You've Got to be Carefully Taught

It is impossible for us  to have grown up without “preconceived notions” of people, places and things. From the time we are born we are surrounded by visual and auditory signals that influence the way we view our world. In time these “prejudices” are tempered by our intellect and personal convictions and we either accept or reject preconceived judgments and opinions. And so it is in the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19: 1-10). In this Gospel Luke really exaggerates the stereotype of the despised man in the community to make a point: Zaccheaus (let’s call him “Z”), was rich; a chief tax collector, and he was short (?). In the shame-based culture of his time, being a tax collector was tantamount to being a traitor. The tax collector was expected to “extort” money from his people and turn it over, minus his commission, to the Roman oppressors. As Luke referenced his height, my guess is that Z was probably shorter than most people of his time. In any case, we can understand why Luke’s audience would to rush to judgment.

In the beautiful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, the song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” characterizes how “inherited” racial prejudice and intolerance can destroy relationships. On the other hand, they can be overcome by understanding and love. In that play Lieutenant Cable describes how his Philadelphia blue-blood upbringing has caused him to retreat from his love for the Tonkinese girl, while Nellie, the young nurse from Little Rock, cannot accept the fact that the man she loves had fathered inter-racial children.

Z knew who he was and knew what he had done. He saw shame in the eyes of his community and was quite happy to be concealed. There are those among us who are naturally drawn to the promise of healing and wholeness but instead opt to “hide up a tree” because they are among the disenfranchised and not a part of the in-crowd. Like Z, it’s safer for them to look from a distance than risk shame or embarrassment.

In keeping with Luke’s familiar surprise endings and his unlikely heroes, Jesus called Z out and “invited himself” to his home. In turn, Z immediately responds and repents, at which point the story reverts to the crowd that demonizes a person it doesn't like based upon its pre-conceived notions and prejudice.

Nancy Rockwell writes “what Jesus treasures in the despised is their ability to hang on, to survive with part of their own humanity intact, despite the way they have been treated by the world. This part of themselves becomes their shining light, becomes the window of their soul and a lighted path for all out souls…They are here to show us how to keep going in deep darkness, how to survive the bullies, how to have hope in mean times…No wonder, then, that we celebrate the saints in the dark of the year, a time they understand well, a darkness in which they shine.” (The Bite in the Apple).

Seeing is Believing, or is it?

After all these months with Luke, we’re pretty sure we have a bead on his message, but do we? Look how we wrestled with trying to understand the characters in last week’s Unjust Judge and the Persistent Widow. Can we assume that the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14 will be the predictable villain? Beware of Luke’s red herring. We know that Luke was writing to an elite audience whose rigorous adherence to the law revealed its position in society. We’ve learned that when we try to make a “black and white” distinction as to who's "in" and who's "out," as this parable implies, we can be fooled. God’s doesn’t operate in the black and white of life; that’s for those who subscribe to “conventional wisdom.” Life’s challenges are usually not black and white and God tends to meet us in our difficult “grey zones.” Once we fall prey to the temptation that divides humanity into groups, we have squarely aligned ourselves with the Pharisee.

This parable is not about self-righteousness and humility any more than it is about a pious Pharisee and desperate tax collector. Rather it’s about God…who alone can judges and “justifies.” Judgment is based on man’s rule of law and is subject to human interpretation and bias. God is all about Justice. 

 David Steindl-Rast writes in Deeper Than Words that Justice is rooted in love not law…and is not a matter of imposing strict laws like a cookie cutter on flattened dough. No God’s rule is more like the yeast in the dough, and works from within.

Justify does not mean punishing but setting things right. This story is at the very heart of the good news. God knows us better than we do ourselves and accepts us just as we are.

This story is at the very heart of the good news. God sees all about us, and knows all about us—good and bad--and accepts us as we are.

Out of the Depths I Cry Out to You Lord

 

Throughout our readings of Luke we encounter several widows that Jesus selects as the focus for his parables. These women are always depicted as especially vulnerable since without a family, or means of support or any prospect of marriage, they were marginalized by society and with little hope for survival. Yet, despite their vulnerability, Jesus portrays these women as people of remarkable determination, strength and faith. I realize widows provided unique opportunities for Jesus to illustrate his point with his audience; however, I wonder as I reflect, that if over the centuries, in our male dominated world and our social and religious institutions, we didn’t overlook a point that Jesus was making as to the equality of women and by extension their inclusivity? In every case these Biblical characters demonstrate more than enough resolve and strength to make the case for our re-examining these stories from the perspective of gender equality that can challenge our institutional hierarchies and the role of women as leaders. Perhaps, I am out of my element here and ill-equipped to adequately deal with the social issues regarding gender inequality and return to the real point of our lesson, but I introduce it here as food for thought and the subject of another conversation. Yet, I still can’t help but wonder, what is the real point? 

