Finding Jesus in the Basket of Deplorables

October 23, 2016

Luke 18:9-14

 I‘m guessing we can probably all agree that this election seems to have brought our country to a time of crisis, though we might disagree about what makes it that way.  For me, it is almost unimaginable that a candidate for president of the United States excuses boasting about sexual assault with “locker room talk.”  But that’s really just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  We have become so polarized, and not just on the usual political issues, but on gender and race and religion and ethnicity.  It has been hard to watch us fall apart.   

Given all that’s brewing in the world, at our monthly local Episcopal clergy lunch, someone asked how we were talking about this election in our congregations.  Several clergy spoke about how carefully they were balancing their words to speak about civility and love so as to reach but not offend Trump supporters in their congregations.  I was surprised.  Because, as I told this group at lunch, while I know (and love) plenty of Republicans, and while I know (and love) plenty of people who dislike Hillary, I don’t actually think I know any gung-ho Trump supporters. 

One colleague responded, “Maybe you need to get to know more people.”

My initial reaction was that I really don’t want to know any of the people that openly support Trump.  Why would I want to spend time with those people?  

 But as I sat with that response, it occurred to me that the way I’ve been thinking about Trump supporters isn’t exactly loving my neighbor as myself.  It isn’t exactly seeking to serve Christ in all persons.  It isn’t exactly respecting the dignity of every human being.  Maybe rather than living up to my baptismal promises, I’ve been insulating myself from people that disagree with me.  Why is it that I don’t know anyone that feels so hurt by the system, so angry, so scared about possible cultural changes that they would support someone like Trump?

And so I need Jesus to tap me on my back, or maybe wave his arms frantically in front of my face to get my attention focused back on him as he begins this story from Luke’s Gospel.  At the start we are told that Jesus tells “this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”  In other words, Jesus tells this story to me, and (I’m sorry to say) probably you, along with the twelve disciples sitting next to him that day.  The ones who, like me, are feeling pretty confident about how well we understand Jesus, and pretty certain we can speak for him.  We’ve got the inside scoop.  We are part of the good guys.  We are on God’s side.  And they (whoever They are for us) clearly are not.

Like I said, if we are being honest, Jesus is looking straight at us when he tells this story.

“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a Tax Collector….”

Now, imagine you don’t already know how this story comes out and try to see those two characters as they would have looked during Jesus’ day.

In the old days, when they first joined Jesus, the disciples and others who listened to Jesus would have been fooled by this story.  Back then, they’d have expected that the Tax Collector was being set up as the Bad Guy in this story.  The Tax Collector who collaborated with the hated Roman Empire, paying a set amount for the privilege of squeezing money from his neighbors through threats and schemes and bribes.  The Tax Collector was despised.  This person should be shunned from the holy places.  How dare he defile the temple by entering?  That is what they would have thought before.  

And the Pharisee.  The respected, prayerful, Jewish religious leader.  The spiritual guide for those who sought to follow God’s law faithfully.  The one that they can count on to show the way.  To remind them of the law and keep them from straying into uncertain territory.  This is someone to follow.  The disciples wouldn’t have been surprised when the Pharisee entered the temple and thanked God that he was not like that despised and feared tax collector.  This is the Good Guy in the story.  That is what they would have thought before.  

And if we didn’t already know the rest of the story, we’d have thought that same thing.  Most of us probably align fairly well with this Pharisee.  We are generally decent people, trying to do the right thing, wanting to be in right relationship with God.   Like the Pharisee, we are thankful that we are not like the people in the world that use and abuse and manipulate and hurt.  We are thankful not to be among the basket of deplorables.  

Oops.  I definitely needed to hear this story, because that can’t be the right choice, can it?

Luckily, like the disciples, we’ve hung out with Jesus long enough to know that when there’s a tax collector and a Pharisee, a cautionary moral tale is coming.  We used to be fooled by these stories, but not anymore.  We know how this story is going to play out.  We’ve known Jesus long enough to know that Matthew, one of Jesus’ most trusted friends, was a tax collector.  

And we all saw wee little tax collector Zaccheus come down from that sycamore tree and bring Jesus home for dinner.  

