Posts Tagged ‘reliance on God’

Being seen

October 29, 2022

Pentecost 21 -2022
Luke 19:1-10
Marian Free
In the name of God, Earthmaker, Painbearer, Lifegiver. Amen

When we read the Bible in small portions, as we do on a Sunday morning, we often miss the crucial connections and the patterns that are carefully constructed by the authors. For example, each gospel is a beautifully crafted piece of literature in which the life and teaching of Jesus is presented according to the message that the author wants the listener to hear. So, you might notice that Matthew gathers the sayings of Jesus into the Sermon on the mount. In Luke’s gospel the same material is divided. Half can be found in the Sermon on the Plain. The remaining sayings are reserved for Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and for Jesus privately teaching his disciples. Matthew and Luke use the same material in different ways because they have different purposes in writing.

When, for reasons of convenience or time, we separate the gospels into smaller parts, we often miss the context of what we are reading and therefore the author’s intention in placing the saying, story or parable where he does. Breaking the gospels into easily digestible pieces often begins in our Sunday Schools in which stories that are deemed suitable for children are over-simplified and stripped of the wealth of meaning that they contain. Whether for consumption during our Sunday liturgies, or for the children in our midst, many of the best-known stories from our gospels are often reduced to catch phrases – the prodigal son, the rich young man, the good Samaritan – which are not only easy to remember but which become short-hand for what is believed to be the essence of Jesus’ teaching in these accounts/parables.

We become so used to these short-hand ways of referring to biblical stories that it can be difficult to undo their long-held truisms. Such was the case when I came to the story of Zacchaeus this week. Is there anything new to be said, I wondered. I was caught by surprise then, when the commentary by Chelsea Harmon, provided a new perspective and helped me to see that the story of Zacchaeus was intricately connected to the stories in last week’s gospel and that the conclusion that I reached in last week’s blog was as relevant for this Sunday as it was for last Sunday. Indeed Luke 18:9-26 seems to form a unit with Luke 19:10. In the former, Jesus tells the parable about the two who go to the Temple to pray – one a self-righteous Pharisee who congratulates himself on his good behaviour and shows contempt for those who are not like him; the other a tax collector who beats his breast and asks for mercy. Jesus then warns his listeners that: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (18:17). Finally, Luke records Jesus’ encounter with the rich ruler who wants Jesus to reassure him that he is doing all that is required to inherit eternal life.

At first glance this parable, teaching and encounter seem to have nothing in common, but, when combined with Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, a common thread becomes obvious. Salvation, inheriting eternal life has nothing to do with what we do (or who we are), and everything to do with what God does (or who God is). Salvation/inheriting eternal life is not dependent on how good we are (and certainly has nothing to do with how good we think we are) but on our willingness to rely – not on ourselves but on God. The Pharisee smugly thought that he had achieved what it took to inherit eternal life because he was not a thief, a rogue or an adulterer. The rich ruler thought that obeying the commandments was all that he needed to do to gain eternal life. Neither realized or accepted their need for God.

In comparison, the tax-collector, aware of his short-comings threw himself on the mercy of God and children who do not over-think things take it for granted that they are loved and that they belong. The tax-collector consciously places his trust in God (not himself). Sub-consciously, children do the same.

As if to make it clear that salvation is dependent on God and not on ourselves, Luke adds to this collection the account of Jesus’ meeting with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus the tax-collector. Zacchaeus who has thrown in his lot with the Roman oppressors. Zacchaeus who may well have enriched himself at the expense of his fellow countrymen and women. Zacchaeus with whom Jesus must stay that very day!

We are told that Zacchaeus has heard that Jesus is passing through Jericho and, for reasons that are not clear, is determined to see him. This is not as easy as it seems. Zacchaeus is short, there is a crowd, and he is a person not deserving of respect. The crowd is unlikely to make space for him. His solution is undignified, but he is too eager to care. He runs ahead and climbs a tree. He does not expect to be seen. (Indeed, he may wish to remain unseen given the unseemly nature of his being in a tree). Zacchaeus simply wants to see Jesus. Yet, Jesus does see him. Jesus sees, stops, and demands that Zacchaeus come down. Jesus insists that he must stay with Zacchaeus. Indeed, as the Greek says, it is necessary that Jesus stay at Zacchaeus’ house that day.

Zacchaeus did not need to be “perfect, or sinless, or holy or righteous first.” There was no standard or ideal that Zacchaeus had to reach in order for Jesus to invite himself in. (Zacchaeus’ generosity was in response to Jesus’ acceptance, it did not earn him Jesus’ respect.) Zacchaeus was anything but perfect, but he was seen.

