Sermon on Luke 18:9-14

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today’s parable challenges our human categories.

The term “Pharisee” has come to be a derogatory term, largely due to the portrayal of Pharisees in the Gospels, but that’s not fair.

Our society has understandably become rather suspicious of authority figures, but when Jesus’ audience heard “Pharisee,” they would have thought of a well-respected religious leader, because that’s who Pharisees were. Think of maybe a mayor or a school principal or a well-regarded professor—someone trusted and up-standing.

And as for the tax collector, while no one today is excited to see an IRS agent, tax collectors in the first century were outright hated. They were known for skimming off the top for themselves, plus they were working for the Roman Empire—they were collaborators with the occupying enemy.

So, when Jesus started telling a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector, his audience would have understood the characters in this way: a Pharisee (yay!) and a tax collector (boo!).

But as ever, Jesus turned our human categories inside out.The Pharisee’s prayer conveys his inner self-righteousness and contempt for the tax collector, and the tax collector’s prayer conveys his remorse and desire for God’s mercy. Not everything is as it seems on the outside.

We humans tend towant to know the rules for getting ahead or doing the “right” thing. We also tend to judge other people for not doing those things.

Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s a celebratory day: we might wear red, we might belt out “A Might Fortress is our God,” this congregation hosts a really fun Oktoberfest event.

And it’s also a bittersweet day. Martin Luther didn’t want to start a new denomination. He wanted to reform problematic practices in the Church, not split it. There was a lot of violence in the wake of the Reformation.

So, today’s a day when we can celebrate what’s helpful in Luther’s work and that of those who have come afterwards. And we can grieve the animosity between followers of Jesus from different traditions that still persists today.

We can rejoice that we’re saved by God’s grace, not by anything we do. And also, we need to be careful not to pat ourselves on the back for having the “right” theology and find ourselves judging other denominations and even other faiths for believing the “wrong” things.

Not that we shouldn’t call out beliefs that harm people—we should. That’s part of loving our neighbor, especially neighbors who are marginalized and often hurt by people of faith.

But we also have to remember that no one has a complete and 100% correct understanding of God and the universe. God is way too big for that—thank goodness!

And we don’t have to have a perfect understanding—again, thank goodness!—because we’re saved by God’s grace.

We humans tend to judge others in areas that we’re self-conscious about. If we put our trust in God’s grace and love, we can let our judgment go.

But, the parable today sets a trap for Jesus’ audience and for us: the moment we start judging the Pharisee for judging the tax collector, we’re becoming judgmental just like the Pharisee! Funny how judgment becomes a vicious circle!

Our reading opens by naming that Jesus was telling this parable to people who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”

John and Julie Gottman, incredible relationship researchers and psychologists, talk about Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for relationships. These are behaviors that can predict the end of a relationship. They are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stone-walling.

I’m not going to go into each of them—you can find a lot of great information about them online—but I want to share what their website says about contempt:

“When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean—we treat others with disrespect, mock them with sarcasm, ridicule, call them names, and mimic or use body language such as eye-rolling or scoffing. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

Contempt goes far beyond criticism. While criticism attacks your partner’s character, contempt assumes a position of moral superiority over them.”[1]

Their description is in the context of a romantic relationship, but it shows how deadly contempt can be for any relationship between people.

This parable to reminds us how easy it is to fall into self-satisfaction and self-righteousness and then judgment and contempt for others. Jesus teaches us how to love our neighbor and how dangerous contempt is for our relationships with fellow beloved children of God.

So, we must be careful not to fall into contempt, even for the Pharisee in the parable. None of us have earned our way into God’s family. None of us are A+ students living a perfect moral life—because it’s not about that. It’s about God’s grace and love, which God gives freely and abundantly.

The Pharisee and the tax collector are caricatures that remind us that we don’t know what’s going on inside a person. Humans are complex. Rarely are our motives and behaviors entirely pure or selfish.

Luther described that with the paradox that we are simultaneously saints and sinners.Humans have the potential to do unspeakably mean and cruel things to each other and at the same time have the potential to act with selflessness, kindness, and compassion.

Even Luther, who wrote beautifully about God’s grace, translated the Bible into German so ordinary people could read it for themselves, and had a deep love for his family, also wrote really terrible things about Jewish people and incited violence against the poor during the Peasants’ Revolt.

