Wednesday, March 3, 2021 – Third Week in Lent

“Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” (Luke 18: 13, The Message Bible)

                 I didn’t intend that my Lenten writings become focused on a theme about worship when I started with Paul’s words out of Romans 12 in the first week of Lent, “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  Yet this seems where I am being led this Lenten season. So be it.

                As I encounter Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, which I suspect is based on a personal experience of something which he may have actually once witnessed happening at the temple, I am pulled towards another of Paul’s important declarations: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23, New Revised Standard Version)

                Do you get that first part of the familiar, oft-used quote? Let me spell it out boldly:  FOR THERE IS NO DISTINCTION. ALL are sinners. That means you and me. But it also means the rich and the poor. It means the pastor and the lay person. It means male and female. It doesn’t matter the colour of your skin or the language you speak. It means the straight or LGBTQ. It means the Prime Minister of Canada and the homeless guy lying in an alley. It means the President of the United States and the woman who runs the gas station in Texas. It means the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu or any other religion. It means the religious and the secular person. Did I mention that it means you and me? There is no distinction – all, everyone – falls short of the glory of God.

          Let’s turn back to Message Bible and read more of this passage:
                There’s nobody living right, not even one,
                        nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
                 They’ve all taken the wrong turn;
                        they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
                No one’s living right;
                        I can’t find a single one.
                Their throats are gaping graves,
                        their tongues slick as mudslides.
                Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
                They open their mouths and pollute the air.
               They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
                        litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
                Don’t know the first thing about living with others.
                They never give God the time of day.”
Ouch!!! To quote the disciples at the Last Supper: “Is it I, Lord?”

                Worship gets lost on the haughty, proud and arrogant. Jesus blesses the poor sinner in this parable over the self-righteous Pharisee. That religious elite may have said and done all the right things but he proudly falls far short of the glory of God. It is the lowly, despised, isolated, ostracized tax collector who gets all the glory and Jesus’ approval: “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.” (Luke 18:14, The Message Bible)

Although healthy, “normal” people surely and rightly may enjoy the fruit of their worship,  my contention is that worship should always be a safe and secure harbour  for the meek, the lost, the confused, the broken, the frightened, the ill, the outcast, the persecuted. Our worship places should be thin spaces between each individual person and the Love of God in Christ; places where one can bare one’s soul, work out their salvation with fear and trembling, and come before God, sins and all, and experience fully the merciful, forgiving, loving presence of God and find his blessing.

“Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.” (Colossians 3: 11, The Message Bible)

 Dale