Jesus The Jester #9 | "Spectacle"

0:00 We have been meandering our way through a fall sermon series focusing on Jesus as a jester. And now you may not know much, I certainly didn't, before this sermon series about what jesters, who jesters were. But jesters were rather bumbling figures. You may not know this, but jesters would cover themselves in vibrantly colored clothing. They would cover their clothing with bells. They wanted to be a spectacle. Famously, jesters were the only one in the kingdom who could mock the king. Jesus, of course, was no stranger of telling jokes. Jesus himself can put on quite a spectacle from time to time. He knows how to make a snarky comment, but most of all, Jesus was a fan of telling us stories that subvert the assumptions and biases that so often have calcified in our lives. That Jesus, just like that jester, comes bumbling in, bells on, draped in colored clothing, disavowing us of the things we thought we knew.

1:24 Almost like a jester tossing up those knives, juggling knives, to give us a picture of what the kingdom of God might be like. The kingdom of God is like a young shepherd who lost one sheep. The kingdom of God is like a pearl of great price, a mustard seed, a prodigal son welcomed home into the warm embrace of a father. And so maybe as followers of our comedic Lord, we can make a few of our own. The kingdom of God is like a New York City marathoner who sacrificed a personal record to help another traveler cross the finish line. Are these moral stories, like fables that are meant to teach us how to live?

2:21 Maybe, in part, sure. But I wonder if these stories, these parables, that gesturing savior who tells them I wonder if they are meant to communicate something even more about who God is than who we ought to be that God that God whose goodness shines through interrogates and disavows us of those habits that we can't seem to shake and so as we approach that lavish that good that gesture in God today in another parable. Would you pray with me? O Lord, either through or in spite of my words, may we hear something much more important today. Your word.

3:22 Calm us, inspire us, disturb us, and nurture us, so that we might look more like your Son, Jesus the Christ, our Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Our sacred scripture today comes to us from the 18th chapter of Luke. Hear these words.

3:47 He, that is Jesus, told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, but regarded others with contempt. two men jesus says went up to the temple to pray one of them was a pharisee and the other a tax collector the pharisee standing off by himself was praying thus oh god i thank you that i am not like the other people thieves rogues adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of my income. 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.

4:52 I tell you, Jesus told them, that this man, this tax collector, went down to his home justified rather than the other. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves shall be exalted. Friends, this is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. Okay, so this week I've been wrestling with this text.

5:24 And I've drawn help from somewhat of an unlikely source. You may know his name, Charles Darwin. And now if you know Charles Darwin, you might remember him from your high school biology class, Natural Selection. The voyage of the HMS Beagle on the way to the Galapagos Island. Yes, that Charles Darwin. But there's something else that maybe you didn't know about Darwin. That he was obsessed with the human face.

6:02 Seriously. After publishing that tectonic work, The Origin of the Species, in his life and career, Darwin shifted his attention to studying the face in all of its interest and complexity but now let's be real Darwin was kind of an odd duck he was so obsessed with his studies that in the name of science Darwin would reach out to some of his closest friends and ask them if he could watch them during marital conflicts he he conducted trials again in the name of science where he would ask some of his friends if he could observe their children when they were wailing and crying. He was an odd duck. But the face, Darwin thought, was the most miraculous part of the human body.

7:00 It was the key to understanding something of how us humans communicate. But Darwin also realized just what a slippery slope human communication can be. How often you and I can misunderstand each other. How we can misjudge the facial expressions that share so much information with those around us. And I want to say this is a monumental moment for me. This is the first time I will use my son as a sermon illustration. to many more to come dear boy that in the early times of my being a father I've grown to appreciate something of Darwin's observations the face really is miraculous even as our son who's now seven and a half months old has grown up you can see the way that he is growing into his own face that one of the things that children first learn how to do is to recognize the faces of those who care for them even as early as two weeks offering social smiles to smile at you if only so that you would smile back at them later on children start to mimic our sounds my son right now loves the consonant b and keeps going brrr, brrr, brrr. But friends, it's true that something of trust, something that we come to call care, something that we come to call compassion, something of all of these things are seeded early on in the ways that we learn to behold and to gaze into the faces of those around us.

8:54 okay put a pin in that so what are these two gents who've gone up to the temple for morning prayer how are they faring well it's probably important to know to say that even from the outset that we are on the pharisee's home turf that he has in a sense home field advantage he's a religious man He's a gentleman who's given every part of his life to follow God's law. And here we find ourselves in the temple, in the center of the religious activity of the day. In fact, this Pharisee is so confident, given his home field advantage, that he goes off away from the crowd who prays to be alone, thinking that he needs nobody else. the words that we read the transition the translations in your bible say something like he stood off by himself but there's something of a prepositional play that the greek says for us it's intentionally ambiguous as the words could actually read something more like he stood for himself or he stood even against himself. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were something of anathema in Luke's theological imagination. In other gospels, Jesus, you may know this, was chastised for hanging out with sinners and... thank you, thank you, thank you. These were people who had a state mandate to exploit those around them, who could charge outlandish fees, who often became wealthy at the expense of their neighbors. And so I'm sure it was a great surprise to this Pharisee, this holy man, when he looked up from his prayers in that house of the Almighty, the Holy One.

