Grateful for All the Wrong Things | October 23, 2022 Sermon

Over and over, Scripture calls us to give thanks to God. Starting this week, I’m doing a five week series “Grateful For…” on gratitude, exploring the gifts God has blessed us with, and practicing giving thanks.

We begin this week with the topic, “Grateful for All the Wrong Things,” looking at a story of a man who appeared to be grateful to God, but who in fact totally missed the point of what God was doing for him. This week’s Scripture readings are Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22; Psalm 84:1-8; and Luke 18:9-14. I found helpful Laura Suggs’ essay in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4; as well as Mark Osthus’ GodPause devotionals for October 20, 2022, and October 21, 2022.

Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the audio from Christ the King.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen

As I said, this week we’re starting a five-week series on gratitude. We all know Christians are supposed to be grateful to God. We’re supposed to give thanks for the blessings God has given us.

In the parable we just heard, Jesus introduces us to a character who ought to be a great example for us. He’s a Pharisee, and I know the word “Pharisee” doesn’t really have a positive connotation.

We think of Pharisees as rule bound, hypocritical, judgmental, the “holier-than-thou” super-religious folks. Some of that actually comes from this parable, but if you don’t know where Jesus is going, if you were one of his original hearers, you’d probably have a different impression.

Pharisees are the people who take their religion seriously, people who are doing their best to follow God’s commands. These are the people who come to church every week and give faithfully. So, it makes sense there’d be a Pharisee going to the temple to pray.

His prayer starts out well enough, right? “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you…’” Those four words are basically the point of these next five weeks. It is good to give thanks to God! There are so many things he could have said that would have been good, so many things for which we can and should thank God!

And yet, this guy manages to completely miss the point of giving thanks. He prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

Like I said, Pharisees take their religion seriously. Tithing is great! Fasting is a fine spiritual practice! The problem is this guy is giving thanks for the wrong things. His prayer of thanks isn’t humble gratitude; it’s a boast. He’s basically thanking himself, rather than God!

Meanwhile, the other guy in the story, the tax collector, is publicly the exact opposite of the Pharisee. Pharisees are reputable, upper-class citizens.

Tax collectors are not, and it’s more than just that no one ever likes dealing with the IRS. To be a tax collector in the Israel Jesus’ day means being a collaborator with the Roman Empire. Most people would see this guy as a traitor, a greedy opportunist.

No one who’s respectable wants to associate with tax collectors. Well, nobody except for Jesus, who spends a lot of time with tax collectors and prostitutes and similar rough folk. He really is a friend of sinners. We’ll hear another story about Jesus and a tax collector in next week’s Gospel reading.

But this tax collector has little to boast of. He has also come to the temple to pray, but his attitude is totally opposite of the Pharisee’s. He doesn’t boast about how faithful and righteous he is; instead he cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Next week, we’ll be marking Reformation Day and we’ll talk about the good Lutheran theme of how we are saved by God’s grace through faith, not by works. We can’t earn our way to heaven; we depend on God’s grace. That’s Lutheranism 101.

This tax collector lives by as good of a Lutheran theology as any of us. He knows he’s a sinner. He knows he needs God’s grace; he can’t make it on his own.

Now, Jesus doesn’t tell us why exactly this guy considers himself a sinner. Maybe it’s the tax collecting thing, although Jesus doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by that as some others do. But something has led this guy to the temple to pray this prayer.

What is it that leads us to ask for God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness? For many people, a true realization of God’s mercy comes when we reach rock bottom, when we realize the impossibility of ever climbing out of the hole our sin has dug. Maybe that’s the tax collector’s situation. Maybe he’s been hit by the magnitude of his sin, how much he’s separated himself from God.

But all of us, including the Pharisee, including those of us who are professional church workers, including those of us who show up every week to worship and read the Bible every day, all of us are sinners, just as much as this guy.
Jesus tells this parable as a call for us to open our eyes and recognize that everything we have is a gift from God. He calls us to recognize the truth of our sinfulness, the truth that without God, we’re already stuck at rock bottom, and God’s the only one holding us up, supporting us.

