THIS GATE SWINGS BOTH WAYS

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET
The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

THIS GATE SWINGS BOTH WAYS

by Jack D. Sypal

Dateline Jerusalem, May 7, 10:01:10

In court Sunday, Jesus of Nazareth (J.o.N.) responded to charges brought by Mr. I. Seituwel of stealing that man’s identity and life. Representing himself, J.o.N. pled innocent to all counts. In his defense, he offered an alternative scenario, confronting our city’s citizens and visionaries as the perpetrators of the theft. Claiming privilege for sheep and shepherds, J.o.N. protested his innocence while charging the greater part of society as thieves and bandits, raising the issue of, “What is a thief and a bandit?” 


In revealing testimony, the Pharisee, Rabbi Dick Highosooner responded, “Thievery is both active and passive. The active thief compels one to give up their possessions by force. The more clever, passive thief obtains wealth and power by withholding what rightfully belongs to the poorer person or to those who are not able to defend their property and rights from more powerful neighbors. This form of thieving and banditry is usually more profitable because it can be done within the law.”


J.o.N. continued to speak out against the people who made the gift of sight he gave to Seituwel a nightmarish, misanthropic reaction of alienating isolation. Claiming himself to be a gate that swings in to allow entrance of sheep and shepherds, then out to allow shepherds and sheep egress to pasture, J.o.N.  challenged Roman citizens and people of Judea, along with the Pharisees, to examine their place and role among those who have a vision of the Kingdom and their participation in it.


As a gate, J.o.N. stated that it was not his intent “to restrict the movement of those whom he protected, but to provide shelter from the storm, safety from the predators of life, to create a safe place for rest so that the flock under his protection could be equipped to go out into the world for pasture community.”


In reply to Seituwel’s charges, J.o.N. pointed to the crowds, accusing them with, “It is this community of gatekeepers that has put the fly in the ointment, the worm in the apple, the stick in the spokes of the wheel. The gift of sight was to make Mr. Seituwel more accepted, but their actions have eventuated further alienation, causing him unintended and unnecessary loss of communal identity. By their suspicious, doubting, abandoning, and faithless, exclusionary behavior, these people stole his community from him and cast him out with less than he had in the first place.” 


“As gatekeepers, they performed their duties flawlessly. They kept everybody out, even those who should be let in. But the other duty of the gatekeeper is to open the gate for those who would enter. In this duty they failed miserably.
“And, it is in their failed duty that they take greatest pride. In their pride, they demonstrate a kind of latch envy—envy of the power of the bolt to imprison the unsuspecting and secure the status quo thus preventing participation in the fullness of life’s opportunities. There is much more to life than Plato’s dismal cave of shadow verisimilitudes. There may be safety inside the walls, but the fullness of life is known in coming out. A gate is the ultimate trans-state between the when of the past, the now of the moment, and the then of the future.”


Then, almost singing, J.o.N. exclaimed, “I am the gate! I swing both ways! I swing back and forth. In comes the Southern breeze or cold wind from the North. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, and the gate must always be ready to swing in the most advantageous direction for the sake of the sheep and their shepherd. I let the shepherd and the new members of the flock in, and I let the shepherd and the sheep out to feed. I am not a wall that stands fast against the world on the outside while imprisoning those within. I am active in the way to life and growth as well as care and protection.”


In his closing remarks, J.o.N. said, “A gate always leads the way to life. Those who dream of walls only are thieves and bandits seeking personal good at the expense of those contained by walls. They seek to steal, to kill, and to destroy life even crushing the spirit of hope. 


“I am a gate that offers hope always with the promise of abundant life beyond. Don’t you know? The grass is always greener on the other side, and the gate gets you there.”

There, But for the Grace of God, Go I Luke 18:9-14

Bradley Hanson in his book, Introduction to Christian Doctrine, says that how we think about God shapes and determines what we think about God. In a like manner, I believe that how we think about prayer shapes and determines what we pray. If prayer is to be a public event, then the language of the prayer may be very formal. We hear these prayers in our worship service in the prayer of the day, the offertory prayer, the prayers of the people, and the prayers contained in the Eucharist. These prayers have various functions, but the language is pretty formal and may use metaphors and similes to call forth emotional and psychological energy for worship. If prayer is about speaking justice, then the language may be challenging and abrasive to the ears of those who hear those pleas while evoking God’s empathy and care. If prayer is our personal conversation with God throughout the day, prayer may sound a lot like how we talk to our friends and may contain utterances of thanks, amazement, cries for help, assistance, spiritual strength, and forgiveness.