Ok, back to our “lesson.” The widow in our current parable (Luke 18:1-18) is persistent, active, and forceful enough to get the justice she demands even from an utterly unjust judge, who finally is, by implication, included among the “chosen ones of God.” While the parable is framed by references to prayer and faith, the emphasis is on justice and how it figures into the confrontation between the vulnerable justice-seeker and the unjust power-broker. The powerful and just God takes the place of the unjust judge in the end, granting justice to his vulnerable, chosen ones who cry out to him day and night. 

We are told that there is only one other use of this term chosen one in Luke. And this reference is reserved for Jesus who while on the cross, is mocked by the religious leaders as “God’s chosen one.” These so-called leaders, like the unjust judge in the parable, inadvertently get it right in spite of themselves. Jesus, the chosen one cries out from the cross as he petitions the Father and commends his spirit to him and breathes his last. (Meda Stampler Working Preacher.org, 10/13) 

Finally the parable leaves us with a question that resonates beyond the cross and tomb and the resurrection: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” We find part of the answer in past Gospels in which a number of people are commended for their faith: the centurion who believes Jesus will heal his slave, even from a distance; the sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet and loves much; friends of the paralytic who are willing to dig through a roof; the bleeding, unclean woman who dares to touch Jesus’ cloak in the crowd and is healed; the Samaritan leper, whose gratitude takes him back to Jesus where he falls at his feet in thanksgiving, and the blind beggar later in this chapter who sees Jesus for who he is and cries out to him.  

So the answer to the rhetorical question appears to be that the we will find faith, but it may be in uncharacteristically unexpected places with unlikely vulnerable people, as it has been in our readings and among the outsiders; the despised; the unclean; the ones certain of their sinfulness and not among the religious professionals or those certain of their own righteousness. Perhaps the lesson suggests that the willingness to persist in prayer despite all odds, as the widow did, is the faith we seek.

Looking and Seeing and Believing

 Ten is a number of completeness. Ten lepers approached Jesus. They kept their distance. That was the rule for lepers. They were unclean, and therefore considered separated from God and society. In our gospel (Luke 17:11-19), the lepers were all cleansed by Jesus. However, only one of the lepers returns and in thanksgiving, prostrates himself at Jesus' feet.

Andre Prior writes that true completeness or wholeness comes from recognizing God's presence in Jesus. The Samaritan returned and praised God, but also recognized God’s working through Jesus, as the reason for Jesus declaring the man’s “wholeness.” 

In a very real sense, true worship comes about when we recognize the active presence of God in our midst. In keeping with Jesus’ “radical” penchant for keeping us off balance and not following expected patterns, this story is deliberately subversive. Lepers were not very respectable, and Samaritans were despised by many if not all Jews of the day. Lepers were unclean, feared and anyone having anything to do with them would be considered as cut off from God in the eyes in Jewish law. 

In some ways we can see a continuum in Luke’s theme as this story may be is reminiscent of past gospels and our recent discussions of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son (Luke 15). In a sense, the Samaritan leper is akin to the lost sheep and is incomplete and lost without the other ten. And in some way the Samaritan leper in Jesus’ time may be considered a metaphor for the Muslim of our time. How much does our despising or fearing others prevent us from being made whole, or even being saved? 

In this light, this story serves as an invitation to believers -- then and now -- to recognize that what we see makes all the difference. Do we see danger or opportunity in the face of adversity? In the face of the stranger, do we see a potential enemy or friend? And it goes further. When we look to God, do we see stern judge or loving parent? When we look to ourselves, do we see failure or beloved child? When we look to the future, do we see fearful uncertainty or an open horizon? There is, of course, no right answer to any of these questions. How we answer depends upon what we see. Yet how we answer dramatically shapes both our outlook and our behavior.

Worship is not simply about hearing God's story or even praising God in response; rather, hearing and discussing the story helps us see God at work in our lives and the world. This is the key to the Christian life as we are called simply to see...and to help others do the same.

At the outset of this story, ten men are live "between regions" in a "no-man's" land of being socially, religiously, and physically unclean. By the end of the story, all ten are made well. But one has seen Jesus, recognized his blessing and rejoiced in it, and changed his course of action and behavior. And because he sees what has happened, the leper is not just healed, but is made whole, restored, drawn back into relationship with God and humanity. In all these ways he has been, if we must choose a single word, saved.What is true stewardship, worship, and Christian living? It is the tenth leper turning back. For now as then, seeing makes all the difference.

Adapted from Andrew Prior and David Lose, The Text This Week, Luke 17:11-19, 2013