Opening Thought:
Last weekend there was a startling front-page headline and a heart-breaking story in The Hamilton Spectator: “ ‘You’ll never be good enough’ – Grace McSweeney longed for acceptance that never came. She died by suicide at age 12. Her family is sharing her story in the hope it will make a difference.”
Grace was born in Hamilton, and through her 12 years she lived also in Paris and in Brantford. Not far from us. She was one of us. She did not know peace in her life, in her self, among her peers. And what she suffered and died from, many others do as well in their own way.
It makes me wonder, and want to know something more about the love of God for all. Makes me onder what makes for peace, in response to that kind of agony and alienation in our neighbourhoods, our schools, our cities.
Reading: Luke 18:9-14
Jesus had a complicated relationship with Jerusalem as the city of God, with the Temple as the house of God, and with religious rules as the way of God.
People around him put a lock of stock in these things, and as long as Jerusalem was still there, the Temple was in good shape and well-maintained, and the religious rules were being followed,people had confidence they were right with God. Jesus saw things differently, though. Jerusalem, the Temple, and the religious rules all meant something to him, but God and being right with God were also bigger than all of those things.
Jesus tells his followers a story about this. In this story, the Pharisee is an upstanding Jew who would have been doing his best to follow all the rules, and would have been respected and looked up to in the Temple. The tax collector is a Jew who has sold out to Rome, to become a servant of the empire that is oppressing his people. It would have seemed odd to Jesus’ listeners that such a person would even be in the Temple.
Jesus also told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else.
“Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, ‘God, have pity on me, a sinner!’
“I tell you,” said Jesus, “the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home. For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.”
Reflection
At the start of worship I mentioned the tragic death of Grace McSweeney. Five words, “You’ll never be good enough” were the headline of the story about her, and also the judgement under which she lived all her life.
It reminds me of the story of Amanda Todd – the 15-year-old victim of cyber-bullying who also died by suicide in Port Coquitlam. Of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old murdered by bullies in Saanich, B.C. because she didn’t fit in to their crowd. Of Matthew Shepard – whom John reminded us of last week, a 22-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming, killed because he didn’t fit in. Or Devon Freeman, a 17-year-old First Nations young man in a group home on the edge of Hamilton, who died by suicide in part because he felt so isolated and cut off from any helpful or nurturing community.
On one side, some of these stories are about bullying and all the ways people find to do it. On another side – the side of the victims, all these stories are about self-loathing, and believing in one way or another that you aren’t, and never will be good enough. Self-loathing is a curse suffered by many of our friends and neighbours, maybe many of our own family, maybe many of us. It can be deadly, and more often it’s just deadening. As though “just” and “deadening” are two words that can ever stand together.
A colleague in ministry shared with me a story of a confirmation class she once led. There were seven or eight teens in the class. Almost all had grown up in the church, belonged to good church families, and were good friends. One was not. Her parents did not attend church, and she hadn’t either. It was her grandmother who was the member, and who wanted her to have some connection with church, so she signed up for the confirmation class.
It soon became clear to her, though, that the other kids in the class did not accept her. She didn’t wear the right clothes. She wasn’t as attractive as they were – or at least, not attractive in the way they valued. She didn’t know the right answers. And she saw the looks they exchanged among themselves. Heard the little laughters. And after a couple of weeks, she stopped coming. And never went back.
And it doesn’t always take other people to lead us into self-loathing. Some of us do a pretty good job of it to ourselves.
When I was in theology school, one of my classes was taking a guided field trip to a synagogue to observe and participate as much as we could in one of their high holy days. When we met to go over there, one of our classmates was missing. He didn’t show up, and I found out later that as he was preparing for the trip, he became unsure of what to wear. He was anxious not to be inappropriate, and as he dithered and dithered, he became so anxious that he couldn’t bring himself to go. He stayed home, and missed out.
We have so many kinds of standards, and tests, and ways of measuring our presentability in life, and of measuring others as well.
We do it with our bodies. The way we look. How fit we are. How well, or poorly we are dressed. If we or someone else is able-bodied and healthy, or disabled in some way or weakened and diminished.
