Just how do we keep the Sabbath Holy?

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

 Geoffrey Piper's Sermon on August 25, 2013

Today's gospel shows us two different approaches to observing the Sabbath:

We compare the leader of the synagogue with Jesus of Nazareth.

Let’s give the leader the credit due him. The leader of the synagogue is half right.

To our generation of Americans, who, like the desperadoes in the Treasure of Sierra Madre, declare:

“We don’t need no stinking Sabbath!”... The synagogue leader is telling us the truth. We rightly need to observe a break in our work routine to reconnect with God, with our nearest loved ones, and with our own hearts.

We should all be sure that we engage with God in a systematic pattern and rhythm of life, ceasing from being productive in our worldly tasks, putting down our tools, gathering, remembering God’s place in our lives, looking into one another’s eyes, celebrating all that God does to make us new.

Jesus is right: the Sabbath is not about being self-consciously inert, and a self-appointed critic of all others around us who are not as mindful of our meticulous inertia as we might be.

A grandmother took her toddler grandson to the beach one summer day. While gram settled on her beach chair, little Rupert toddled down to the water’s edge. A sudden wave broke over the sand, knocking the little fellow over, and dragging him out into the deep water. Grandma screams, and prays passionately to God to save her grandson. An instant later, another large wave tosses the boy back onto the sand, where Gram scoops him up and clutches him to herself. She looks the toddler over, then looks back into the heavens and declares, “He had a hat, you know…”

What is it about us that refuses to see the good and glorious, but insists on finding fault? We encounter this trait at work: a creative advertising agent wins the big contract for his agency, and the boss notes that it took a couple of days longer than he would have wished. We see it in our families: the diligent student brings home four A’s and a B on the report card. The critical parent withholds congratulations for the A’s and accuses the child of shoddy study habits in bringing home the B. And obviously, as today’s gospel story recounts, we see it in a religious community. New parishioners joining the church may be ignored by long-standing members in the pews, but the office staff will hear the complaint from the veteran member about the kind of pretzels served for Sunday School snack.

Wouldn’t you think the ruler of the synagogue might have been pleased with Jesus’ ad hoc healing? Might he not have recognized the good work of God right before his eyes? After all, the rest of the crowd, we’re told, was rejoicing at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing.

So what’s with this gloomy Eeyore? Why won’t he join the party? And more to the point, what prevents any of us from rejoicing--or enables us to rejoice--at all the wonderful things God might be doing in our midst day to day? Let’s look at two religious hazards, Convention and Control. And then let’s consider the power of Compassion to carry the day.

One of the occupational hazards of the religious life is that we can worship convention. The rules, directions, and ceremonies that are meant to lead us to fellowship with God can become ends in themselves. Perhaps the ruler of the synagogue didn’t want his conventional plan for the Sabbath Day service interrupted or upstaged by this itinerant guest rabbi. He understood that the commandments, along with the footnotes of the lawyers and teachers, were at the heart of Israel’s covenant with God. He couldn’t see beyond the sets and props of the faith to the central drama of the faith.

 It’s easy for us, in the Christian liturgical worship tradition, to think that we have fulfilled all righteousness by simply going to church and reading the words of the prayer book. In churches with great liturgical ceremonies, it is possible to focus so much on the performance of the worship leaders, their clothing, and their ceremonial manners that we miss connecting with God and refreshing our collective spiritual fellowship.

The prophet, Isaiah, warns of the danger of honoring God with our lips when our hearts are far from him. A good remedy for this is in our prayer of thanksgiving from the morning prayer rite. The prayer asks God to help us to demonstrate a genuine faith, genuine gratitude, and an authentic life of service. I love the passage:

“…we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, (in other words, make us deeply mindful and appreciative of all you have done for us)

that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful (not merely an outward verbal show, but springing  from a truly grateful heart);

and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days…”

So we, worshiping Episcopalians, have to find ways to invest our oft repeated texts with focused souls, attentive minds, and sincere hearts, looking for intimate communion with the Lord to whom our words are addressed.

