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01.03.2009_“Backwards faith"_English
| 28.02.2009, 12:32 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 103:1–13; Hosea 2:14–20; 2 Corinthians 3:1–6; Mark 2:13–22 “BACKWARDS” FAITH Hebrew tradition has a story about Prophet Elijah. Tradition has him not only as a prophet but also as a miracle maker. According to one of the stories Elijah walked through town and heard music that came from a big beautiful house. People were feasting there. He turned around and became a man clothed in rags. He knocked on the door but when the owner opened and saw his shaggy appearance, to say the least, he immediately closed the door. After that Elijah turned around again and became a man clothed in the best and most expensive clothes and knocked again. When the owner opened and saw such a respectable person, he welcomed him in immediately. There was a long table set in the house. Elijah came up to it and began stuffing his pockets with food. Guests were watching this stunning sight from a distance. Elijah then stuffed some food under his shirt, poured wine over his shoulder and finally the owner lost patience and asked, “Why do you act so strangely?” “I came to you in rags”, said Elijah, “and you didn’t invite me in. Then I, the same man, came to you in best robes and you welcomed me to the feast. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t me that you invited but my clothes. That’s why I am feeding them and giving them your drinks. Tradition says that guests were very ashamed and looked down. When they lifted their eyes, Elijah was gone. Very often Jesus taught people with such enactment parables and caused the same effect. Our Gospel reading today talks about two disputes that Jesus, on the one hand, responds to with a proverb in a saying and, on the other, with a proverb in action. The first proverb in action was Jesus’ table fellowship with those whom Pharisees would not allow close to themselves: “tax collectors and sinners”. But their judgment of Jesus was preceded by Jesus who saw Levi the tax collector and challenged him to follow Him. Levi was doing his usual business when Jesus called him, he stood at the cross roads and collected taxes for King Herod. You already know that tax collectors were known for their dishonesty and extortion, never had an official “price list” and collected more than was due, ripping off “respectable Jews”. Tax collectors were said to “be interested in money most of all and in righteousness and respect least of all”, so Levi was the least likely candidate to be a disciple of Jesus, the popularity of whom was spreading powerfully. This call alone should have caused godly Jews to wonder about Jesus, who not only called Levi to follow Him but also came to his house and ate at the same table with a bunch of other people like tax collectors and sinners. Eating at the same table then and still now signifies full acceptance and this action of eating with sinners that Pharisees blamed Him for, for Jesus was the parable in action. It’s hard for us to feel the full scope of their accusation. In our modern mindset we think, “well, are not all sinners?” and often label Pharisees to be self-righteous and hypocritical fanatics. But it’s not that easy. First of all, not everybody was considered a sinner those days. Only some people, such as: lepers (leprosy was considered God’s punishment for sin), invalids, the blind, gentiles, Samaritans, tax collectors (because they collaborated with Rome), most of the poor and women that crossed boundaries of decency of that society. It was quite a large group those days and this group was obviously attracted to Jesus. Pious Jews also believed that you had to stay away from sinners, because sin is like a “spiritual infection” which can be caught and fellowship with those people can mar your reputation. Pharisees didn’t lift themselves above others on purpose, they were just trying to keep themselves pure, not to be infected with sin and tries to take seriously the call of God “to be holy as I the Lord Your God am Holy”. They just believed that to keep this commandment one has to stay way from anything that is not holy and pure and so they took seriously the issue of whom to fellowship with and who to stay away from. Sinners had to stay at a distance; they need to be “disinfected” first with repentance and religious rites which will make them acceptable to God and therefore “safe” for fellowship with them. Pharisees believed strongly that God does not accept and forgive sinners. God accepts only the righteous, that is those who keep his law and all the religious rules and stays away from those impure – this theme is common in the Old Testament. Sinners, they believed, are rejected by God and need to be kept at bay from the decent people, lest they contaminate them also. But Jesus intentionally approached sinners and ate with them, wasn’t afraid to be “contaminated” by touching their dishes. It was a parable in action, the purpose of which was to reveal the problem of the Pharisees: THEIR FAITH AND UNDERSTANDING OF GOD WERE BACKWARDS. Before allowing a sinner in their presence they demanded repentance from them, Jesus didn’t demand anything and attracted people to Himself. Pharisees looked down on them, Jesus looked at them as to find and save them. All his actions showed that God didn’t reject sinners, and attracted the righteous ones. God is not the way Pharisees imagined Him: He does not demand that sinner would first become “worthy” and then come to Him. As in the case with Levi, they are acceptable when they are ready to accept the call of Jesus to follow Him. Jesus also supported his actions with a saying: “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” What kind of a doctor will demand from a patient to get well first and then come to visit? As absurd is the “backwards” faith which is based on the premise that before coming to God one has to become “worthy”!!! The same truth we see in the life of prophet Hosea which was also an enactment parable of what God is really like. The Lord told Hosea to marry a prostitute who then bore him three children and left him, yet Hosea was to accept his wife back. This was an illustration of how God acted towards His own people who were unfaithful to Him but He time and again drew them to Himself, accepted them despite their unfaithfulness. We see that “backwards” faith is represented