10:58 what is he doing here this pharisee who maybe aced all of his torah exams he or she is that kind of person that overachiever the one who knows to see their name in lights maybe the one who has become accustomed to the affirming words of other people the one who is always receiving raving feedback on their sermons. But affirmation, eventually, if you know this, always gives way into expectation. And soon it is easy to become addicted to the positive responses of those good religious people in their midst. How quickly the human heart can fall into legalism. and the lie my friends of legalism is that it it tells us that somehow we can work our way towards better and deeper love with our neighbor and even with God maybe if I maybe if I work twice as hard if I fast not just once but twice on the Sabbath then maybe God will love me twice as much. Maybe that will keep the positive affirmation flowing. Maybe you know this.

12:21 In New York City, of all places, that the worst part of becoming addicted to that kind of positive affirmation is that often it becomes a means for us to share not just positive reflections of ourselves, but negative feelings about others. We don't just say, look, look at me, but we say, look how much better I am than them. Isn't it amazing that today in our scripture reading that Pharisees' first words have nothing to do with spirituality at all? in the middle of the temple where God's presence abides with the people, the first words that he can think to muster are, whew, we dodged a bullet. Thank heavens. I'm not like those screwed up no-gooders out there. What kind of spirituality is this? When our noses are raised towards pride, high in the sky? How can we ever see someone face to face?

13:32 You see, this is why I think God humbles the gaze of those whose heads are in the clouds and raises the gaze of those whose heads are cast down. It's so that they can see one another. it's so that they so that they can be in relationship with one another the thing that pride i think in shame both have in common is that they often make us go it alone whether we be the tax collector assured of god's judgment in our lives cast out from the community or whether we be the Pharisee, assured of ourselves, standing in front of the crowd right by God's holy altar. That shame, that pride that they both often lead to a life of isolation, a life away from community.

14:32 I wonder if some of us, I don't, I want to be humble here, I don't want to assume, but I wonder if like me that you've ever had these pharisaical temptations. That maybe you like me have been educated in how to exceed expectations. That maybe you like me have grown fond of the compliments of other people. For the most part, I imagine that we desire to be a success story. and success has so many merits my friends don't hear me saying otherwise but success isn't without its dangers success is never without its temptations because at the heart the heart that becomes addicted to such affirmations often misses the stories the names and maybe most importantly the faces of all of the tax collectors who linger in our midst. Isn't it amazing that this tax collector can sit in the temple beating his breast feeling as if shame has covered his whole story and this holy man seems to not see him at all.

15:52 I wonder if the people who are most attentive to the struggles and sufferings of those around them are often those who don't think that they deserve what they've been given. And this is where I wonder if this is where the Pharisee gets it wrong. And this is where maybe we can be so tempted that the best people, the most righteous people perhaps, are not those who just say and do the right sorts of things, those who are the most confident in their abilities, those who have exceeded the most expectations. But I wonder if the righteous people are often those who are so fixated, looking out with compassionate eyes on the world around them, that they don't have time to look at themselves at all. Some of you joined us for the Jones dinner the other night, and I was almost overcome by a common theme that was sown through the words that our recipients for this year shared. They could have gotten up there and done something of a humble brag.

17:07 Oh, me? You shouldn't have. I know. But each and every one of them, staring out into the faces of their peers, said something quite different. They said, this could have easily been you. And maybe should have been you. Because sometimes I wonder if the people most fixated on those serving, that those most fixated on loving those around them, looking into the stranger eye to eye, if they barely have time to even notice the good things that they are doing in the first place.

17:50 Okay, and I want to have a moment of vulnerability with you all. After 421 days, I've been counting, of this relationship that we share, I want to admit something to you. that when I was first asked last year to consider joining the staff of this church as a pastor, you all made me kind of nervous. those people, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, they're impressive. The who's who. The overachievers. The ones who maybe went to the right schools, got the right grades. The ones who climbed a ladder or two. The ones who know what excellence looks like. these people are successful but now 421 days into this relationship that we share i have been surprised about something that i have come to love you all but not because of the things that you do not because of the accolades that you wear into this space because of the things that you've achieved or maybe haven't achieve, but I have come to love it when we enter into this space even just to behold one another.

19:21 Maybe to stare into the eyes of a neighbor, to call them by name, to call them beloved. You see, in the house of God, my friends, you are not known by the things that you have done or left undone, those are washed away. That if we are anything like the tax collector, we know that the gaze of the world, the expectations that this place can so often cast upon us, at our jobs and our families, that those can be heavy things to carry. but in here you are not known by the profane names that maybe this world has a habit of calling you you are not known by the expectations that you feel like you need to meet no in this place you don't have to hide your face because god calls you the same thing that god calls all those gathered around you. God calls you a saint. So maybe Darwin and the Almighty are on the same page after all. That this is the Christian truth. This is our story. That God came into this world incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, not just as a fact to believe, but as a face to behold. That God came into this world not only or merely to forgive you of the things that you might have done wrong. No, God came into this world to do something much more important. God came into this world primarily to gaze upon the beauty of you with a human face. So beating his breast, our tax collector friend goes home,

21:32 sensing the ridicule that has befallen him, the expectations of those around him. But in those sacred moments in that temple, something else was happening, something deeper, something more profound than maybe even he knew. That gazing upon him was not just a judging crowd, but he was standing in front of the loving eyes of a crucified Savior, the one who gazes upon you.