God sees us. God sees us all. God sees us for who we are, with all our failings and imperfections, with all our insecurities and fears. God sees us and God invites Godself in. God sees us, it is necessary for God to stay with us today. All we have to do is to make space and to welcome God into our lives.

We don’t have to be perfect. There is no gold standard that is the requirement for eternal life. We don’t have to do anything except come down from our trees of self-sufficiency, self-interest, and self-doubt. God has done and will do all the rest.

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Our inheritance is with the saints

November 2, 2013

All Saints – 2013

Luke 6:20-26

Marian Free

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Amen.

 I wonder if you are well prepared for your death? By that I mean a number of things: do you have a will, an advanced health directive? have you talked to your family about practical details like cremation or burial? have you planned your funeral? Hopefully your answer to at least some of those things is “yes”. It seems obvious enough that a certain amount of planning is useful and even necessary, but even though death is inevitable, there are some people who are superstitious about making plans for it. They seem to think that if they talk about or plan for their death that somehow they are inviting it to come before time. Their attitude seems to be that if they don’t think about it then it won’t happen.

It is hard to imagine a Christian being fettered by such fears. After all, Jesus resurrection has demonstrated that death is not something to be feared, but something to be faced with confidence, that death is not the end, but a new beginning. We may not know exactly what lies beyond the grave, but the various descriptions of life-hereafter, give us a glimpse of an existence in which there is joy and peace and abundance – forever!

Death holds no fear for us, because we are confident of the resurrection to eternal life. But there is more to it than that – dying to ourselves and living to God is central to the practice of our faith.  In order to be united to God, in order to realise the divine presence within us, we need to learn to let go of those things that bind us to this life and to embrace those things which belong to our heavenly existence. In this way, we already have one foot in the kingdom – death is simply the fulfillment of our Christian journey. At the same time, we will be so practiced at dying, so used to the new life that results that we will be ready for this one last death.

This style of existence does not come easily. Dying in order to live is counter-intuitive to all that we know and experience in this life. Everything that is human in us screams “no” to death! Nature itself is designed to be resilient, to reproduce, to resist obliteration. No wonder that we find it so hard to let go, to do anything that would reveal weakness or suggest failure. The irony is that all our struggling, all our efforts to prevent disaster, all our attempts to deny our vulnerability are, in the end, life-denying. We become so focused on ourselves, so anxious about avoiding pain and suffering, so determined to hold on to what we have that we lose the ability to be truly free and fully alive. As a result our world becomes smaller and more limited. We tie ourselves to this life thus losing sight of the life to come. Worse still, in our attempts to build for ourselves a world that is safe and secure, we simply succeed in locking God out of our lives. Instead of placing our trust in God, we are placing all our trust in ourselves – believing that our own efforts will keep us safe and happy.

The poor, the hungry, the grieving and the reviled have no such problems – they know and recognise their emptiness and their reliance on God. This is why Jesus calls them blessed not because it is good to be poor and hungry, but because those who have nothing are forced depend on God for everything, those who are empty are able to be filled by the presence of God, those who grieve look to God for solace, those who have nothing to bind them to this life are free to place all their hope in the life to come. On the other hand, those who in this life are rich, full and happy do not have the same pressure to recognise their need for God. Being satisfied with their situation in this life, they have no need to look forward to the life to come. Worse, they are tempted to hold on to and to protect what they have and this serves to separate them further from their future hope. In worldly terms they may appear to be blessed, but when it comes to the kingdom, their material blessings can become an impediment to a deep and fulfilling relationship with God.

In every age, there have been those who have learned to detach themselves from this world, who have focused not on worldly success and possessions but have developed those characteristics which will best equip them for the life to come. They have sought out solitude, embraced poverty and hardship, practiced self-denial, relied on God to meet their needs and when the occasion demanded it, have given their lives for their faith. It is people such as these whom we number among the saints.

If we want to count ourselves among the blessed, if we would like to be numbered among the saints, we do not necessarily have to set ourselves apart, embrace poverty and become ascetics. However, we do have to unlearn our need for independence, we have to stop our striving for worldly success, we have to learn to value the lessons and blessings that adversity and loss bestow upon us, we have to allow ourselves to fall and to fail so that God can help us up and we have to be willing to empty ourselves so that God can fill us.

Our journey through this life is a preparation for the life to come. It is an opportunity to develop and embrace those characteristics which will serve us for eternity. For that reason it is important to practice dying in order that we might live, to keep our focus on what is really important, to let go of those things that do not matter, to relinquish those things that we cannot take with us and to place all our trust in God, so that when God calls, we are not only ready, but willing to abandon this life so that we can enter with joy the life that has no end.

So let us learn to die that we might live and so live that when we die, we will do so in the full assurance that our inheritance is with the saints for ever.

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