Oct0ber 27, 2019          Sola Gratia                                           

      Contempt. That’s the word that stood out to me, when I did my bible study of the text this week. So I thought about this for a few days this week, how does contempt separate us from God, and from each other? Let’s start with our lesson today.

       This week we have two people coming before God. The one a Pharisee, one of the more well off in the world, who gives a tenth of all his income, who strictly follows God’s laws, and fasts twice a week. The text says he stands by himself, probably at the front of the temple near the altar, not wanting to sully himself with those sinners, adulterers, or tax collectors near the back. As much as Luke has told us about the Pharisees, we are already ready to not like him very much, but the truth is, the Pharisee is not such a bad guy, by worldly standards. He probably does all that he says, and is a good Jew, and an upstanding member of the community, it’s just that contempt thing he has going on, that has him standing by himself, apart from God, and neighbor.

   The other person, coming before God is the tax collector. Now we all know how most people feel about taxes and those who collect them. But in Jesus day, they were liked even less, after all they were collecting taxes for a foreign power, and they had to take their incomes out of the taxes they collected, some took more, some took less. So the world looked upon them as mostly corrupt, and mostly traitors. Even worse, they had to associate themselves with foreigners on a daily basis, so they couldn’t keep the law, and were considered unclean. The tax collector knows he has not fulfilled the law, so stands at a distance.   

    Now here’s the kicker, it the tax collector who goes home justified. Now most of us have heard these parables of Jesus before, so we are expecting the arrogant Pharisee to be taken down a few pegs, but the tax collector, justified? Really?? Does such sincerity really work with God, forprostitutes, for sinners, for thieves, for traitors, for murderers? And how

about drug addicts, those who beat their spouses or kids, who drink tomuch, or even those who are just incompetent? Can they go home justified, if they sincerely confess their sins before God?? And if they can, what does that mean for us? Are we wasting our time with all this religious stuff? The answer of course to that is NO! we aren’t wasting our time.

In the church calendar, this Sunday is called reformation Sunday, the Sunday where we recall reformers like Martin Luther who said, “God does not need our good works, but our neighbors do.” And oddly enough, our scriptures tell us, love of neighbor is part of what it means to love God. Also, other parts of our scriptures tell us that it is far better for us to be a part of God’s plan, to know God walking beside us in our lives, and to share in the joy of God’s power and presence in our lives. But we can’t do that, without humility – like the tax collector, and we can’t do that with contempt in our hearts towards others – like the Pharisee.  

Contempt in our hearts towards others leads us to do some pretty horrible things. It leads us to ignore the poor – after all, it is their fault they are poor. It leads us to not care about those who are not as “good” as ourselves. It leads us to dismiss the rights of those who are not strangers, foreigners, non-citizen’s and certainly non-Christians. Worse than that, contempt in our hearts can lead us to dismiss coworkers we don’t like, family members who don’t agree with us, leaders who don’t live the life we think they should. Oh yeah, contempt in our hearts can lead us to undermine one another, destroy our relationships, and the social groups in which we live. And finally, of course contempt in our hearts can separate us from God.    

I’m sure that most of us, have at one time or another, experienced someone who dismisses us and our ideas, who are unwilling to help us in a time of trouble, who are always looking to find fault with us. These people are suffering from contempt. But here’s the real question, do we suffer from contempt as well?. Are there people in our lives that we treat that way? People that we ignore or dismiss, that we are looking to find fault with, that we are unwilling to help. Are we, like the Pharisee, separating ourselves from God, because of our contempt for someone in our lives?  And how does that affect our friends, our family, our neighbors, our social groups, and even our church?

Now the title of this sermon is Sola Gratia – it is the doctrine that we are saved by God’s grace alone. It was part of the reformer’s criticism of the Catholic church, which at the time, was telling people that by their good works, on behalf of the church, they would be saved. But it really is a spiritual doctrine of how to set ourselves right with God, first by acknowledging it is only by God’s grace and not our good works that save us, and second by recognizing that it is by God’s grace that others are justified, rather than by our opinions of them. When we can do this, we will act towards one another as God intended, and God will be present with us in our lives. And that is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.