Two Flannery Characters: A Sermon by Jason Micheli

.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/06/02/two-flannery-character-a-sermon-by-jason-micheli/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatheosJesusCreed+(Blog+-+Jesus+Creed)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Jun 2, 2013 @ 8:44 By Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

This is a marvelous sermon; read it through and you will rise up and call me blessed.

Sermon on Romans 3:9-20.
As many of you know, I do a lot of my work at Starbucks.
I have my reasons.
For one thing, I get more accomplished without Dennis pestering me to show him how his computer works.
But to be honest, the main reason I go to Starbucks…is because I like to eavesdrop.
It’s true. What ice cream and cheesecake were to the Golden Girls eavesdropping is to me.
At Starbucks I’m like a fly on the wall with a moleskin notebook under his wing.
I’ve been dropping eaves at coffee shops for as long as I’ve been a pastor and, until this week at least, I’ve never been caught.
This week I sat down at a little round table and started to sketch out a funeral sermon.
At the table to my left was a 20-something guy with ear phones in and an iPad out and a man-purse slung across his shoulder.
At the table to my right were two middle-aged women. They had a bible and a couple of Beth Moore books on the table between them. And a copy of the Mt Vernon Gazette.
The first thing I noticed though was their perfume. It was strong I could taste it in my coffee.
Now, in my defense I don’t think I could properly be accused of eavesdropping considering just how loud the two women were talking. Like they wanted to be heard.
Their ‘bible study’ or whatever it had been was apparently over because the woman by the window closed the bible and then commented out loud:
‘I really do need to get a new bible. This one’s worn out completely. I’ve just read it so much.’ 
Not to be outdone, the woman across from her, parried, saying just as loudly:
‘I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t spend time in the Word every day. I don’t know what people do without the Lord.’   “They do whatever they want” her friend by the window said.
And I said- to myself- ‘Geez, I’ve sat next to two Flannery O’Connor characters.
I assumed that since they were actually reading the bible there was no way they attended this church, but just to make sure I gave them a double-take.
They had perfectly permed hair flecked with frosted highlights. And they had nails in which I could see the reflection of their large, costume jewelry.
“Baptists” I thought to myself.
They continued chatting over their lattes as the woman by the window flipped through the Mt Vernon Gazette. She stopped at a page and shook her head in disapproval.
Whether she actually said ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk,’ or I imagined it I can’t be sure.
The other woman looked down at the paper and said: ‘Oh, I heard about that. He was only 31.’ 
‘Did you hear it was an overdose?’ the woman by the window said like a kid on Christmas morning.
And that’s when I knew who they were gossiping about. I knew because I was sitting next to them writing that young man’s funeral sermon.
‘Did he know the Lord?’ the woman asked.
‘Probably not considering the lifestyle’ the woman by the window said without pause.
They went on gossiping from there.
They used words like ‘shameful.’
They did not, I noticed, use words like ‘sad’ or ‘tragic’ or ‘unfortunate.’
It wasn’t long before the circumference of their conversation spun its way to encompass things like ‘society and what’s wrong with it,’ how parents need to pray their kids into the straight and narrow, and how this is what happens when our culture turns its back on God.’
After a while they came to a lull in their conversation and the woman opposite the window, the one with the gaudy bedazzled cross on her neck, gazed down at the Mt Vernon Gazette and wondered out loud:
‘What do you say at a funeral like that?’ 
And without even looking at them, and with a volume that surprised me, I said:
‘The same damn thing that’ll be said at your funeral.’ 
They didn’t even blush. But they did look at me awkwardly.
‘I hardly think so’ the woman by the window said, sizing me up and not looking very impressed with the sum of what she saw.
And so I laid my cards down: ‘Well, I probably won’t be preaching your funeral, but I will be preaching his.’ 
And then I pointed at her theatrically worn bible, the one resting on top of her copy of A Heart Like His by Beth Moore, and I said: ‘If you actually took that seriously you’d shut up right now.
     “No one is righteous, not one.” 
Sounds a little harsh, right? I mean, no one?
Just try filling in the blank of Paul’s assertion. Think of the best person you can and stick them down inside Paul’s sentence and listen to how it sounds.
No one is righteous, not one, not even Mother Theresa.
No one is righteous, not one, not even Gandhi.