How we think about prayer even determines the frequency of praying. If prayer is a public thing, then we may not pray more often than once or twice a month, maybe weekly. If prayer is about crying for justice, depending on how satisfied you are with your life, you may only pray once or twice a year. But if prayer is a conversation with God, then you may be praying constantly even with base and common words. A professor I knew once said that within the most profane oath lies a prayer for help. Again I want to say, how we think of prayer shapes and determines what we pray.

If last week’s text was about the need to pray always without losing heart, then this week’s text is teaching us how to think about prayer and what to pray for. Let us first recognize the relationship between these two parables. Last week we heard about the judge that was not just, that is unrighteous, who does not fear God nor respects people. Yet because he thinks highly of himself, he grants justice (righteousness) to the widow who threatens to make him look bad in public.

This week, in another parable told at the same time, Jesus tells us of a Pharisee who has convinced himself that he is justified (righteous) by his own works, and, because of these great works that he has done, he is more important than the people around him. He regards those who are not like him as literally being nothing, of no value, not worth thinking about. Those other people are so far from him socially that he doesn’t even stand with the other person; he stands by himself. He is so self-satisfied that, when he prays, he begins with thanking God that he is not like those other disgusting people.

The first of the list of people that the Pharisee does not want to be like are thieves. The word in Greek is more than stealing, it carries with it the sense of rapacious people or animals like wolves that tear at the flesh that they eat until they are so utterly sated they may vomit their food and leave it in order to eat more; or, more often, after vomiting their food, they will eat it again. They take and consume because they can, not out of need. Thieving at another level includes people who have more than what they need while others do not have enough. Thievery here is not actively taking something from another, but it includes withholding what our neighbor needs when we have plenty.

The second group of people are described as rogues. The word in Greek literally means unjust or unrighteous. Merchants who don’t use accurate weights for weighing or maybe put their thumb on the scale to add a little weight for a little more money are unrighteous. Bankers who charge interest and especially high interest are unrighteous. Anyone who misrepresents themselves or their work or people who do not care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor are unrighteous.

The third group are adulterers. Biblically speaking adultery is unfaithfulness to one’s spouse, but, in our relationship with God, adultery can mean putting trust in someone or something other than Godself. As a matter of fact, adultery is much more often cited as being the behavior of Israel consorting with other gods and nations than it is used for the relationship between a man and a woman. In terms of last week’s story, it is not revering or fearing God.

The last and lowest category that the Pharisee is thankful he is not like is the tax collector, the one responsible for money flowing from the masses to those in charge. Now in Jesus’ time, the job of being tax collectors was particularly difficult. They represented the government or the ordering body. When the Roman government decided it needed a certain amount of money to be raised in various parts of the empire, that is, the people were to be taxed, the governing bodies of the various parts of the empire would decide where that money was to come from. Then they got a person to collect the taxes from the designated people, but they did not provide for the salary of the tax collector. If the tax collector only collected what was demanded, he might starve so, of course, he had to collect more than what the empire and governing bodies wanted. By collecting the money from the people and delivering it on time to the people above him, peace was maintained in the empire. But, if the flow of tax money was interrupted, the full weight of the Roman government could come down on any given province.

To make taxes more complicated, the Roman government was not the only entity collecting money. The temple also taxed the people through the tithe, which was a temple tax. The temple too believed in a trickle up-economy. Governors also taxed the people for local building projects and urban improvements. Lastly, the land owners taxed the farmers on their produce from the land. Today we would call it share cropping, but it was a tax none-the-less. The assessed tax could be as high as 80%.

Each of the taxes was based on the gross amount that the people made. By taking 10% here and 10% there, by the time the poorest people paid for their food and clothing, there was often not enough to go around. To not pay the tax was to be jailed and die, but paying the tax also often meant that starvation and even death were nearby. Land and home would be sold first. Even children, your spouse, and your very person might need to be sold into slavery in order to pay the money needed. In the sense of an hour glass, the tax collector was the one responsible for the sand flowing up instead of down. No wonder he was detested.

