John 8:31-36

Jesus said, to some of the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” They said to him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the house, but the son has a place there forever. So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free, indeed.”

I found myself playing Foosball recently with one of my favorite 9 year-old boys, who shall remain nameless. (It’s questionably for pastors to invoke their own children as sermon illustrations, and even moreso where other peoples’ kids are concerned. So I will refrain.) Anyway, when he asked me if I played foosball, I gave him the same answer I give when someone asks me if I golf or play pool; something like, “I have played foosball, but I don’t play foosball.” Which really just means, I’m terrible at foosball – and golf and pool, for that matter.

But, since he’s one of my favorite 9 year-old boys, I agreed. And, first came the rules. And, since I’ve only played foosball, but don’t play foosball – and as with golf and pool, I’m usually holding a beer in one hand and a pool cue, golf club, or foosball rod in the other – I didn’t know the rules, didn’t think there were, really, rules to foosball, so was utterly at the mercy of my 9 year-old friend, who had LOTS of rules about how to play foosball.

I couldn’t keep track of them all at the time and can’t possibly remember them, now. But there was an “off-sides” rule somehow. And he seemed to have very official-sounding names for very particular offenses and penalties, like “tripping” I think. Maybe “tackling” was another. I was mystified by how little plastic figures, with immovable arms and legs, permanently attached to a metal rod could “trip” or “tackle” anything, but I was in no position of authority to argue with my 9-year old opponent. It was his table, his house, his rules, after all.

There was also a rule about whether my foosball players would, could, or should be upside down or right-side up at particular times. I think some of the foosball players could kick the ball backwards but others could not. I never did get to drop the ball back onto the playing field after a score, either – that was always his job. AND, of course, after I scored a time or two, my favorite 9 year-old seemed to suddenly remember more rules he’d forgotten to tell me about before we started. (I’m certain by the way, that he comes by all of this naturally. See, my favorite nine year-old’s father is a lawyer.)

But I played along, confident that I would and could and should win – no matter how many rules he threw at me – because he’s 9. But, as you might have guessed, I lost that freaking foosball game to my favorite 9 year-old.

And it makes me think about what we’re up to on Reformation Sunday: what Martin Luther was challenging in the Church of his day, and something like what Jesus meant when he talked about being a slave to sin, and about how we could be freed from that kind of bondage.

See, I think God’s people on the planet are called “children” for some very good reasons. Since the beginning of time, we’ve been pretending that the rules can save us. So we’ve messed with the rules – creating our own and breaking God’s – in ways that work to our advantage, in ways that disadvantage others, and in ways that make winners and losers of God’s people. And I think, like my favorite 9 year-old, we’ve convinced ourselves that by fudging the rules, by bending the rules, by making up and massaging the rules for our benefit, by playing by the rules at all – we can come out on top; that we can win, in the end.

In other words, we have convinced ourselves that our best chance for salvation, our best chance at freedom, as Jesus says it this morning, our only hope for victory is wrapped up in the Law of God’s rules.

Which is what people were up to in the days of Martin Luther – back in the 16th Century. They were keeping score with rituals and rules and restrictions and riches. You could pay cash for salvation, by way of something called an Indulgence, for example. The church was acting like a bunch of children, convincing people they could buy their way out of purgatory and into heaven, for the right amount of money. People were told they could make a spiritual pilgrimage or visit a holy shrine to earn favor and forgiveness in God’s eyes. We call this “works righteousness” nowadays – the notion that we can behave our way into God’s good graces.

And all of this made Martin Luther sad. It made him angry. It made him want to change and reform so much of what was happening to God’s Church in the world.

And it wasn’t much different than what was going on in the days of Jesus, either. The followers of Jesus were screwing up even while he was still walking around on the planet. The Pharisees were pointing fingers, the Sadducees throwing stones, the Scribes were scribbling down their rules, and the disciples were doubting that the grace Jesus proclaimed, promised and embodied, could really be true. And the faithful were falling for it.

All of it was about who was right and who was wrong; who was earning God’s favor and who was reaping God’s judgment; who was playing by the rules and who wasn’t; and who may or may not win, in the end.