No one is righteous, not one, not even your Mother.
When you hear today’s scripture text the first time through it sounds like this is Exhibit A for everything people hate about Christianity.
Here’s this God who made us and then made a measuring stick that was just a little bit higher than the best of us and a lot higher than most of us.
But to hear it that way is to miss who Paul is speaking to and where this falls in Paul’s letter.
In case you’re just tuning in, so far Paul has spent chapters 1 and 2 of his letter pointing out everything that’s wrong with the world. Everything that’s broken in God’s creation.
And in chapters 1 and 2, Paul makes his case by pointing his finger at “those people.”
“Them.”
Not the good, every Sunday people at church in Rome but those other people. ‘Society.’ You know, those people? The ‘lost’ people who don’t believe in God, who don’t attend worship, don’t raise their children right.
Those people.
They’re greedy, Paul says. Violent even. They’ve got no morals or values.
‘Just listen to the way they talk’ says Paul, ‘all cursing and slander.’
Those people.
They’re broken the institution of marriage and the family. They just hop from one bed to the next, one mate to another, like people are just a means to an end.
Those people.
They’ve got no commitment. No decency.
Paul spends chapters 1 and 2 pointing at ‘those people’ and ticking off their every sin and flaw.
And you can bet that with each and every indictment, you can imagine as the accusations build, the members at First Church Rome nodded right along with self-satisfied smiles on their faces.
You can imagine them saying to themselves: ‘That’s right, that’s exactly how those people are. Thank God I’m not like those people.’ 
And that’s Paul’s rhetorical trap because in chapter 3 he turns his aim at the good People of God, and he says: ‘No one is righteous, not one.’ 
Which is Paul’s way of saying: not even you.
And then Paul hits them, us, with this battering ram of accusations about how we sin every day with our minds and our lips and our hands and feet, by what we do and by what we leave undone.
And Paul lifts those accusations, one by one, word for word, straight out of scripture.
And that’s Paul’s point.
That’s Paul’s point when he says we’re not justified by the law, by scripture.
You see, the takeaway from today’s text isn’t that you’re a perpetual disappointment to God. If that’s what you leave with then you’ve missed what Paul’s doing here.
The takeaway is that belonging to a religious community doesn’t make you any closer to God than anyone else. Believing in the bible doesn’t make you a better person than anyone else because that same bible indicts you too.
You may go to church every Sunday but the Book of Micah says God hates your praise if there’s a single poor person in the streets.
You may be a good mother and love your kids, but the Book of Luke says if you don’t love Jesus more then…
You may be a clergy person like me, you might’ve given your whole career to God, but the best the Book of Matthew has to say about that is that I’m like a white-washed tomb, a hypocrite with lies on the inside.
Don’t confuse your place in the pews with a place in God’s favor- that’s Paul’s point- because the only advantage this (the bible) gives us is that it tells the truth about us.
Who we really are.
    ‘No one is righteous. Not one.’ 
The woman by the window actually did shut up for a moment, clearly trying to figure out how this had become a 3 person conversation.
And then it hit her: ‘Have you been eavesdropping on us?’ 
‘Of course not,’ I lied.
‘Why don’t you mind your own business’  she scolded.
‘But that’s just it’ I said, ‘it is my business. I’m a preacher and so I couldn’t help but notice that I had two Pharisees sitting next to me.’ 
She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice: ‘Listen, young man. I’ve been saved. I love the Lord, talk to him and read his Word every day.’ 
‘Apparently you’ve not retained very much’ I mumbled.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked with mustered outrage.
‘It means you’re no better than that guy over there’ and I pointed to a homeless guy who was nursing his coffee and muttering to himself.
‘In fact, you’re not good at all. And neither am I. None of us is in a position to judge anyone else, and someone with a worn out bible should already know that.’ 
I thought that I’d just played a trump card. The end.
‘Well, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing right now? she asked me. And suddenly I felt the tables turning.
‘Uh, what do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, it sounds like you’ve been eavesdropping on us for the last 10 minutes and judging us the whole time.” 
I felt myself blush: ‘Not the WHOLE time.’ 
‘I bet you started judging us before you even heard what we were talking about.’ 
‘I did not’ I lied, ‘Don’t forget you’re talking to a pastor.’ 
