what the ones hearing the parable can do to become justified. The promise is in the one telling the parable….the promise for us is Christ.  Meaning that, there is a solution to the problem of the Great Human Competition Extravaganza that we are continually engaged in.  There is a solution to the endless one-up-mans ship that we are continually engaged in. There is a solution to self-righteousness but it’s not trying to be more humble. The solution was for God to be made flesh and walk among us, God’s own beloved bragging sinners.  Because this changes everything.   See, Jesus wasn’t a new Moses bringing a better law, or a new religion we’ll never live up to.  Jesus isn’t just sitting in heaven waiting to see if we can pull off the impossible and then condemning us for our inevitable failure.  Jesus subverts the entire paradigm because, if the Reformation brought us anything it is that this isn’t about a spiritual ladder in which we learn how to move from vice to virtue. This isn’t about moving from the vice of being a tax collector to the virtue of being righteous as we might think.  But it’s also not about moving from the vice of being self-righteous to the virtue of being humble.  This Christianity thing is not about moving from vice to virtue.  If anything we move from virtue to Christ. This means that Christ and not ourselves is the source of our righteousness. The righteousness we do have is not our own, but that of a Merciful and gracious God who comes to us in vulnerability and suffering of all things.  And the thing is….when our righteousness is not our own but is that of Christ, there is no extra credit to be obtained. There is no basis on which to compare ourselves to each other because what qualifies us to receive this grace is not our virtue, but our need.  And we are all equal in our need.
It’s all pretty offensive really. The fact that God loves me as I am right now and not just as I could be if I only got everything right seems foolish.  My ego holds out for a me-based solution that I can either boast about or despair in.  But the solution isn’t me-shaped.  It’s cruciform.
So in the end, humility is not a virtue that makes us righteous.  But it’s not unimportant either, because humility is just admitting the truth of being human…humility is the naked state in which we stand before a righteous God who sees us as we are – sees every jealous inclination, every racist thought, every selfish desire every good deed done for the wrong reason and God sees all of it through the lens of the cross and says to us you are free.  Free from all of it. No one is keeping score. You are already justified, You are already righteous. You are already God’s new creation.
So, brothers and sisters, You do stand in righteousness before your God, not due to your virtue, but due to the cross. Only a God who slips into skin taking on flesh in all it’s broken glory – only this God of foolish love who dies a scandalous death without even lifting a finger to condemn the enemy – only this God can love you where you are.  Right now.  Because in the world according to God that’s how things work.  Tax Collectors are justified, the last are first the first are last, our virtues become vices and our need of all things, our need becomes our greatest asset. Amen.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/10/reformation-day-sermon-on-self-righteousness-and-humility/ 

Reformation Day Sermon 2011 - Sin and Freedom 6NOV11

HERE is the beauty of Christianity explained by one of the best preachers I have ever read, Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Sarcastic Lutheran....

Romans 3:19-28 ¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.²⁰For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
²¹But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, ²²the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, ²³since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.
²⁷Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

John 8:31-36  ³¹Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."³³They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"
³⁴Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

