Sermon: Evensong Lent 1

Preacher:

David Martin

Date:

Sunday 17th February 2013

Service:

Evensong

Readings:

Luke 18: 14

I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalts himself shall be abased.

Lent is a time for self-scrutiny and for reviewing how far we have fallen short. Both our Scripture lessons, one concerning Jonah and the message of repentance he reluctantly delivered to Nineveh, and the other concerning the difference between the self-congratulation of the Pharisee and the humility of the Publican, point to the theme of repentance. But the story of the Pharisee and the Publican also points to another theme: justification. Because the publican repented he was justified. I want to look first at justification, particularly the self-justification of the Pharisee according to the law, before I turn to the theme of repentance and justification according to the divine gift of grace.

What is justification according to the law? We all want to feel justified. We care about how we stand with ourselves and about our standing with others. We ask ourselves whether what we did was justified and we hope that others will understand and appreciate that our actions are justifiable. We argue our own a case with ourselves in our own internal forum and we justify what we have done with reasons we hope will prove publicly acceptable. We may well do this several times a day because we carry on this debate every time we take a debateable action. And this is a good thing. It means we have a conscience and the word conscience not only refers to the monitor inside us but what we agree together about what constitutes right and justifiable action, action according to the law.

Con-scio means the knowledge of right and wrong we hold in common. If this common moral knowledge did not exist we would only be talking to ourselves not considering the rules we share with others. Society depends on the negotiation of a common moral good sense. It means that we aspire to be good citizens and not moral idiots, and the word idiot means the one who stands outside the city, who lives beyond the law, outside the rules we share about what is right and wrong. 

Philanthropy largely depends on public approbation, and on public criticism of those who are misanthropic. Philanthropy means caring for others and a misanthrope is someone who cares for nobody but himself and maybe even hates himself. I recollect an American oil billionaire saying to me ‘If someone is wealthy and won’t cooperate in doing things for the people of Houston we run him outof town’. That is one reason the USA has such marvellous endowments for education, the arts and social amelioration.

I am setting out the case for the Pharisee: the man who tithes and is upright in his own estimation and the estimation of others. The Gospel tells us that we should keep our philanthropy to ourselves and pray privately in our closet. To display our good works is to do the right thing for the wrong reason. The conventional wisdom of the world sees things rather differently. No doubt it is admirable and right to act with no thought of reward, but for those who like to see a return on their moral investment there is the reward of public approbation and honour. When it comes to appealing for good causes or raising funds we would be unwise rely on compassion: we also need to offer the encouragements and inducements of public approval and honourable reputation. Society appeals to calculation as well as to compassion. That is the way of the world.

The Pharisee is the good citizen. He tells himself he has done all that is required of him in good conscience by the law and according to the expectations of others. He has played by the rules. He gives to the poor and can take a proper pride in his standing before God and man. He stands tall before God as one who had fulfilled statutory requirements. At its best the watchword is duty: paying your dues, being in credit, credible, credit-worthy. But the Gospel sets our good standing according to the law in the perspective of our standing before a God who looks on the inward parts. It goes beyond the outward show to ask about purity of heart and requires us to take heed how we stand, lest we fall. We are properly dressed on parade and deem ourselves righteous but the Bible declares all our righteousness is as filthy rags. We are naked before the one who looks upon the heart rather than properly dressed and on parade before others.

The Pharisee claims justification by the law and the rule book; the Publican beats his breast, acknowledges he has come short and asks for mercy. He acknowledges the gap between what we might be and what we are and have been. It is in knowing that he has not fulfilled all righteousness that he recognises and secures his freedom as a moral being, because our status as moral beings depends on recognising our freedom to err and stray as well as our freedom to show mercy, do justly and walk humbly. We establish our freedom by acknowledging we follow ‘too much the devices and desires of our own hearts’. Only when we recognise how far we can fall can we recover our standing before God. The publican recognises himself as fallen and therefore goes home to his house justified.

But the vocabulary of faith goes beyond what is due to speak of our fall from grace and our recovery by the divine gift of pity, mercy, grace and love. It goes beyond playing by the rule book, or putting on acceptable public performances. It looks on the inner man. It moves between death and life, between the long journey in the wilderness and the beckoning prospect of a promised land, between the time we spend in a far country and the moment we say ‘I will arise now and go to my father’.

Beyond the law’s demands and our everyday negotiated performances, we inhabit a world of chaos and loss that can only be mended by recreation and redemption. Our devastated experience has to be bought back by the costly expenditure of love. To repent is to recognise where we really are and who we have been, and to seek pity, mercy, peace and love. It is to acknowledge our nakedness and to rest our hope in the gift of grace ‘according to the promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu, our Lord’. It is to pass beyond calculation to the time of gifts and incautious offering, It is to know that we are ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.

Here are three verses of a prayer by Gerald Manley Hopkins:

Once I turned from thee and hid,
Bound on what thou hadst forbid;
Sow the wind I would; I sinned;
I repent of what I did.

Bad I am, but yet thy child.
Father, be thou reconciled.
Spare thou me, since I see
With thy might that thou art mild.

I have life left with me still
And thy purpose to fulfil;
Yea a debt to pay thee yet:
Help me, sir, and so I will. Amen.