A second impediment to celebrating the works of God is our own desire to remain in control of our activities. The synagogue ruler is described as “indignant” that Jesus introduced a new element to the Sabbath worship service. It wasn’t in the script. Why couldn’t Jesus just do his healing spectacle somewhere else, at some other time? Another possible indicator at the ruler’s threatened sense of control is seen in that he kept on addressing the crowd with his protest. He is seeking support for his point of view. He wants a following. He seems to be afraid that the crowd’s celebration of Jesus’ action will mean a loss of support for his program.

Are we susceptible to the control hazard?

Let’s see… How might we feel if, after a sermon, the priest spontaneously invited married couples to come forward to meet with prayer leaders to clear away their accumulated relational debris, and vocally forgive one another for all that was past?

Or if a prayer leader spontaneously asked us to take the hand of the person next to us, and to lift our personal prayer requests to God?  We squirm, don’t we, at the thought that a worship experience might draw us out of our private, predictable, controlled spheres into an unscripted, corporate dance with God’s Holy Spirit.

If you’re at all like me, there is a little inner dialogue within that says, “Wouldn’t that be something?”... and simultaneously, “Don’t you dare mess with our dependable little liturgy.”

How did Jesus pray? “Not my will, but yours,” good Lord. What if we prayed, “Come among us, almighty God, with your power and compassion.”

Isn’t that what consistently motivates Jesus to act, Sabbath day or weekday, in a crowd or one-on-one?  Compassion…

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things…”

Trying to get away by himself to rest,  Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

He encounters a man afflicted by leprosy, in Mark 1:41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man…"Be clean!"

Jesus comes across two blind beggars...   Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes.

The power of Jesus’ compassion--his determined, irrepressible love for friends, strangers, fellow Jews and unaffiliated Gentiles—consistently overrides social convention and the religious customs of his day. He is resolute. If he has the power to make someone’s life whole, or to deliver another from any kind of bondage, or to make God’s power and mercy visible, he does the good thing. He is criticized for it as often as he is cheered; he is blamed for grandstanding and misbehaving as often as he is praised for revealing God’s love. He doesn’t take any public opinion polls before he acts with compassion.

In our worship, in our fellowship, in our service to one another, our community, and the world, can we dethrone convention and control when they hinder Christ’s compassion? Can compassion spark our courage, and then guide our actions in Christ’s name and power? I hope, pray, and trust that we will do this because we see the blessed rightness of it.

So I pray: Good God, help us to see and to seize every opportunity to release one another from what pins us down. Renew your Spirit, and instill your compassion in these hearts of ours, and in our ministry together, for the glory of your name. Amen.

Should someone teach Jesus some better manners at the dinner table?

Geoffrey Piper's sermon on September 1, 2013

Amphicar of America, the West German built boat-car, utilized an English Triumph engine. Truly an international vehicle, these cars were produced from 1961 to 1969. The majority of the cars were imported to the United States. The Amphicar drives up and down the road, turns at the intersection, parks at the A&W Root Beer drive in… But it also sachets, calm as you please, down the beach and into the water, and floats like a duck.

Christianity is not merely a religious faith that takes our flesh and blood and adds the refining touches of good sense and good manners…  It is not just a stylish touch-up, but a new creation, introducing God’s own indwelling presence, God’s Spirit, into the heart of our being. True religion, from the Christian perspective, is one that recreates us as human embodiments of divine wisdom and compassion.

“Increase in us true religion…” No matter what religious tradition we come from, we could probably agree that religion that genuinely expresses the true nature, purpose and power of God should be increased among us.

[We’re right, I believe, to question religious expressions that seem to be mere extensions of human pride, self-centeredness, intolerance, and which foster attitudes of superiority. We’re right to challenge anyone’s religious rationales for violence, or that lead toward derision of those considered to be infidels or “outsiders.”  If, as Christians believe, there a God of love, mercy, and compassion, then we can confidently pray to God, asking for more of these traits to be manifest in and among us.]

This premise might help us to understand what today’s lessons are showing us.

Jeremiah is asking the nation of Israel, for rhetorical effect--like a parent who has just caught a child doing something really stupid--“What were you thinking?” He describes them as people who have pursued worthless aims, and who, in the process, have become worthless themselves. It’s a pretty harsh indictment.