I was a rebellious teenager and couldn’t wait to be free from the tyranny of Dick and Peggy, my parents.  I pictured being able to stay out as long as I wanted, eat and drink whatever I wanted, and spend time with whomever I wanted.  All I wanted was freedom. And as soon as I was unleashed from the grip of parenting I would be free to have as much fun as I could cram into a 24 hour day.  That day finally came and yet, strangely there still was no freedom.  For I had exchanged one form of bondage for another.  Yet now it was bondage to self.  In my late teens and 20s I just lived under the tyranny of my own selfish desires instead of the tyranny of my parents and I was far from free.    I always thought freedom meant being able to do whatever I wanted but if that’s freedom then I was lied to. It ends up that real freedom is not the same as unfettered access to personal choices. Freedom in the form of me getting to do whatever I want is still being enslaved.  Because selfishness is still a cruel master.
I mention this because in our readings for today Jesus claims that he will make us free.  It’s just that I don’t think he means that he will create an environment where we get to be our own boss and do whatever we want. Plus when it comes to knowing the truth of what we are in bondage to and the truth of what real freedom looks like we often get things wrong. 
This is what we see in the text we read from John’s Gospel.  We know that Jesus is talking to some of his fellow Jews when he says his famous line “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”.  And then they’re like “Oh yeah, we’re descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone”.  Um, are you sure?  Babylon ring a bell….or, I don’t know… Egypt?  what exactly was it that Moses led your people out of? A carnival? no.  it was slavery.
Rather than give a history lesson, Jesus uses the opportunity to make the point that we are actually slaves to sin.  And that weird denial of reality in which we say “Well, it’s not like we’ve ever been slaves” simply points to the delusions we all seem to have. In some circles those delusions are called Denial. And denial is a wonderful thing…until it’s not. My daughter Harper was a defiant and willful toddler.  I’m sure you’re shocked.  I know my parents were delighted. Anyhow, when she was 3 and we were about to go on a 2 hour car ride we told her she needed to go to the bathroom first.  Not liking being told what to do she become recalcitrant.  When I said honey you have to go pee.  She stomped her foot and said No! Never!  This I can relate to.  I want to create my own freedom but when I do it just always seems to be just another form of bandage.
So when we are offered real freedom it’s like Jesus is saying exactly what is it that God leads you out of?  a carnival? no.  It’s our bondage to sin from which we cannot free ourselves.
But in an age of self care and therapy and high self esteem (and there is nothing wrong with these things per se) but in such an age, and especially in the so-called progressive church, sin is not a popular topic.  As a matter of fact, in the church planting business these days, there is a trend toward eliminating any talk of sin at all…including the confession and absolution at the beginning of our liturgies.  Why?  Because it’s too negative.  People don’t want to hear they are sinners. Partly because they think saying you are a sinner is just having really low self esteem.  But in all fairness our discomfort with the term sin stems partly from the fact that the term has so often been abused and misused in the church.  Especially when sin is preached as something totally avoidable by good people.  Immorality is pretty avoidable…sin is not.  My suspicion is that when people hear “you are a sinner” what they really hear is, “you are immoral”  and if you are someone who doesn’t cheat on their taxes or their spouse and doesn’t murder or steal then you understandably don’t want to spend your Sunday morning having someone imply that you do. But sin, Martin Luther reminds us, is bigger than simple immorality.  Sin is being curved in on self without a thought for God or the neighbor. It can be alcoholism or passive aggression.  It can be the hateful things we think but never say or it can be adultery or it can be that feeling of superiority when we are helping others.  Our being curved in on ourselves will fashion itself in endless variety.  Pretending otherwise just never helps.
See, that’s the thing about truth…Truth…when it is real can cut deep and heal at the same time.  And Jesus says that truth brings freedom.  Freedom from having to pretend , freedom from having to defend, freedom from having to protect. And hearing the truth that we are in bondage to self and that no amount of trying to be good can change that cuts deep but it also heals. It heals because it simply gives us no choice but to be placed in the loving arms of Jesus, the great physician who heals through grace.
Martin Luther, in a letter to another preacher said “if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” That’s the other side of the truth coin.  Yes, you are a sinner.  But you are also a saint. Fully made new and alive in Christ. We are all simultaneously sinners AND saints. But sometimes being told that you are a saint can be just as hard to hear as you are a sinner.
You are a real and not a fictitious sinners and you are objects of God’s real and not fictitious grace.
See, Jesus brings real truth and real freedom. He isn’t just sitting in heaven waiting to see if we can pull off the impossible thing of becoming righteous on our own and then condemning us for our inevitable failure.  Jesus subverts the entire paradigm.  Because Jesus actually IS our righteousness.  Despite our lumpy broken lives, we are righteous before God.  But our righteousness is that of a Merciful and gracious God who comes to us in the vulnerability and suffering revealed in the cradle and cross. And the thing is….with the righteousness of Christ there is no extra credit to be obtained. It just is. 
So the truth that sets you free is so much more than the truth of your personal and our societal sin.  The truth that sets you free is also the truth of your unbelievable beauty and saintliness. 
Because it is always the truth of who we are coupled with the truth of who God is that sets us free. And I’m in it for the freedom.  And we are given not just the freedom FROM sin and death…we are without question given the freedom FOR the neighbor. 
         People often give House for All Sinners and Saints puzzled looks. They sometimes furrow their brow and tilt their heads and say Why do you bless bicycles and bring thanksgiving lunches to strippers and assemble bleach kits for IV drug users and sing hymns in bars.  And smiling I always say “I don't know. Because we’re free?”.