We’re all a mixed bag. We’re all simultaneously saints and sinners.

Again, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold people accountable for harmful behaviors, but we also have to be willing to recognize our own flaws and failings and rest in God’s mercy.

On this Reformation Sunday, we can rejoice in what’s life-giving about Luther’s legacy and Lutherans’ contributions to the Christian faith and the world.

And, we can grieve broken relationships between Christians and with other people of faith.

Remembering that we are all simultaneously saints and sinners, we can recognize that none of us has all the answers or a corner on right practice.

When we let go of judgment and contempt, God’s grace and mercy allow us to learn and respect how other people experience God, whether we agree or not.

We can lean on God’s grace to protect and save us.

One might even say: a mighty fortress is our God.

[1]https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/

Sermon on Luke 18:1-8

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

If you haven’t noticed already, you probably will soon: I find most of Jesus’ parables perplexing.

I might think I know a parable well and then I find a detail that changes the meaning for me. Or, like today’s—it seems pretty straightforward (if even an unjust judge will cave under the widow’s persistence, how much more will God answer our prayers?), but then the implications unsettle me.

This parable seems to promise that God will answer our prayers and quickly. But so often, our prayers seem to go into a void.

If God will “grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night,” then one might start asking, “Am I not one of God’s chosen ones?”

And if God “will quickly grant justice to them,” then why is there so much injustice in the world?

Early Jesus followers were sometimes martyred for their faith—was that just?I don’t imagine the ultimate collapse of the Roman Empire felt like God was answering their prayers for justice quickly. Justice, if it comes at all, never seems to come quickly.

This parable has troubling implications.

It often seems like God doesn’t answer our prayers: whether someone praying for their loved one to be cured of cancer or suffering people praying for an end to war.

Faithful people whisper their deepest vulnerabilities to God every moment.

And many are disappointed. I would be surprised if any of us in this room or listening online haven’t experienced that disappointment.

I don’t know why some people receive miracles and others don’t.

I don’t know why some prayers seem to get dramatic answers and others don’t.

I don’t know why God sometimes seems silent.

I do know that if that’s ever happened to you, you’re not alone.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, or Mother Teresa, spent decades feeling God’s absence.[1]

Her namesake, St. Thérèse de Lisieux wrote that “God hides, is wrapped in darkness.”

Martin Luther struggled with a sense of spiritual despair throughout his life.[2]

St. John of the Crosswrote about a “dark night of the soul”—a period of feeling that God is absent. It wasn’t just any sense of spiritual dryness, but a specific type that would lead to a deeper relationship with God, distinct from other feelings of God’s absence.

These ancestors in faith and many more have felt that God was silent and absent. They have felt that pain. It’s not a sign of being a “bad Christian.” It’s a common experience for even the most faithful people.

I don’t know why people have to go through it, but sometimes it seems that enduring a season like that can lead to a closer union with God.

Sometimes enduring a season like that is more like Jacob wrestling with God than Jesus’ explanation that God will quickly grant justice.

Jacob was a trickster.

He was named Jacob because when he was born, he was grasping onto the heel of his twin brother Esau, like he was trying to hold him back and get born first. Jacob means “he takes by the heel or he supplants.”

When Jacob and Esau were older, Jacob got Esau to sell him his birthright over a bowl of stew.

When their father Isaac was dying, their mother, Rachel, helped Jacob trick Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau, his firstborn.

Jacob fled his brother’s wrath and stayed with his uncle Laban. He and Laban got into a cycle of tricking and cheating each other, until Jacob left and sought reconciliation with his brother.

He understandably thought Esau might decide to kill him, so he sent a bunch of gifts to appease him. Still, he wasn’t sure this was enough, so he sent his family and his belongings across a stream. If Esau and his men found him, his family would be safe.

So, as our reading begins, Jacob was alone in the dark with his fears. Maybe he prayed. Maybe he prayed for God to grant him justice. Maybe trickster Jacob prayed that he wouldn’t receive justice, but instead mercy.

