RoboPreacher

Luke 21:5-19 The end and justice: On November 14 I will be doing a preach and teach event at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Bellevue, WA. for the Lutheran Public Policy Office. Typically an LPPO Sunday is lead by a representative of the LPPO. The representative preaches, gives a presentation during the adult education hour. This particular visit will be a little different. This is because Holy Cross is already a member of the LPPO’s congregational, state-wide network. In other words, this congregation is an “advocating congregation.” Apocalypticism: That is the context for preaching these apocalyptic words of Jesus. Certainly most mainline denominations will struggle with these words. Apocalypticism is box-office, biblical stuff. As popular as this literature is, it is just a prone to be abused as misunderstood. -With that in mind, I am interested in thinking about apocalypticism in light of social justice/advocacy. This should be an interesting process of investigation

Luke 18:9-14: Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men when up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the others a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself was praying thus, ‘God I thank you I am not like other people: thieves rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of my income.’ But the tax-collector, standing afar off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’ I tell you, this man when down justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” • Please pray with me. Lord may the words of my lips, and the meditation of all our hearts be exalted in your sight. Amen. Okay, for those of you who want, this is audience participation time: Don’t worry, it’s just a simple raise your hand exercise. I

Last week I raised the question about the dualism in this parable of the Pharisee & the Tax Collector ( Luke 18:9-14 ). I focused the open-ended question on theology, not particularly the parable. That was intentional. My goal is the notice the lens we bring to reading the Bible. My point, ‘sure, if you’re looking for explicit right & wrongs in the Bible you can find them.’ What is the consequence of this kind of reading, though? Well, for one; humans deserve to get humiliated by God. Is this a little troubling for you, too? Another less explicit issue is that, you water down the power of this parable. I am happy to say that much of the research I did noticed this. In fact, many astute and faithful theologians address similar issues. (This is a cause for hope in the trajectory of Christianity in the future.) As Brian Stoffregen notes : If the Pharisee is viewed as a villain and the tax collector a hero, besides the historical inaccuracies, the parable loses its

Or, those who lift themselves up will be humiliated * Reflections for the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost; Luke 18:9-14 . The title and subtitle are meant to dynamically interact. I am trying to emphasize that while it might be easy to focus on the lifting up, there is this difficult sentiment about those who exalt themselves… *I choose to use the word humiliate because that captures “tapeinohn,”(participle, present, active). This week my research will be focused on the fact that the Pharisee “standing by himself.” I am also interested in researching the role of the Pharisee in the community, and dwelling on the piety of the Pharisee. While I research about the Pharisee there is a question I want to keep in mind: What kind of God would humiliate anyone? In regard to the troublesome sentiment I found a sentiment from Michael Hardin & Jeff Krantz (of the website Preaching Peace): “…we migh