All Saints Sunday 2011
Luke 18: 9-14
First, dear Saints of God, allow me to read these verses from Luke 18:
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers, even this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his chest and said, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”
‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (vs 9-14)
During His entire ministry there was a “love-hate” relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees: He loved them; they hated Him. The Pharisees were confident of their STATUS as the true SAINTS OF GOD because they KNEW they had earned it! They were sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God LOVED them because of who they were and how well they kept God’s Laws, and they took great pride in that. They KNEW they were better than anyone else.
The tax collector, on the other hand, KNEW he was lower than dirt, even without the Pharisee telling him, although I think we can be sure that the Pharisees, and everybody ELSE in town, never failed to remind him that he was really “scum!”
Today is ALL SAINTS SUNDAY. You, if things worked well this morning, are wearing a nametag that calls you a what? All together: A SAINT. Turn to the person next to you and address them by name: Hello, Saint Michael!
That was fun, wasn’t it? But knowing what you know about the person next to you, was it easy??? Is it easier for you to think of that one special person sitting next to you as somewhere in the category of “tax collector,” or somewhere in the “Righteous Pharisee” category? Don’t answer that yet…..but I want you to think for a moment about how you would answer that question about yourself!
In your heart of hearts, do you envision yourself as being closer in spirit to the Pharisee……or the Tax Collector?
Before you pledge yourself to join the ranks of the Pharisees…..or the IRS, let me tweak the question in light of the nametag that you are wearing, the one that starts with SAINT. Are you accepting the title of SAINT because of things YOU have DONE? After all, you go to church, you give some offerings, you try to be a good person, you’ve memorized the hymnal and wear red on Reformation! What’s not for God to like about that, Saint So-and- So? You just HAVE to be making God happy, right??? That’s got to count for SOMETHING, doesn’t it?
OR…..are you a Saint because, like little Paige Grace Schultz who was just baptized a few moments ago right here at Hope, you were lost in your sins until you were: called by the Holy Spirit, washed in the water of your baptism, forgiven of your sins, and clothed the righteousness of CHRIST, without Whom you would be nothing?
The tragedy of this parable, which is just as applicable today as it was 2000 years ago, is that the Pharisee doesn’t even begin to understand that it is the Tax Collector who has God’s attention! He’s the guy who knows that NOTHING he does in life earns or merits him anything before God. He KNOWS he’s lost. If he’s going to be saved…..if he’s going to be sainted….it’s God that’s going to make it happen!
The Pharisee is so busy judging everybody else, so busy putting everybody else down beneath him because they don’t “do the faith right,” that he misses what God offers for free, through Jesus Christ!
There was one Pharisee who DID get it. His name was Nicodemus. There was something nagging at him; something keeping him up nights with worry. Was he really DOING enough to be saved? So, being wide awake in the middle of the night, he came to Jesus and asked, “What else do I have to DO to be saved?”
Jesus sent him right back to square one. “Start over, Nicodemus, be born again! This time,” Jesus told him, “let ME do the work. I’ll bear the cost, you receive the gift!” There’s one Pharisee who lived the rest of his life in grateful JOY, because he was able to lay down the burden of his own salvation at the foot of the cross.
Last weekend, in case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t here. I had been invited to officiate at Pastor Isler’s retirement at Nags Head. The president of Grace had invited us down and I assured her that we would come…..and by the way, would she make a reservation for us at a motel close by the church?
On the way down I got that nagging little feeling……Do I really have a reservation? WOULD there be a room waiting? I’m a bit of a worry wart, so I worried, until I got to the desk. The clerk’s response was a little different than the normal “Who are you?” It was “Hello, Mr. Nieting! We’re happy to have you here! Your room is ready, you can check in any time you’d like!” I tried to give her my credit card, to which she replied, “Oh, that’s not necessary. It’s been paid for!”
!t doesn’t get better than that, and it’s not because I’m a cheap Lutheran. It is a metaphor for Sainthood….ours….yours and mine! All I could do was accept the gift, and rejoice in being in a place reserved for me by someone else, who had also paid the price so that I could be there! That’s the JOY of ALL SAINTS DAY!