God’s children were under the impression that following the rules – keeping the Law, at all costs – was the only way to win… the only way to be free …the only way to be saved. And, like me against my favorite 9 year-old, people fell for it – people fall for it – all of the time, thinking they could out-smart it all by following the rules.

But like those people listening to Jesus in this morning’s Gospel, we forget, don’t we? We forget that we have been – and are, still – slaves to Sin, slaves to the rules, slaves to the Law. And as slaves, like our confession reminds us, we cannot free ourselves. There is no amount of rules to follow… there is no correct Law to abide… there is no way, even, to tweak or twist the rules or the Law so that it leads to our victory.

Because we need more than the Law. We need the Son. We need the grace of a God, who isn’t keeping score; who isn’t dangling the rules before us like a carrot; who isn’t twisting the rules so that we’ll keep playing at this thing called FAITH, as though it were a to-do list for some cosmic task-master, rather than a grateful response to a generous God, which our faith is meant to be. We need the grace of a God who already loves us – and who always, always, always will – because we are, indeed, children of God. Nothing more and nothing less.

See, I imagine God watching all of us children – you and me and all of creation, I mean – like my favorite 9 year-old’s parents watched him kick my butt at the foosball table. Smiling and laughing. Not at all surprised. All of us knowing it was never about the rules or the score or the winning or the losing, anyway.

All that matters – God knows, and wants us to believe – is that we’re all set free, each and every one of us. That we all win, in the end. That God holds no grudges – and neither should we – until we learn to live differently and to love more radically and to hope more earnestly, and to play more fairly … for our own sake and for the sake of the world … thanks to the grace that belongs to each of us, that frees every one of us, that makes us all winners, in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen

(…and for the record, I did Google “Foosball Rules” in preparation for this sermon and found nothing about “tripping,” “tackling,” or “off-sides.” And the rules I did learn about were not in my favorite 9 year-old’s repertoire, so I’m totally kicking that 9 year-old’s butt next we play.)

Luke 18:9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I learned this week that Luke, the Gospel writer, has a thing for tax collectors that I never noticed before. Smarter people than me say that Luke – the writer of this morning’s Gospel and the book of Acts – was a physician by trade, so I wonder what his deal was with tax collectors. Maybe he was friends with one. Maybe his brother or his favorite uncle was a tax collector. Maybe a tax collector helped salvage his 401K during a recession, or something. I don’t know. But Luke has a thing for tax collectors.

In Luke’s Gospel, more than the others, Jesus eats with tax collectors and gets the goat of the self-righteous religious leaders of his day because of it. Luke makes a point of Jesus having called Levi, a tax collector, to be one of his disciples and then going to a banquet at Levi’s house with a bunch of other tax collecting so-and-so’s.

And, according to Luke, it’s in response to accusations about all of this – his “eating with tax collectors and sinners,” I mean – that Jesus tells some of his most famous stories about the wideness of God’s mercy: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal Son. And it’s also Luke who tells the story of Zacchaeus, the wee little man and Chief Tax Collector, who falls in love with Jesus, and gives half his possessions to the poor and makes reparations to everyone he’s ever ripped off, because of it.

So, you see, Luke goes out of his way, more than any of the other Gospel writers, to use infamously, stereotypically sinful tax collectors as foils against the proverbially, religiously righteous and faithful Pharisees. Luke loves to paint tax collectors as the unlikely recipients of God’s mercy and blessing; as the archetype of the surprisingly loveable, redeemable reprobate; as the forgivable, forgiven sinners upon which every story of grace could turn; tax collectors, for Luke, are the unexpected examples of obedience and righteousness, goodness and gratitude.

And today’s parable shows us all of those things.

Remember, the prelude to this morning’s parable, as the Bible tells us, is that Jesus was speaking to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” It means he was speaking to people, like the Pharisee in the parable, who were pretty confident that they were on the straight and narrow and who took it upon themselves to judge others who they believed were not. So he tells them that story about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

And it matters that Pharisees and Tax Collectors existed on opposite sides of the social spectrum in Jesus’ day. Pharisees were religious, righteous and “right” about most things when it came to issues of faith and theology – at least as far as most people were concerned. They followed all the rules. They made all the right sacrifices. They read scripture, gave their offering, showed up for worship – and everyone knew it.

