Sometimes, when one is driving on a nice, sunny day with very little traffic, you can take your eyes off the road briefly, to tune in a radio station – do people still use radios? – or to change the playlist on Spotify.
One time I was riding my motorcycle eastward in Michigan. The speed limit, if I recall correctly, was 65. As the interstate curved gracefully to the right, I suddenly saw
ALL TRAFFIC WAS STOPPED
Had I been looking away, even for a second, I might not have stopped in time.
Distracted driving is dangerous.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
If someone lives a good life and doesn’t sin, what need does that person have for grace? If I haven’t done anything wrong, I don’t need forgiveness, let alone unmerited grace.
There is a doctrine, or teaching, of original sin. There are many variations on this:
One is that Adam and Eve sinned, so that sin is born into every human being. So everyone is born sinful. This is one of the ideas behind infant baptism: to wash away the original sin. In this model, everyone needs grace, even newborn infants.
Another is that sin happens through sex, and everyone conceived through sex has sin in them. This is the idea behind the Immaculate Conception: that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was conceived without sin. Still, newborns need grace.
Other ideas include that, through Adam and Eve and all their descendants, all humans have an innate tendency to sin. In this model, sin isn’t inborn, but is pretty much unavoidable for humans.
But what if we don’t believe we need grace?
In our Gospel reading, the Pharisee is praying a prayer of gratitude, giving thanks to God for not being like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, and tax collectors. He notes his positive actions: he fasts twice a week and gives 10% of his income. He’s living a good life. What need has he for grace?
Meanwhile, the tax collector to whom the Pharisee referred is asking God for mercy, because he is a sinner. Clearly he has a lot to atone for.
And yet, Jesus says the tax collector went home justified. How?
The obvious thing is the idea that all of us sin: we harm people, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes with some awareness of the harm – but what can we do? and sometimes intentionally, perhaps in self-righteous retaliation. And by not admitting his shortcomings, the Pharisee can’t ask for the grace he needs.
But there’s another danger: if we don’t think we need forgiveness, if we think somehow our balance of good and evil puts us in the “grace not needed” column, we can begin to justify the harm we do.
We have seen this sort of thing at high levels: when a political candidate was asked about sacrifices he had made, he said
“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”
As Inigo Montoya might say about his use of the word sacrifices
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
A belief that one doesn’t need grace can lead to choices that cause suffering of many for the benefit of a few. It can lead to justification of sin by means of success. When we judge based on a balance sheet of total good for anyone minus total bad for anyone, we can easily end up with a concentration of good things for the powerful and few, if any, good things for the powerless.
When someone is asked about forgiveness and says he “doesn’t like to bring God into the picture” and “doesn’t like to ask for forgiveness,” there is a danger of a kind of self-righteousness that can become reckless, self-centered behavior.
This is what the Pharisee is in danger of. It’s what we’re in danger of when we think we are living “a good life.”
Martin Luther, in his letter to Philip Melanchthon, wrote
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners.
Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.
We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
We are all sinners in need of grace. It is unavoidable. We should not be afraid to ask for grace for things we have done. Where possible, we should repair damage we have caused.
But we should fear when we think we are no longer in need of grace. That is a place of danger, and when we feel that way, we should closely examine our lives to look at the things we are avoiding.
My challenge to all of us this week is to be watchful for that feeling of self-righteousness, that sense that we are not in need of some grace, because that is when we’re in danger of leaving the road.
Grace is amazing.
Amen.
Let’s sing CH 546 Amazing Grace!
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
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