The Very Same Grace

 

In Northern Virginia, one of the leading employers is the Pentagon.  A good percent of the employees are career military officers. These career military officers are people who are committed to serving their professional lives in the service of our military defending our country.

 

They have taken many tours of duty around the world in many exotic and ordinary places and now are stationed at the Pentagon and live in the communities of Northern Virginia.

 

So in Northern Virginia, it is very probable that career military officers would be neighbors, your kid’s soccer coach, or members of your church.

 

To be career military, you must make a commitment to be a soldier.

You must also like the military way of life.

 

I was not a soldier and I do not want to appear to be a know-it –all about them.  But I have known my share of Career Military Personal. I can clearly say that they are different.

 

Their operational structure is very formal.  

They have core values that are different then private industry’s business. 

They have a structure that is hierarchical to get things done but may be less effective in developing productive ideas.

In their military organization, tasks are accepted by subordinates without questions as orders, whereas in business questions can be a very productive and are even expected. 

There is an unquestionable pecking order of authority and respect in the military.  There are dotted lines and matrixes of functional responsibilities in private industry.

 

 

Many men and women work many years in this environment. They learn the social culture of the military.  They learn how to get things accomplished and function in this distinctly different world.

 

The problem occurs when these officers’s military service comes to an end and they need to look for a job in the private sector.

 

They learn all too quickly that the values of the military, the culture of the military, the order of the military are not followed in the private sector.  In fact, they find that the assimilation into the private sector is very difficult for them.

 

The assimilation into private industry has been so tough for ex-military personal that the pentagon has established classes to re-orientate the personnel to the ways of the private sector.

 

Isn’t all this somewhat ironic?

Here are men and women who have given their professional lives to protecting a system of capital enterprise that they are unable to assimilate into? 

 

It is so unfair!

 

These men and women have done all that is asked of them.  They have learned and operated in a military system—they have learned its ins and outs—they have learned how to be effective in it.  And after their military service, it is difficult—nearly impossible-- for them to rejoin the rest of America in business. 

 

They didn’t establish the culture or values of the military—they just lived by them and learned to be successful within them.

It just isn’t fair.

 

I tell you all this because that is what being a follower of Jesus Christ feels like.

We are taught and live by a set of rules and then we hear time and time again that those rules—our behavior—no matter how good—doesn’t matter.

 

We live all our lives from cradle to grave—building and obeying a moral compass within us. 

We follow Jesus and do what he expects of us.

We follow his commands and teachings.

We pray.

We worship.

We read the bible.

We are respectful.

We work hard for a living and are not a burden to our society.

We are charitable and generous with our money.

We take responsibility for our children.

We are civic minded and do our share.

We think about when we fail or sin and repent for them.

We make something of ourselves.

 

We know what stewardship is—all that I just described--living all aspects of our life in relationship with God. We try to be model citizens.

 

In short, we found the rules of our savior and have lived by them.

 

But then we get into the bible and we listen to Jesus.  Jesus constantly caters to those who have not played by the rules.  He constantly is granting grace to those that are contemptuous or sinful or self-serving.  But worse yet, he casts a shadow over us.

 

We hear today from Jesus, “He, who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Isn’t that us?

Have we needed the earth shattering love of God poured into our lives?

No, for most of us, we have managed our lives well.

Therefore, aren’t we the ones that need little of God’s attention and little of his love?

And yet Jesus criticizes our piety.

 

“I come not for the well, but to heal those that are sick.” Jesus says.

Or in the parable of the prodigal son, are we the good son—the loyal son—who the father says to him, “All that I have is yours, but your brother that was dead has come back to life.”

And we want to say—Hey, what about us—we never ran away!

 

Jesus seems to always point out the sin of righteousness—the sin of not needing a doctor--The sin of having little need for forgiveness—at the height of his black list.

 

We are taught all our lives to follow Jesus and yet, when we do—when we are good—when we play by the rules—we are told that we are righteous and love little.

It just doesn’t seem fair!

 

We are just like the military career officers we live as we are expected and then it seems we are punished because of the rules we learned to keep.

 

In today’s gospel, Jesus eats with Pharisees who were a little less then hospitable to him.  This woman comes in crying and washing Jesus feet and drying them with her hair and Jesus forgives her.

 

Yet Jesus parallels her great sin with the sin of lack of hospitality!

Where is the lack of hospitality in the Ten Commandments?

Listen to what Jesus Says:

I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

 

It hardly seems fair!

 

In the book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller talks about his one month living on a commune.  Sure they divulged in things we would call sinful.  But he said his experience was great.  It wasn’t all about the freedoms they experienced; it was that the people were so friendly and willing to share all that they had with each other.  He said he made life long friends there—got closer to those people in a month then the Christian that he has known all his life.

 

What are we missing?  Why is the prodigal son’s older brother so bad—he didn’t run away?

 

The answer to this question is rooted in the second reading. We are not saved by our works but faith in Jesus Christ.

 

Based on these laws, we build walls of who is included and who is not—after all we do what the Lord wants, don’t we?  Aren’t we better?

 

That is why the Pharisees were not hospitable wasn’t it?  Jesus was on the outside of the law—outside of their walls.  Isn’t also why they are so upset with the lady sinner—she was way outside their walls.

 

In short, the Pharisees were basing their relationship to God on their works of the law.  The prodigal son’s older brother also based his relationship with father on being loyal.  I think all of us-- sooner or later---will start building walls—we will designate those that are in and those that are out.

 

I know I do? 

How about you?

As a Pastor, there are times I exclude people because the people do not fit in my mold or my expectation.

As a Lutherans, we are tempted to focus only on ourselves and our piety; after all we got it right don’t we?

 

What about you? 

 

What do you do that makes you secure inside the law—inside your walls you build—instead of being secure in the grace of Jesus Christ?

 

Is it your lifestyle?

Is it your piety?

Is it your self-sufficiency?

 

To accept the grace and love of Jesus Christ is to break down those walls.  It breaks down the us/them perspective.  It breaks down our unwillingness to engage all people—all sinners—in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

 

It breaks down the tallying of big sin and little sin.

 

Jesus’ grace looks unfair—especially to us upstanding Christians.  But it really is the fairest thing of all—it is for everyone equally.  Everyone.  Everyone.  Here or not here.

 

Because Jesus loves all of us.

The inhospitable Pharisees.

The sinful lady washing his feat.

The career military and their families

The savvy businessmen and women.

Those inside the law and outside the law.

Those inside our walls and those outside our walls.

 

Because Jesus loves all of us.

 

So this morning—thank God for the grace and love that saves this lady—the very same grace and love that will always be their for us too.

 

Whether it looks fair to us or not.