The Church of the Ascension
October 28, 2007

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

While in Mississippi this week, I was subjected as were all other captives there to television ads of competing candidates – for governor, for lieutenant governor, and a myriad of other offices.  It was revolting - utterly revolting.  My great fear is that we are rapidly and almost inevitably becoming a theocracy.  In every ad – I don’t think that I am exaggerating – there was the explicit, not simply implied, claim that God is on the side of the particular candidate being featured in the advertisement.  In Mississippi since being a Christian is just assumed, the basis of the claim is that one candidate is a better Christian than the other.  “Thank you, God, that I am not like that sorry so and so over there, who isn’t the right kind of Christian.”   One man running for Insurance Commissioner claims that he should be reelected because he helped victims of Katrina, including, his ad says, “members of the First Baptist Church of Gulfport” – not the Jews thank you very much, and certainly not the doomed secularists for God’s sake but the real Christians, the Baptists!  I nearly had to be resuscitated!

Revolting and scary – perhaps I mentioned that!  Religion is out of control in this country, which may seem like an odd comment from one dressed as I am; but it is the truth at least as I see it.  On my drive from Jackson to Tupelo to see Mother, every other station on the radio – truly – was a religious channel.  Actually that is not true: these stations are not religious; they are political and theocratic.  In a theocracy, God and country are indistinguishable; being a good Christian means being a good American.  Politics by itself is bad enough; add religious certainty, and disaster results.  And don’t even think about being smug just because you are not living in here in enlightened New York City.  Trust me: that kind of creeping and creepy fundamentalism exists here as well.  For example, you don’t have to go far to find people who will tell you that if you let your children celebrate Halloween then your religion is all wrong!  Halloween has suddenly become evil?  When did that happen?  There are things I’d put on the “evil list” a lot more quickly than Halloween!

The gospel lesson for today from Luke speaks to this very issue.  Internationally and locally, the critical issue of our time is quickly becoming the issue of whose religion, of whose religiosity is correct and whose is not.  Jesus encountered the same dilemma.  Religious people of his time were obsessed with correctness in religion – correct action, correct prayer, and correct belief.  Though a devout Jew himself, immersed in the practice of his faith, Jesus simply refused to take stock in the claims religious people of his time made about their righteousness.  Listen to the Pharisee:  “Oh, thank you God that I am not like those people!  Thank God I am not a thief; I am not an adulterer; I’m not a tax collector.  Isn’t it just wonderful that I am like I am God?”  Consider the sharp contrast of the other man at prayer: “God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.  Have mercy on me.”  The first prayer centers on the achiever; the second prayer rests on the hope of the wideness of God’s mercy.

In a few minutes we are going to baptize a little boy into the faith of the church.  By our actions and our prayers through the sacrament of Baptism we will make little Luke Donnelly a brand new Christian.  What that means is that he is being initiated into a community of folks who are becoming something, people who are attempting to follow a particular way of being and living in the world, a way derived from the life of Jesus.  With any luck and the grace of God, we will show this child the way of compassion and humility, of generosity and justice.  I pray to God that our action today does not mean that we are making him a dogmatic, arrogant believer who will become absolutely sure that he is right and that anyone with a shred of difference from him is absolutely wrong!  If I thought we were doing that, I would give up.

The underlying truth in this story and in the entire gospel message is the simple truth that it is the outrageous grace of God that saves us.  Not one single thing that we do, not one single belief that we have is enough to make us on our own acceptable to God.  The nature of God, the love of God, is what makes salvation for us and for all people possible.  If I am honest, I must admit that that is very hard for me to grasp; my guess is that it is for you as well.  It seems too simple, even too cheap.  You see, as despicable as we find the Pharisee in his unrestrained arrogance and showiness, we secretly think he has a point – because we too are constantly assessing how we are doing before the imagined judgment of God.  And though we are much more subtle than the Pharisee, we have to admit that we compare ourselves to others all the time and even take comfort in the fact that we are not as bad as ________ - we fill in the blank.  “At least I am not a Republican” or “at least I go to church occasionally” or “at least my manipulating the IRS is not really illegal and isn’t hurting anyone else.”  We do it too.  Of course, we do it. 

The things the Pharisee claimed about himself were not bad traits.  In fact, they were good, largely moral ways of living.  His problem was not his desire to live righteously.  We are similarly called.   It is good to be faithful in our relationships, to give to the church, to respect others and their property.  We do believe that, don’t we?  Of course, we do.  Where we get in to trouble is when we begin to believe, as the Pharisee did, that our following these rules for living gives us a leg up with God.  They don’t.  If the only reason we do these things – things that we call righteous living – is to make ourselves acceptable to God, we are wasting our time.  We have been made acceptable simply by being – by being God’s children.   We live righteously because we love God and because we believe that these “rules” for living righteously are actually wonderful guidelines for living well, for living with wholeness and integrity and compassion for ourselves and for others.  

In the end, the Pharisee by far is the sadder of the two praying men.  He is striving and striving and striving to appease God who is busy keeping score.  Because his sense of worthiness rests upon his good behavior, he will never know the peace of God.  The Tax Collector, on the other hand, simply rests in the hope of God’s mercy.  Making no claim of his own righteousness, he places himself as he is – imperfect but open to transformation – before the mercy of God who loves him. 

My hope for this little boy we baptize today is that he will be more like the second man.  The first way leads to religious intolerance and in the extreme to violent sectarianism; the second way opens the possibility of a life of peace and humility, of tolerance and goodness.  In the mercy of God, may it be so for him and for us.  AMEN.