Jeremiah traces a vivid image, comparing two different sources of water necessary for survival in that dry area. Jeremiah describes the providence of God as a “fountain of living water,” which the people of his day have exchanged for Gods of their own invention. By comparison, the people’s misdirected devotion is compared to cisterns the people have built for themselves: flawed, cracked, and unfit to fulfill their intended purpose. The agonized appeal of God is “Why would you forsake the real thing--the God who delivered, saved, and provided for you-- for a false, ridiculous substitute, and one that doesn’t work? Why would you adopt a false faith after having experienced my care at first hand?”

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews similarly wants the people to offer God the real deal. He enjoins the integrity of right belief and good conduct. The basis for both right belief and good conduct is a vibrant, deep reliance on God’s presence and power. True religion must be rooted in this larger life of the Spirit, and not in our own natural preferences for self-serving conveniences and conventions. Not my will, but thine…

And that brings us to Jesus’ seemingly inexplicable behavior as a Sabbath dinner guest at the home of a ruling Pharisee. To any of us, it is hard to see anything but the most preposterously discourteous chastising of both his hosts and his fellow guests. Which of us would ever try to publicly challenge a person of high standing in the community about who he or she has chosen to invite to dinner? And then to turn on the other guests and presume to correct their behavior as they choose their seats? What on earth is he thinking?

As I have thought about this passage through the week, I have concluded that he has one overriding motive. He wants his colleagues to understand the truth… the truth about God and about themselves. He simply won’t settle for honoring lesser conventions of politeness or regard for social status as though these were the ultimate values of life.

First off, whenever the New Testament writers speak of the Pharisees, it is a kind of shorthand device. The readers or listeners will know that these are the contemporaries of Jesus who were most scrupulous about teaching and keeping every detail of an ever-expanding set of laws, ceremonial regulations and duties. Naturally, many of those who strove most assiduously to fulfill all these rules were susceptible to a kind of self-congratulatory smugness about their own righteousness, and the comparative shortcomings of all the lesser, “little people” around them who lacked their religious achievements. The peril of this disposition was an inordinately high self-regard. Jesus was continually in conflict with them as he tried to get them to recognize the merciful compassion of a God who longs to gather all his children--wise or simple, secure or struggling, conspicuously virtuous or mindful of their awful failings—back to himself.

So it is against this backdrop of the self-congratulatory self-sufficiency among many of his listeners that Jesus tries to get them to see deeper truths about God.

“What if,” he proposes, “What if, instead of simply gathering to celebrate and share with your high status, like-minded, affluent and socially respected peers… What if you opened your hearts to recognize the humanity, dignity, the longing for recognition and good things shared in all your neighbors? What if you saw with God’s eyes and God’s heart, and deliberately included those who had no resources to pay back your favor? Knowing the power of generous hospitality, what if you made it a point, as God does, to invite those seen by conventional worldly culture as weak, as awkward, as needy or flawed? What if, instead of merely celebrating all the good things you have received along with the others in your club, you decided, like your Heavenly Father, to be compassionate and helpful in using all those good things?

In short, he asks, “Have you ever considered how your religious and social lives and commitments would look if, in your hearts, the love of God was primary, rooted and flourishing there?”

I don’t think that Luke’s portrait of Jesus is of a censorious scold. This is one who is trying to bring the faithful people of his day to see how much better they can be, how much finer, purer, and more true to God they can be…   if they will only see beyond their human pride and self-serving customs to God’s love for His world. God’s way is higher than our ways. Jesus wants us to join him, focused on God’s priorities. He wants to make whatever changes we must make—turning to God, humbling ourselves before God, opening our hearts to God, seeking God. And out of that sincere devotion, we can begin to obey God’s directives to love, to share, to give, to serve.

Yes, we’re to love our families, friends, and near neighbors, and in doing so, to show the world an example of our loyalty. Jesus calls us further: welcome the stranger, reconcile with your enemy; show compassion whenever we have the power to influence another for the better. God calls us beyond natural affection.

Yes, we’re to take pride in our achievements and to enjoy the comforts God has provided us. But Jesus calls us further: to see the undeveloped potential in others who have fallen short; to see the image of God in the poor, the disfigured, the sick and suffering. God calls us beyond mere comfort.

Yes, we’re to use our minds, our educations, and the advantages we have been given to build good careers and solid reputations. Yes, we are to celebrate and enjoy the fellowship we have along the way with those who make the journey with us.  But in God’s heart there is more to us, and more for us than this.  That is what Jesus is trying to get us all to see.