It is not enough to the Pharisee to be thankful for not being like those other no-accounts though; he needs to state why he is better than those others: he fasts twice a week and he gives 10% of all that he acquires. This then is his case of being righteous.

Biblically speaking, however, righteousness is not an individual state. Righteousness depends on the life of the neighbor. If the Pharisee lives in comfort, but his neighbor lives in poverty, then Biblically he cannot be righteous because his comfort is at the expense of someone else. If the Pharisee is living in comfort, and his neighbors are suffering and in poverty, then Biblically he is stealing from them; he has broken his relationship with them. The Pharisee has chosen to serve himself and has not trusted God for what he needs; he has taken from others for his own sake and not served God and his neighbor—he has become a thief, a rogue, an adulterer, and, yes, a tax collector.

He may be fasting twice a week, but we all know that only the well-fed can fast. The poor and the starving call it, “We have no food.” When it comes to taxes, the wealthy may give 10% of what they receive, but when you receive nothing, paying taxes is not possible because there is no money. You might call it, “being broke”.

As last week the unjust judge cared nothing for God, so now we see that the Pharisee does not trust in God. He trusts in himself. He thinks that prayer is about elevating himself over others rather than lifting up the people around him.

We compare the Pharisee to the lowly tax collector who is far off and cannot even bring himself to look up to heaven praying. His prayer is that God would be merciful or have compassion, that is, would suffer with him in the midst of his life. Jesus says this one was made righteous. What makes him righteous or justified is that the tax collector asks or begs God to be in relationship with him. As the widow begs for a relationship of equity, so now the tax collector prays for a relationship of understanding and love with God.

Although we too long for this relationship of understanding and love, not only with God, but with one another, there are times in our lives when we run to the place of the Pharisee. How often have I heard, even said, “There, but by the grace of God, go I!” In saying these words, we separate ourselves from the event even while recognizing that we might have been there or done that ourselves, but, thank God, our actions did not result in calamity—we were not caught. “There, but by the grace of God, go I!” does not mean we are somehow better by our actions, but we believe that a better outcome resulted because God favored us more. Now we look more and more like the Pharisee.

Poverty is not that far away for the average American family which is only two paychecks from not being able to pay the bills. In worship we pray, “We offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us--ourselves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love.” But when we leave worship, we may separate ourselves from the people who can’t pay their bills anymore, saying, “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” We like to think that God has favored us because of our hard work. We think that we are responsible for creating the world around us as if God’s creative work stopped on the sixth day of creation. In so many ways, we, as a society, say “We’ve got ours, the heck with the rest of you—you who can’t find jobs that pay a living wage, you who are starving in war-torn countries; you whose homes have been taken away by cartels and people who only think about their own wealth and power.

We thank God for our own lives of privilege and wonder at the chances that might lead to us living in those conditions of disaster in Haiti and say, “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” How much harder our prayer lives might be if we, with the tax collector, said, “Have mercy on us sinners, Lord, for we have so much and there are so many that have so little. Help us to share the abundance of your creation. Help us lift up the lowly, and let us be humbled in your presence and the needs of all that you have created good.”

How we think of prayer really does determine and shape what we pray. Being in relationship with God and one another, we pray that all may know God’s presence and that all people will have respect, re-spect, that is, be seen again. We pray that we may engage and honor the people that God has given us to welcome in God’s kingdom on earth, anticipating God’s rule as it is in heaven, with daily bread for all and forgiveness of sins. In this state of God’s abundance and forgiveness, we then are able to forgive as we have been forgiven and are saved from the trial that would judge our works alone. Lord. save us from ourselves, and, in your loving arms, deliver us from evil. Indeed, your kingdom, your power to save, and your glorious resurrection are what will last forever.

It is in this relationship of forgiveness that we know relationship with God and one another that continues to sustain us, and so we rejoice in those words of help and hope:

“In the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for us, and for Christ’s sake, God forgives us all of our sins. Therefore, by Christ’s authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins; in the relationship of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

There, in the grace of God, we go.