And I thought that was the end of it, but then she turned her chairs towards me, like we are all together, and she asked:
     ‘So, what makes you do it? Why are you so quick to stick your nose in other people’s junk and judge them?’ 
I considered punting on her question, telling her I had work to do and leaving it at that.
But she’d caught me eavesdropping so I thought I should balance out my vice with a little virtue.
I told her the truth: ‘Probably because I have junk of my own that I don’t know what to do with.’ 
‘Me too’ she said, and suddenly she dropped her guard like we were fellow addicts at an AA Meeting.
She said: ‘I’m constantly carrying around things I’m not proud of, things I’m ashamed of, things I try to keep locked and hidden away, because I don’t know what to do with them.’  
And then her friend, the one opposite the window, sipped her coffee and then said: ‘Me three.’ 
I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that if you’d been sitting there you too would’ve said…
Me four.
Because it’s true of all of us.
We condemn and we criticize and we label and we gossip and we judge.
We raise an eyebrow at other people’s mistakes, other people’s sins, other people’s problems- because we’re carrying around our own junk and we don’t know what to do with it.
But Paul shows us what to do with our junk.
Paul shows us what to do with the worst secrets about ourselves that we carry around with us.
You can’t forget that when Paul directs his attack in chapter 3 at religious people, the first person Paul has in mind is Paul.
You can’t forget that when Paul levels the accusation that ‘No one is righteous, not one’ Paul’s speaking in the first personbefore he’s speaking about any other person.
Paul cursed and condemned Christians. Paul’s encouraged executions and stood by smiling while Christians were stoned to death.
Paul’s the one whose throat was an open grave.
Paul’s the one who used his tongue to deceive and had venom on his lips.
Paul’s the one whose mouth was full of bitterness, whose feet were swift  to shed blood.
Paul’s the one who knew not the way of peace… until he met the Resurrected Christ.
And after he meets the Risen Christ, Paul is free to own up to all of it.
All the junk he would otherwise want to hide and deny and push down and repress and keep locked and hidden away.
Paul shows us what we can do with our junk.
Paul shows us that if we’re more convinced of God’s grace than the sin we’re convinced we must keep secret from everyone, then we can open up this junk we carry around with us and we can say:
 ‘No one is righteous, no one, especially not me. 
     Look at what I’ve done. 
     This is who I was. 
     These are the words I spoke in anger that can never be taken back
     This is the relationship I pretended was fine until it unraveled away. 
     These are the kids I took for granted until they were grown and gone. 
     This is the person I see in the every mirror every day and have never learned  to love. 
    This is the addiction I always insisted didn’t have the better of me. 
     This is the insecurity that masks itself as cynicism. 
     These are all the people I refused to forgive. 
     This is the person closest to me I cheated on…
     But God…God forgives…all of it.’ 
Paul shows us that our worst junk can become a living, breathing example of what God’s amazing grace can do.
Which is kind of a shame.
Because I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that most of you pretend you’re not so desperate as to need a grace that’s anywhere near amazing.
Most of you pretend you’re not actually carting this junk around and have no idea what to do with it.
For many of you, church is the last place where you’re really you, and Sunday morning is the time of the week you’re the least open about who you really are.
Church is where you grin and pretend like it’s all good and you’ve got your ______together.
Many of you have come to church for years so determined to not let anyone find out what’s going with you that you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ with it either.
And that’s a shame.
Because Paul shows us- the things we’re most burdened by are the things the world most needs to hear.
Paul shows us that if we open this up and admit that no one is righteous, not even me…and here I’ll give you a ‘for instance’
Paul shows us that if we can say that then what someone else can hear is: ‘If God’s grace is for them…then it’s even for me…’ 
     Yesterday afternoon nearly 500 gathered to celebrate that young man’s funeral.
We sang Amazing Grace.
We heard a reading from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. It was different words but the same meaning. And I preached, the Gospel.
The same message I’d preach at any of your deaths.
After the funeral, I was walking past the receiving line, which started here at the altar and snaked its way to the other end of the building, and one of the deceased’s friends grabbed my elbow and said to me: ‘If what you said is true for him, then it’s true for me too…right?’ 
     And I said: ‘Yeah.’ 
    And he let go of my elbow and said, ‘Thanks for sharing that.’