One way or another, God met him—not with a comforting hug or a word of peace—but instead wrestled with him. Like the widow in our parable, Jacob was persistent. He wouldn’t let go until the stranger blessed him. They wrestled for hours, and the stranger even dislocated Jacob’s hip, but he still wouldn’t let go.

As dawn broke, the stranger gave Jacob a new name: Israel, meaning “the one who strives with God.” And Jacob limped his way into the future and became one of the great ancestors of God’s people.

Sometimes, prayer is less like God quickly granting us justice and more like wrestling, hanging on for dear life, not knowing what the result will be, but trusting that there will eventually be a blessing, even if it means being painfully changed through the process.

Rosemary Wahtola Trommer wrote a poem that describes prayer similarly:

“Sometimes a Prayer”

Sometimes a prayer

arrives like a stock phrase—

like well-worn beads of syllables

others have strung into smooth

and beautiful strands.

But the prayers that have saved me

are the ones that arrive like burrs.

They hurt a little, hook into my skin,

such stubborn, dogged prayers.

They make me a living agent

of spreading their seeds.

And with every move I make,

they don’t let me forget

they are here.

Maybe our parable today is less about changing God’s actions through prayer and more about changing our own.

Maybe it doesn’t seem like God is quickly granting justice, but as we persist in our prayers for it, we live in more just and merciful ways. Maybe we are changed in the process of persistent prayer; maybe we will limp away with a new name.

Justice doesn’t seem to come quickly, but like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” No matter what comes our way or how dim the good in our world seems to be, we can cling to the belief that God wins in the end and that God’s justice and mercy will be made complete.

As we wait for that day, maybe our stubbornness will bend the arc a little more toward justice.

And if you find yourself in a dry spell or a dark night of the soul, if God feels absent, know that you are in good company. You’re not alone—turn to your friends in Christ here, turn to wise, spiritual people in your life, and of course, I invite you to talk to me. You may not find answers, but you can find someone to lean on. That’s why we have each other. Being a follower of Jesus isn’t a solo journey.

So, as you go about your week, whether you feel God quickly answering your prayers, whether God feels absent, whether your prayers feel ineffective, or whether the world seems hopelessly unjust:

Be like the persistent widow: insist on justice.

And be like Jacob: don’t let go without God’s blessing.

[1]https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/mother-teresa-a-saint-who-conquered-darkness/

[2]https://ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/scaeranfechtung.pdf

Sermon on Luke 17:11-19

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

It’s easy to turn our Gospel reading into a morality tale about being thankful. And that’s a valid reading: gratitude is important, and Jesus certainly deserved thanks.

But a detail stuck out at me this week: “On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.”

The writer of the Gospel of Lukeis drawing our attention to Jesus’ location on purpose.

First, Jesus was “on the way to Jerusalem,” which means he was heading toward the cross, and he knew it. He was preparing his disciples to continue his mission into the years to come.And still, he made time to honor the request of this group of ten.

He was also “going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.” He was in between places. He wasn’t specifically in Samaria or Galilee, but in a “region between.” He was “on the way” to Jerusalem but not there yet. He was in a liminal space, a transitional space like a hallway or a threshold.

Naaman, too, was in a liminal space, a space of contradicting realities and unexpected boundary crossing. Naaman was powerful but had a skin disease that he was powerless against. He was a warrior but had to seek help in enemy land.

Instead of performing a work of great power or requiring a heroic task, the prophet simply told him to go bathe. But, he had to bathe in “their”water, not his “better” water. The border remained crossed. Naaman the powerful was required to humble himself by bathing in “their” river.

Liminal spaces and crossed boundaries are uncomfortable.

We humans like the solidity of categories, of being in one place or another, but not between. We want clean boundaries that aren’t crossed. It’s tidy to have a clear distinction between “us” and “them.” We want to know how things work and where things belong. We want to know who’s in charge and where we stand.

We’re uncomfortable with liminal spaces.

Airports and train stations, for instance, can be anxiety-producing. You’re not at home or your destination—you’re in between. It can be hard to relax in a doctor’s office waiting room for the same reason. The anticipation is unnerving.

Similarly, it can be challenging to meet new people, because the primitive part of our brains isn’t sure where they belong. Are they an “us” or a “them”?