If we can recognize the honest truth about who we are and who God is, then we’ll find some humility. When we realize what God has done for us, that all is undeserved gift, we’ll join the tax collector in saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

When we realize our very lives depend on God, we can give thanks for the right things, what really matters, rather than trying to take credit for what God has done so we can lift ourselves above others.

Self-help psychologists say you should be positive about who you are. And that positive self-talk can be important. You are created good. Your life is worth living. You are an important part of this community. You are a precious child of God.

And at the same time, you are a sinner. You owe everything to God’s mercy. You are who you are because of God, because God loves you. God refuses to leave any of us in our sin; God insists on getting involved and redeeming us.

You should be positive about who you are because of who God is, and because of what God has done for you. Jesus gave his life for you! Affirmations should include humility, honest recognition of my sinfulness, and gratitude that God has not left me alone in my sin.

One of the stranger things about our worship services—well, there are many strange things about what we do on Sunday mornings, communion being first and foremost, but that’s a different sermon—one of the stranger things about our worship is that when we get together as a church, almost the very first thing we do is confession.

We use different words, but they usually involve some form of saying, “I’ve done something wrong, and I’m sorry for doing it, or for not doing the things I should have done. I messed up. I am a sinner. Please forgive me, God.”

Here’s the thing: God knows we are sinful. God is well aware of all the things we’ve done wrong, much more aware of it than we are. And God has already forgiven us. It’s happened. Jesus died on a cross 2,000 years ago to pay the price for our sin and put sin’s power to death. God did that. It’s done. You are forgiven.

So why do we start with confession? It doesn’t seem very visitor-friendly, to say, “Hi, welcome to worship, we’re so glad you’re here! Now, repeat after me: I am a dirty, rotten sinner.”

We begin with confession because we slip really easily into thinking we’re somehow special, not like those sinners over there. Sure, Jesus died for me, but I was almost there on my own. I probably would have been pretty close, certainly closer than some others.

We confess in order to be honest, honest about our situation, and about the magnitude of the gift God has given to us. This honest humility is the opposite of self-improvement – it’s letting God improve you, relying solely on God.

Look at the humility of the people in the first reading from Jeremiah. Verse 20: “We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord…for we have sinned against you.” The first step is admitting we have a problem, right? The people confess their sin, throwing themselves on God’s mercy. Our iniquities testify against us, so God, please forgive us.

And God is merciful. God forgives. That’s why Jesus came. God does what we could never do, and makes us righteous. And we respond with gratitude. Rather than regarding others with contempt, when we realize we too are forgiven, we regard others as beloved children of God.

Not only that, God gives us all the blessings of life, family, friends, food, shelter, freedom, health, and all the good things of creation.

Not because of our fasting, or our giving, or whatever else we do, not because we’ve earned it, but because God is good and generous and forgiving. All is a gift.

Luke says Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. The truth that we are among the sinners for whom Jesus died ought to shape how we treat others. You and I don’t get to hold ourselves up as better than others, because we’re not. We’re all in the same boat. We are all sinners, broken people in need of forgiveness, lost causes in need of God’s grace.

Having the humility to see that truth changes how we treat others. Martin Luther once said, “The most dangerous sin of all is the presumption of righteousness.” Thinking we are righteous—thinking we’ve got it all together, we’ve earned salvation—sets us up to judge others.

We might not be praying “Thank you God that I’m not like that tax collector” but what about “Thank you God that I’m not like those idiots in the other political party who don’t understand your will for our nation”?

What about “Thank you God that I’m not like that poor man on the street corner because I’ve gotten a good job and worked hard”?

What about “Thank you God that I put in the effort to work on my health and therefore don’t have to worry about that disease”?

Somebody, maybe Teddy Roosevelt, wisely said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Jesus says, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Let us give thanks to God for the many blessings God has given us, not in comparison to others, but out of gratitude.

Let us build each other up, seeing and treating each other as forgiven, redeemed sinners, rejoicing with those who rejoice, celebrating and sharing God’s blessings.
Amen

Read other sermons in this series:Grateful for God’s Grace and Grateful for All the Saints.