Tax collectors, on the other hand were not the most well-liked people in town. And Jewish tax collectors – to other Jews, like the ones listening to Jesus – were seen as puppets of the occupying Roman authority who often took advantage of their power to swindle fellow Jews out of money – some of which they paid to the Romans, and some of which they kept to line their own pockets.

So it would have captured anyone’s imagination to see these two strolling toward the temple, at the same time, to pray. The Pharisee, right and righteous as he was, toots his own horn and thanks God for just how good it is to be a Pharisee. “Thank God I’m not like other people:” he says, “thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” And the Tax Collector, standing somewhere off in the distance, prays just the opposite. Unable even to raise his eyes toward heaven, beating his breast with shame, guilt and remorse, he begs simply for forgiveness, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And I don’t think how or what these two prayed would have been much of a surprise to Jesus’ listeners. Like I said, everyone knew Pharisees did what they were supposed to do, that they followed the rules and towed the line. And everyone knew, too, that tax collectors were sinners and they were probably thrilled to hear of one who felt the weight and shame and guilt of his sins, for a change. But what would have surprised any of Jesus’ listeners – and what I hope surprises us still – is what Jesus has to say about it.

Jesus promises that the tax collector went home justified, forgiven, redeemed, in spite of his sins, and that “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

What the grace of God does in this parable, as always, is it levels the playing field on which the Pharisee and the Tax Collector stand. Not only does it bring down the high and mighty, but it raises up the down and out. It exposes the sinfulness of both men and lets the love of God do the rest. And, since you and I don’t come across Pharisees and Tax Collectors in the same way that we might have back in Jesus’ day, we’re invited to fill their shoes with names and faces that might be a little more familiar and meaningful for how and where we live, now.

Like, maybe we need to see a Republican and a Democrat praying on the steps of the temple.

Or a Christian and a Muslim praying alongside one another.

Or a Lutheran and a Catholic, gathered around the communion table.

Or the Right to Lifer and the Pro-Choice advocate; the Black Lives Matter marcher and the Oath Keeper; the divorcing couple; the warring siblings; the bickering neighbors; the disagreeable co-workers.

If tax collectors, for Luke, represent the proverbially prolific sinners of all sinners, and if the Pharisee is the proverbially sanctimonious, self-righteous saint of all saints, we can fill their shoes with any number of stereotypes from our own day and age; from our own life’s experience; from the cast of characters with whom we live and move and breathe, every day; and we might be able to see ourselves as either one of them, on any given day, when we look in the mirror, too; so that we can be challenged and changed by what Jesus tells us today.

Because I learned a new thing this week that gives all of this an entirely different twist. Bear with me, but someone else smarter than me – a guy named Evan Garner, an Episcopal priest who learned it from a professor and theologian named William Brosend – says that the Greek words that get translated most often in this parable as “rather than” are more likely to mean, “alongside.” And this changes EVERYTHING, people.

Because if that’s the case, Jesus actually says, after all of this drama on the steps of the temple between these two unlikely prayers … these proverbial opposites … that one man “went down to his home justified – not rather than, but alongside – the other.” “…this man went down to his home alongside the other!” “the tax collector went down to his home justified alongside the Pharisee.”

Whether figuratively or literally – (I’m not sure they left holding hands and skipping down the street) – but that Pharisee and that tax collector left the temple together as far as God’s grace and mercy were concerned: each humbled, each exalted, each forgiven, each loved, each redeemed, each transformed by the mercy given them both, by the grace they each counted on, prayed for and trusted would come.

And so can we. And so can “they.” And so will we all be, justified by God’s grace, thanks to the power of Jesus’ promise, in the end, that “all those who humble themselves will be exalted. And all those who exalt themselves will be humbled.”

Amen

Reformation Foosball

Alongside, Not Rather Than