Jesus tells us that we can, with God’s help, experience lives of infinitely more joy and brightness than we can ask for or imagine. As God’s spiritual children, we are all designed to become more than high achievers.   

We are to be the loved and forgiven exemplars of faith, hope and love to a fractured, fearful, darkened and confused world.  And so we pray, increase that true religion in every one of us, even if it puzzles us, feels odd, and troubles us sometimes. Amen.

Children's Sermon on loving God more than Things

Geoffrey Piper's Children/Youth Sermon for September 8th, 2013

One of the first words a little child ever speaks is usually something like:

“Ma ma…  Mama.” A very small child knows that his or her life is always better when Mommy is nearby to feed him, to tickle her, to help, to kiss the places that get hurt, to change the stinky dipes.

When our youngest child, Katie was a little toddler, she didn’t care whether Mommy or Daddy came to be at her side. We’d hear her voice calling from the other room, “MommyDaddyMommyDaddy MommyDaddy.” Either one of us would suffice to help her feel better, to help her solve her challenge, or to pick her up and give her a hug.

Maybe this is part of what Jesus means when he says that we need to become like little children if we want to have a real Spiritual life. God wants us to call on Him naturally, frequently, and easily! Once we learn to trust that God will care for us, then we can share in God’s good work by giving to others. Jesus says that it is right and natural to depend on God for help, and to ask for God to keep us company. It should be natural for us to ask God to help us solve our problems, and to share our love with God and with everyone around us. Even with people who bother us.

But most of us steer off course as we grow up.

By the time most children approach the age of 2, we have another favorite word:  “MINE! MINE!” We start thinking that life should always be “me first!”

Jesus is always reminding us that the best life is always God first.  He always tries to warn his listeners about the trouble they will have if they are too much attached to the stuff of this world…

He tells us that material things… money, clothes, cars, houses, or electronic stuff can distract us from what really matters.

He tells us that other people--even our own family members—can sometimes distract us from what really matters.

As we grow older, we sometimes try to be the center of attention, and to get our own way. We often criticize others, or say mean things to them or about them to make ourselves feel more important. Jesus warns us that thinking of ourselves as the most important thing in life will always lead to unhappiness.

Here’s an example. You know what Jesus says is the most important thing in life? (Pause; wait for answers)  To love God….       and to love each other.

Imagine that you walk into a room to hug someone that your love, and to tell them that you love them. And when you come near to them and call their name:

·      they have their headphones on so they can’t hear you;

·      and they won’t take their hands off their laptop computer;

·      and they have made a fortress around themselves with a jewelry boxes, refrigerators, 

          sports equipment, and cabinets of clothes;

·      and they keep staring at their own reflection in a mirror.

That’s a little bit what it’s like for God when He wants to get our attention, and tell us that He loves us, and invite us to work with him to make the world better. He needs us to disconnect from everything that distracts us. God needs us to stop trying to grab and hold everything for ourselves, like the two-year old shouting, “mine!”

Someone has written, "Grasping at things can only yield one of two results: Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear. It is only a matter of which occurs first."

Here is one more illustration that shows the problem of being too attached to the things we want, because we think that they will make our lives good.

In the South of India, people used to catch monkeys in a very clever way. Actually they let monkeys catch themselves. What they did is to cut a small hole in a coconut, just large enough for a monkey to put its hand in. Next, they fastened the coconut to a tree, and put something sweet inside the hole. The monkey smells the sweet treat, squeezes its hand into the coconut, grabs the sweet and .... finds that the fist does not fit through the hole. The problem for the monkey is that the last thing he will think of is to let go of the sweet. So instead of escaping to freedom, the monkey holds itself prisoner. Nothing could be easier for the human being who comes and catches it.

So as we start this new year of Sunday School, and youth group, and get reminded about God’s love for us at Church, this is one thing Jesus wants us all to remember.

Loving God is more important than trying to grasp and hold anything for ourselves. The best life we can possibly have is with the simple trust that we had as little children. If we can call on God, and know that God loves us and will provide everything we need, Jesus promises us a life that is better than we can dream of. Let’s trust him, and believe that he tells us the truth.