We might be able to make an educated guess and more easily approach a stranger who’s similar to us in some way—age, gender presentation, language spoken, or other marker that makes us feel like it’s less risky to start a conversation.Our brains are more comfortable with that. But if we don’t register a similarity, we might be more hesitant to say hi.

This happens at church too. We want to welcome anyone who comes through those doors, but sometimes we fall victim to an “us” and “them” mentality unconsciously. I know some of you are very intentional about greeting everyone, and that’s beautiful and I so appreciate that.

For some of us, though, we don’t always put ourselves out there as much as we would like. We might say good morning to someone who obviously knows their way around a hymnal, who asks for a bulletin, who dares to sit in the front half of the sanctuary.

But we might be more nervous to approach someone who shyly sits in the back pew with their head down. Or someone with an obvious physical or cognitive disability that’s different from any we might have. Or someone wearing non-gender-conforming clothing. Or anyone our brainscan’t as easily put into the “us” category.

But it’s not just nice—it’s kind to greet everyone.First of all, it’s scary to walk into a sanctuary for the first time even if you’re a long-time Lutheran and in seminary—I know, because I visited a lot of congregations, Lutheran and otherwise, during my seminary years.Every congregation is different, and you never fully know what you’re going to find or what faux pas you’re going to commit. The visitor is probably way more nervous than you are.

And second of all, Jesus teaches us that there is no “them” category.

That’s what struck me about the Gospel story this week. Jesus was in a liminal space, and it was only a Samaritan who came back to thank him—a person who would have very easily been in Jesus’ “them” category.

Samaritans were considered by Jewish people in Jesus’ time to be an enemy.And yet, it was a Samaritan who returned and praised him, which is the appropriate response to a healing encounter with Jesus.

Maybe it was only in this liminal space between Samaria and Galilee that the Samaritan and the other nine would have dared ask Jesus for what they needed and only in this liminal space that a Samaritan would have dared approach Jesus a second time, even in praise. Our boundaries are powerful, but liminal spaces make otherwise impossible connections and healing between people possible.

Naaman was seeking healing, too, and it was necessary for him to wash in “their” river instead of his superior rivers, because we don’t get to choose where or how God shows up. God meets us in crossed boundaries and liminal spaces, where we have to get off our high horses and be open to mystery.

Liminal spaces are often where transformationoccurs. God isn’t very good about coloring within the lines. The Holy Spirit surprises us, challenges us, and moves us outside our boundaries and into liminal spaces. Jesus meets us in those liminal spaces, the margins we forget about or ignore, but where God’s healing and love are found.

God’s Beloved Community breaks down barriers and recognizes all people as children of God.

How can we question the “us” and “them” tendencies of our brains?

Who can we learn to appreciate more?

What relationships can we foster?

Where are liminal spaces in our lives? Are there other liminal spaces we can seek God in?

Whether you find yourself, like Naaman, resenting having to cross a boundary or, like the grateful Samaritan, find yourself placed on the wrong side of a boundary by society, you will find God in that liminal space.

When we cross boundaries, we find out surprising things about each other. Our assumptions get challenged, our stereotypes dissolve, our biases become clear and then dissipate.

One of my favorite things about working at the Orange County Conservation Corps before going to seminary was at our corpsmember holiday party.

One Friday morning, the corpsmembers would bring their families in for hot chocolate, tamales, and a visit from Santa, who would pass out donated toys to the kids.

It was so moving to see tall, muscular guys with tattoos and piercings holding their babies. Seeing them share their toddlers’ excitement about Santa reminded me that they were barely out of childhood themselves, though often they hadn’t had the peaceful, joyful childhood I would have wished for them. They were in the liminal space of barely being adults and having the very adult responsibility of being parents.

If I hadn’t known them, my brain probably would have categorized these young people as “them” and maybe even as “a threat” to me.

But in the Christmas season of God crossing the boundary between human and divine, between earth and heaven, God showed me the beauty and tenderness of these beloved children of God who kissed their infants and whose eyes lit up at their children’s squeals of joy.

God is like that too. God is in the liminal spaces, delighting in our healing, lighting up at our joy.

When we remember that, we can set aside our brains’ divisions of “us and them” and instead voice our gratitude for God’s love for us and all humanity.

That’s a form of healing we find in Jesus.

That’s worth turning around and thanking God for.