And so we already know that the Tax Collector is going to be the “surprise” character.  The underdog.  The one we expect to hate but who is going to turn it all around.  He’s rough-around-the-edges but ultimately repentant and humble. We know the Tax Collector will end up the hero of this story.

And the Pharisee!  The Pharisee is going to be cast as disapproving, stuck in his holy box, thinking he’s got it all right and understood when really he is just touching the surface.  We’re going to see that the Pharisee is the one that sets himself up to be respected and get the rest of us working so hard to be holy that we miss the loving presence of God that Jesus has introduced us to.  

And sure enough, the Pharisee’s prayer is almost a caricature: “Thank you God, that I am not like other men.”  Not exactly a propitious way to start, obviously.  Meanwhile, the Tax Collector prays: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  This is where the Jesus Prayer comes from - the orthodox prayer without ceasing from The Way of a Pilgrim: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  It’s hard to imagine words more humble.

Now don’t get me wrong.  There’s a lot to learn from this story even if we’ve heard it before and already know the outcome.  The one who looks righteous is depending too much on himself, and the one who admits his need for God will be scooped up with love and forgiveness.  Clearly, there’s a right and a wrong approach here.  And so, we (humbly, of course) will choose to align ourselves with the Tax Collector, acknowledging our brokenness and imperfection and thankful not to be among the hypocrites.  

Oops - it just happened again!  Picking that side doesn’t seem to work either.  There’s no way to win, is there?  No matter which side we align ourselves with, we somehow end up on the wrong side.  

So I wonder what happens to this story if the main characters aren’t the Tax Collector and the Pharisee.  What if, in telling this story, Jesus was really looking past them to his disciples, us included.  The ones who think we’ve got it all figured out.  The ones who think we understand how God works and so feel free to stand back and judge other people.  The ones who are so busy picking sides and assigning blame for the crisis that we forget to get to know and care for the people mired in the crisis.

We humans tend to put people into boxes to make them easier to understand and to keep ourselves feeling safe.  We do this even more during election seasons.  We have boxes based on Gender and Race and Sexual preference and Education Level.  Decided or Undecided.  This year we’ve even reached a new low of Redeemable or Unredeemable.  And I think we try to put God into a box too, so that we can more easily imagine ourselves to be on God’s side.  So that we can safely separate our relationship with God from our relationship with the people around us.

So maybe the point of this story isn’t to pick a winner and a loser in the Pharisee versus Tax Collector contest.  In fact, maybe this parable shows us that anytime we draw a line between winners and losers, anytime we start drawing those boxes, we’ll probably find God on the other side.  Maybe this parable is about learning to see as God sees.  To see that all of us have foibles and shortcomings.  All of us are in some way in the basket of deplorables, and all of us are in some ways hypocrites.  All of us are Tax Collectors and all of us are Pharisees in our own ways.  But none of us are stuck in whatever roles we occupy because wherever God is, reversal of expectations is sure to be right around the corner.  God’s dream is to erase those lines that separate us.

In less than three weeks, we’ll be heading out to vote.  (And I hope all of you who are eligible will be going out to vote!  It’s ok to pick winners and losers there.)  But I fear that, even after the election, we are coming swiftly to a place where, if we can’t figure out how to move beyond our boxes, what we think is a crisis now will look small in comparison to what comes next.  A place where pointing and blaming and ugliness and mistrust will be all that we see and hear.  

 But in some ways, it also seems like there is an opportunity here.  An opportunity to talk about issues like race and sexual assault and ethnicity that we are so often too afraid to bring up.  An opportunity to care for people that are scared and hurt and angry.

And maybe the Church can have an important role to play in that. 

Maybe the Church can be a place where we model what it might look like to see all people as within the breadth of God’s love and mercy, Pharisee and Tax Collector alike.  Maybe the Church can be a place where we can safely share what our hopes and dreams are, and why those leads us to our beliefs, political or otherwise, without putting other people down.  Maybe we as the Church can be people that show how closely related the love of God and the love of neighbor really are (and not just the neighbor I choose and like, but all my neighbors).  When we get God, we get each other.  And when we get each other, we get God.

So, grab a prayer book and turn to page 305, about midway through our baptismal service - we’ll start with the second question from the top:

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

I will, with God's help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? 

I will, with God's help.

May God help us all.  Amen.