What does Jesus mean when he says we must hate our own family members?

Geoffrey Piper's Sermon for September 8th, 2013

Why on earth would Jesus tell a whole adoring crowd, pressing in to touch him, to hear him, and to follow him wherever he leads, that if they want to continue with him, they will need to hate the most important members of their families, their own lives, and everything they have ever owned? Was he that weary and vexed with them, that he could think of no more effective way to get rid of them all quickly? Or is there a diamond of spiritual truth hidden beneath that off-putting challenge, for all those willing to search it out?

There is no question that Jesus sometimes resorts to throwing rhetorical buckets of cold water in our faces to get us to wake up and think seriously about God’s plans for our salvation. He knows our preference—in every age--for the comfortable status quo. And he knows that we sometimes need a forceful and dramatic jolt to get us to consider making the critical changes in our lives that lead us fully—and wonderfully--into God’s presence.

It is important to understand Jesus' use of paradox and hyperbole if we hope to respond to today’s gospel teaching with wisdom and faith.

Here is a quick review for those of us who haven’t taken an English class for a few years.

Our English word, paradox, comes from the Latin, paradoxum," a statement seemingly absurd, yet really true." The earlier Greek roots are para, meaning “contrary to” and dokein, meaning “to appear, seem, or think.” A paradoxon in something contrary to expectation, or incredible.

Our English word, hyperbole, comes to us from from two Greek roots:  First, hyper, which means excessive, or exaggerated, and ballein, which means to throw or launch. The Greek word, hyperballein, means "to throw over or beyond." The fact that Jesus uses this rhetorical device does not mean that the points he illustrates in this way are any the less true and of central importance. It simply requires some reflection on our parts to find our way to the core, take-home truth for our lives.

We have heard Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount saying, "if your eye offends you, gouge it out… if your hand offends you, cut it off…" I’m here to declare with confidence that Jesus does not intend for his most faithful followers to mutilate themselves. He is using dramatic figures of speech to make a strong impression about self-control. Whatever might draw our allegiance away from God, or entangle us in sinful patterns that distract or degrade us--even though they may be what our eyes love to look at, or what our hands naturally reach for—these must be forsaken.

Jesus relies on the same dramatic approach to make a similar point when he says this startling line to the great crowd following after him: 

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."

He does not mean us to take this line literally, hating everything and everyone around us... any more than he intends the lines about "gouged eyes" or "severed hands" to lead to assemblies of blinded and disabled Christians.

If he did mean this literally, it would obviously contradict all the rest of his teaching about our imperative to love universally—family, friends, neighbors, and enemies--just as God loves us.

This whole passage is about our deliberate, intentional letting go of what is good in order to obtain what is absolutely glorious. It is about emptying our hearts… so that God can enter them and fill all the places in which He wants to dwell. It is about dethroning the good people and the good things that we routinely elevate and deify…  so that God can truly take the ultimate place in our lives.

Think along these lines:

•     We are designed for an ultimate loyalty; That pre-eminent allegiance is due to God alone. Christ loves us enough to tell us this truth, to remind us that we are all responsible citizens in a larger Kingdom than any represented by the flags of our many earthly nations.

•     It is necessary for all of us to release our "lesser loyalties," as good and pleasant as they are, in order to fix our hearts first on this one transcendent allegiance. This surrender, or self-abandonment, usually entails a conscious, deliberate choice, based on our trust that God will lead us in a new life, a life rooted in these new, spiritually-based priorities.

•     This highest, ultimate love will order, guide, and ennoble all our human loyalties, and every other aspect of our lives. We will be better sons and daughters, better fathers or mothers, better spouses or siblings to the degree that we are given over to the One who is the living source of all love, and of life itself.

So even though you may, this morning, like Christ’s original listeners in Luke’s account, be wiping cold water out of your eyes, don’t be daunted. Jesus welcomes and invites you to journey with him through this world’s treasures, traps, turmoil and tears. He has promised, as our Good Shepherd, never to abandon us as we exchange our shifting, worldly reference points for His sure, reliable truths of the Spirit.

In this perspective, our old hymn text becomes a sensible prayer of self-offering for any of us:

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee…
Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee. 

Good God, let this be true and lovely and lasting among us all. Amen.