We measure minds and intellectual and emotional capacity. How smart we are. How educated. How mentally and emotionally strong, or disabled, diseased, or challenged.
We measure ourselves by our job. Where we live. The value of our house. Our investment portfolio.
And it happens from birth to death. From that seemingly innocent question, “what percentile are your kids or your grandkids in, or how are they doing in school?” to “how instagram-able, really, is my life, what home renos can I afford, and how attractive and shareable are my retirement plans?”
This is not something new that our society has invented. But we’ve developed it to the point we now have ways of measuring almost everything in life – and we’ve become addicted to it, as a way of who and how we are in comparison to others.
On one hand, being able to measure progress and achievement can help guide us in what we do, can inspire us to greatness, can encourage us to improve, and can help us identify people who have just what we need for particular role and jobs.
But on the other hand, this obsession to rank ourselves and others, to measure and test and give grades in one way or another, can also destroy self-esteem, make some people withdraw, and lead us to exclude or write off others. We have so many ways of measuring and grading ourselves and others, that for some it’s probably a marvel they have the courage to get out of bed in the morning, or step outside the door.
Which is why I marvel at the courage of the tax collector in the story Jesus tells.
The tax collector knows he doesn’t measure up. His job and his life are terrible. He is colluding and working with the empire that’s oppressing his own people. He collects taxes for Rome and adds his own take to it, so he can make a living. Does he like being a tax collector? Does he like betraying and working against his own people? Probably not, but maybe it’s all he can do. The only job around that lets him make a living. Feed his family. Keep a roof over their head.
So, when he comes to the Temple – itself a strange thing to do – most tax collectors wouldn’t be there because they know they’re not welcome, they don’t measure up, they’re the wrong kind of people to be there. I mean, just look at the Pharisee over there. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be like?
So, when he comes to the Temple he stands at a distance from everyone else. He can’t even raise his head to God and to heaven. All he can do is pray God might have mercy on him – be kind to him, a sinner, a failure, a man whose life is a total mess and at the bottom of every scale that he thinks matters.
But the point is, he does it. He’s courageous enough, or desperate enough, or both, that he comes for a taste of mercy, for the feeling of holy kindness and acceptability that he so dearly needs. And isn’t that what the Temple, what church, what Christian community, what any kind of faith community are supposed to be like, and supposed to be for?
And not just for the tax collector, but also for the Pharisee. Because yes, the Pharisee is actually a very upstanding man, honestly able to tick off a lot of boxes of good things in his life. Pharisees are the best of the best, spiritually speaking, and he’s being honest when he lists off the good things he does, the good practices he maintains in his life, and the ways he is a good model and example for others.
But the problem is, this isolates him, too. He thanks God for making his life morally superior to others who don’t measure up to the good things he is and does. And in doing that he separates himself from real community and honest communion with others. He becomes not a real, full-bodied human being but a caricature, a paint-by-number picture of perfection. Somewhat removed both from other people around him and from his own inner self – his shadow, his own struggles, his moments of doubt and imperfection and failure that he doesn’t feel free to bring into the Temple and let other people see.
I heard a story recently of a gathering of ministers on mini-retreat. I forget what the subject or theme of the retreat was, but somehow it led these eight or ten ministers to start sharing their stories with one another. For one of them, the exercise soon became an agonizing litany of all the times and all the stages in his life when what he was told, what he learned, and what he internalized about himself is that he was not good enough. Over and over that line, and that heavy burden came out – “I am not good enough.”
His colleagues at that point gathered round him. They reached out to touch him, and lay their hands on his shoulders, on his back, and on his head. And as he told his story, and uttered those terrible words, they uttered a different judgement, and they invited him to say it with them. It was “you are loved, and you are enough.”
Can you imagine how redeeming, how liberating, and how transforming that was? And not just for the one minister at the heart of that circle’s concern. But for every one of them in that circle, each struggling silently, no doubt, with their own inner failures and demons -- and maybe not always having a safe space to let them be seen and known.
And can you imagine church, the Temple, faith community of any mind always being like that?
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