not only by Pharisees but also by the disciples of John. The second accusation again Jesus was this: “why are your disciples not fasting, we all know that truly godly people (for example disciples of John and Pharisees) do fast?” What Jesus responds, though, should not be taken as a rejection of fasting as such, for his words indicate that there are days when it will be appropriate for His disciples to fast. But what is Jesus saying? Fasting was associated those days with several convictions: fear of evil spirits which could be fenced off with fasting; it was a “godly act” which could win God’s favor and redemption from sins, as well as express one’s submission to God. Fasting was also considered the sign of expectation of the Messiah and it’s not that Jesus was considering it unnecessary but He wanted to show that spirituality of those who follow all the rituals (fasting and Sabbath) have become the shackles that burden their life while Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God, forgiveness from sins, fulfillment of the coming glory and thus, TRUE FAITH – is not shackles but wings that let the soul to soar. Believing that fast or any other religious rite makes one more holy, more acceptable to God is that same “backwards” faith, even among the disciples of John the Baptist who were baptized with the baptism of repentance. Jesus illustrates that with a saying: “no one sews to an old garment a patch of new cloth, for the new will tear off the old and the hole will be even worse than before” and “no one pours new wine into the old wine skins for the old stretched skins will not be able to hold the new, expanding wine.” It’s obvious that Jesus’ words are not a lesson in housekeeping; these truths were obvious for his listeners. What Jesus says with these comparisons is that the Kingdom of God that has arrived in the person of Jesus is not compatible with the old religiosity, that true faith is not the same as the “backwards” faith of the Pharisees and John’s disciples. Jesus, however, is saying that to Christians today as well who, on the one hand, profess their faith in Jesus Christ and on the other, are trying live according to the old understanding: believing that to be accepted by God we have to first keep away from those who do not measure up to our standards of spirituality, keeping religious rites with a sense of duty as if we were wearing shackles. This will demonstrate itself especially strongly during Lent in the next weeks. But Jesus didn’t come to mend and fix the faith of the Pharisees or to repair a bit that of John’s disciples. He came because their faith was backwards, He came to totally transform people and give them faith that is true. Don’t think, however, that Jesus simply hang out with sinners and by doing so condoned their way of life. No, He accepted them in order to give them healing and transformation of lives. God calls and accepts people, not dividing them into classes: holy vs. sinners, pure vs. impure, righteous vs. unrighteous. He calls us all with His grace and love in order to “infect with His holiness”. Jesus underlines the great divide between belief that God keeps sinners away from Himself and accepts the righteous; belief that tries to earn access to God and faith in the Good News that God accepts everyone who is willing to come. Jesus demonstrates the difference between religiosity which burdens the soul like shackles and faith that makes one soar in joy! Between belief that first demands change and then accepts and God’s forgiveness that is undeserved, which will totally change our attitude towards life and sanctify us. Someone said, “Other religious are the result of man searching for God, and Christianity – the result of God seeking and accepting man, even the least worthy in the eyes of the worlds”. And as we see towards the end of the Gospel, we all are among sinners and unworthy ones, whom Jesus came to call to Himself, who even out of tax collectors can make His disciples. If was are honest, we’ll admit how often faith of Christians is still “backwards”. Just like Pharisees we keep others away from ourselves if they don’t measure up to our moral norms, or if they are not like us, or in some sense “worse than us”, “less spiritual” than us. We welcome in to our lives and community those who are more like us, who will not disturb our more or less comfortable relationships. We are thankful that God accepted us with His grace, but deep in our hearts we still believe that we are here because somehow we earned that right, while others didn’t. Pharisees strove to be holy, as the Lord called them to be but they were mistaken, because misunderstood the purposes of God. Today God still calls his church to be holy but how are we to fulfill that calling? If God’s holiness is not something that He needs to guard, but “God’s amazing, transforming power” which even turns even tax collectors into disciples of Christ, then the Church should and can have that transforming power of God. How rarely do we see transformed lives of people and how often think that “they will never change.” But may be it’s all because people don’t also see in us “former sinners and tax collectors” who’ve been transformed in to disciple of Christ, but a “Pharisee” who deems himself as somehow “deserving” to be here and us “as hopeless”. Paul calls us “the letter of Christ” and if we truly are Christ’ letter, who do people read in it? Do they read out of our lives that same “backwards faith” and understand from it that before coming to God they need to change and that faith is like uncomfortable shackles that they will need to wear, or even worse, that our live is no different than theirs although we confess Christ… Or have we come to Christ with nothing to offer and having been accepted by Him, bring the Good News to all, without prejudice, not only “leading people to Christ” but “taking Christ to people”. Our life is the only Gospel that some people will every read in their lives. Will our life be really the message of Good News about God or rather pathetic news? Will our life be a testimony that God’s grace first accepts and then can transform anyone willing to accept the invitation? Let’s leave our “backwards” faith in the past and being transformed with the love of our God, become the letter of Christ, the letter of Good News of grace to one another and to others. | |
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