God's Joy in reclaiming us from our errors

Geoffrey Piper's sermon from September 15th, 2013

The Church of Jesus Christ is less a hotel for saints than it is a hospital for sinners. (repeat)  Said in another way, the Church is not so much the Gathering of the Good as it is those on a lifelong journey to become better, with the Good Shepherd’s guidance and care.

The self-righteous, religious folks in Jesus day grumble about his indiscretion… in mingling with people who don’t measure up in their world. In a comment that they believe disqualifies Jesus as a spiritual guide, they mutter to one another: "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Jesus, aware of their disgruntled hostility, then tells them two stories to illustrate the natural, right, and celebrated recovery of something that--or someone, who--has been lost, and is then brought safely back. And then he gives them the moral of the stories: “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Almost nowhere in our American discourse will we hear the word “sinners” used, except in satire, or in dismissive ridicule of people who believe in classical Christian beliefs. But we have synonyms that all have the same power in our day as the concept of “sinners” in Jesus’ day. We speak, in the same sort of dismissive and derisive insider grumbling, of:

·      hopeless drunks

·      tree-hugging, liberal socialists

·      failures at business

·      tea-party conservatives

·      fundamentalist Christians

·      unfaithful spouses

·      welfare cheats

·      pompous windbags…

And you could augment the list of labels by which we reduce people to bleak caricatures of ruined humanity, based on some unsavory behavior that is not characteristic of our tight little group.

The zeal of the self-righteous to deride and denounce those who don’t measure up, and who don’t follow the rules that we follow, didn’t die with the Pharisees. It is alive and well in every generation.

And Jesus makes a pointed effort to jostle all of us out of that place of faith-based accusation, blame, criticism, reductive dismissal, and condemnation. He doesn’t want us to stay in that place of hostile judgment because it’s a lifeless place! It He doesn’t deny that there is a moral order, or that some of us do a better job than others of adhering to it. But he makes the case that God’s interest is always:

·      in retrieving those who have wandered off;

·      in re-establishing relationship with those who have said, “God is not there 
          for me;”

·      in healing what has become disfigured;

·      in reconciling those who have come to see one another as enemies. 

The compassion of God to reclaim and re-fashion what belongs to Him is always Christ’s central and powerful motive in the life of the Spirit

A few chapters further along in Luke’s gospel, we read of the tax-cheat, Zaccheus, who proves to be a poster boy for repentance and amendment of life. We read of Jesus inviting himself to dine with this notorious cheating tax-collector. “All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

In John’s gospel, Jesus says explicitly, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Jesus’ mission statement is pretty clear. He comes to seek and to save the lost. We, his followers, must not regress to be that self-satisfied society whose primary goal is to reinforce our own respectability.

Most of you know that St. Gabriel’s hosts several Anonymous groups in our parish facility all through the week. What some of you may not know is how precisely their therapeutic approach is pure, distilled Christian spirituality. We can substitute almost any complex that impairs the quality of our lives—what holy scripture calls “sin,”—and see the Christian guidelines for spiritual restoration.

These are the original twelve steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:
 

1.    We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol, or whatever other destructive habit we can name)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.    Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.    Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4.    Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.    Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6.    Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7.    Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8.    Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.    Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

As I read--for the first time--the AA “Big Book,” for further evidence of this Christian spiritual essence, I saw that more than half the book is the printed stories of transformation, what we call “our testimonies.” We learn spiritual truths best not by reading theories in self-help articles, but by discovering their compelling, transforming power in the lives of people around us. As you find your courage and your voice, you will bless others by telling of the ways you have discovered God’s determination to get through to you; God’s mercy in freeing your from your past; God’s acceptance of you as His beloved child.

So we can all rejoice that dozens of people are taking these steps seriously, and benefiting from them, in the building over there every day. But we can also rejoice that the Lamb of God, who came into the world to free us from the sin of the world, is honored in the center of our worship. His invitation is to lead every one of us in this way of restoration, this way of faith, of hope, of love, of freedom.

Let’s not be the grumbling, self-satisfied curmudgeons pointing fingers  from the balcony at Zaccheus, at the sinners, at those lost sheep. Let’s come to the party of God’s redeemed children. And let’s excel in bringing others along with us to meet this incredible, glorious host.