Tuesday, August 19, 2025

A Merciful Levelling: Thinking about Humility with Jesus ~ Luke 18:9-14

 


Humility returns us to the beginning of our series – the life of Jesus, because his life is to be the model and shape of our life. The Apostle Paul reminds us:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:” -Philippians 2:3-5 NIV

So to think Christian is to look to Jesus in order to think like Jesus and Jesus’ thinking always humbly valued others above himself. And friends that’s the thinking of God. So Jesus thinking (humble thinking) appears to be parable thinking, seems to demand no comparison only mercy, and suggests not so much a reversal but a merciful levelling.

I wonder. Jesus thinking (humble thinking) seems to be parable thinking.

Perhaps one of the more important elements to truly understand and engage humility is to recognize and wrestle with the most common way that Jesus taught us about God – parables; these funky, little, short stories that resist easy explanations, clear answers, or simple moral summaries. Stories that are both humble and humbling, they lie somewhere between allegorical fable and dead-pan joke, they are messy, puzzling, sometimes infuriating, and yet Jesus’ way of teaching and engaging us and inviting us to think. And let’s be honest, they often hold little resemblance to the teachings of churches who often tell us exactly how to think – with a blow-to-the-head-kind-of-clarity. But Jesus’ way is not some heavily starched theology always neatly laundered and pressed. No, it’s gently teasing and humbly confounding. Let me say this in a way that seeks to honor Jesus’ own humble thinking: When you think of Jesus in order to think like Jesus always remember that Jesus invites YOU to think. Now say that ten times real fast – just kidding.

Parable thinking is more question-thinking than answer-thinking, more narrative-thinking than propositional-thinking. If you found yourself asking, “Which one of these two am I?” Or pondered, “That little prayer by the tax collector is all it took?” You’re on the humble path. If you listened to this being read and found yourself saying, “Got it. Heard it. No questions.” Or if your first response was to send a text that says, “Hey, the preacher is talking about humility and I thought of you” then you are in danger of being on the wrong path. The certain, the arrogant, the prideful, have no use for parable thinking. In their minds, faithfulness is always clarity, salvation is always knowing the right answers to the right questions, and morality is uncovered with mathematical precision.

Parable thinking or humble thinking requires investment, self-awareness, and a real desire to listen, see, and repent [or, “go beyond the mind that you have”]. If as a Christian you can’t think parablicly, can’t wade into messy situations, won’t allow yourself to be questioned or your wisdom to be challenged then it’s a good sign that you have a pride problem. After recently talking with Clyde Ohta, I realized that parables are like Torii gates. 

 

Torrii gates are a feature of Japanese gardening and architecture where you encounter a gate without a surrounding fence. It oddly creates a welcoming entrance and transition point into a new space without any clear boundary. They are symbolic portals for borderless spaces which invite you to enter and think about a new area or experience, without boxing you in. That’s what a parable does – it has definition and weight, asks you enter, and beckons for you to walk through it without imprisoning you. Friends, parable thinking should humbly remind us that people rarely fight over doors but certainly get tweaked about fences. I love pet videos and a common one is a video with two or more dogs barking and growling at each other through a fence. At some point, however, a door or gate is opened allowing the dogs to see each other face to face with no fence separating them. When that happens, the dogs cease growling and barking at each other and begin to wag their tails. When the gate is closed, however, the barking begins. We’re not that difference.  So parable thinking is a humble doorway of thinking that demands our fullest attention without always clear answers and no barking or growling.

I wonder. Jesus thinking (humble thinking) seems to demand no comparison only mercy.

Let’s walks through this Torrii gate and see what it asks us to enter and see. Notice the similarities: two men, both going to the temple, both standing to pray and within proximity to each other (that’s real important). What about the differences? The first is a Pharisee and now we get – a Greek of the Week. The NIV states that he “stood by himself” but the consensus is that something else is being conveyed. The phrase “pros euton” [to/about himself] never means “by himself” or “alone” in biblical Greek. No, in Jesus’ story the phrase provocatively holds two possible translations/connotations: 1) “prayed to himself” but not necessarily silently because people often prayed aloud. So is he praying or simply talking to himself?; or, 2) “prayed about himself” with the understanding that he is praying his moral resume aloud to advertise his own righteousness as far exceeding the tax collector who he actually has the gall to mention negatively in the prayer itself, which means he could hear him.

So pride seems not so much the idea that “I’m awesome,” or “I matter” but what Dante Alighieri, defined as “love of self, perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor”. Here the word “haughty” best captures the meaning. In vss. 9 and 11 we discover that pride glories in competitive spirituality. It’s the belief that love is a is trophy only given to winners and awarded through competition. It’s the idea that to be worthy of God’s love is determined by some metric of comparison in which someone has to be lower than and less than. Someone has to lose. To deal with pride then is not to imagine that you are terrible but simply to realize that you are loved like everyone else – your boss who cheated on his wife, your cousin who can’t seem to shake that drug addiction, the parents who can’t seem to handle their kids. It’s to recognize that you are loved and broken the same as everyone else. I don’t think that Jesus is saying that the prideful aren’t heard by God. Rather, he’s acknowledging that the prideful never truly pray because they imagine that they have no need.

 

A monk at a monastery tells another monk, “I have been praying, fasting, and studying Scripture for 20 years. I am truly a nothing.” The other monk nods gravely. “I too have spent my life meditating and serving God. I am also a nothing.”

At that moment a janitor passes by, holding his mop. Overhearing the conversation, and feeling quite moved, he interrupts, “You know what, I am also a nothing.” The first monk says to the other, “Who does he think he is to be a nothing?”

Prideful people want a religion of clear comparisons: winners and losers, right ones and wrong ones, the in and the out, the good and the bad, the know-it-alls and the know-nothings and believe that they always know where they stand or at least believe they stand a better chance than you (whoever you are, you loser!)

The humble, the prayerful tax collector, however, have no such delusions. They are those who know themselves, know their weaknesses, don’t pretend, and want only a religion of mercy.  Notice that there’s no long sinner’s prayer, no theological test, no concern about the rightness of belief. The tax collector’s prayer is so simple: “Have mercy on me.” By the way, “sinner” doesn’t mean “the worst, unlovely, or totally wicked.” And sinner can’t mean separate from God because God seems all too aware and so quick to forgive.  We have made sin wrongly synonymous with being unlovable when we should often come to think of it as being incapable.

In the Catholic Mass each week, Catholics all around the world join in a Latin prayer that anchors deep within the Gospels and the earliest church’s worship. They pray or sing: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy). This, of course, comes from our text today. But what do we mean when we pray, “Lord have mercy”? Some may think we’re asking God to not punish us for our sin, to not rain down fury on our lives. But I think that sin is less about offending God and more of a reality that is destructive toward others, harms our world, and must not go unchecked. God doesn’t seem so much perturbed and the Pharisee himself seems unaware of any problem. So perhaps it’s more correct to think that asking for God’s mercy is like saying: We beg you for your mercy to be with us, because ours is not enough. We ask for your wisdom to be with us, your loving-kindness to be with us, because we just don’t have enough of our own. And we keep messing everything up. We beg for mercy because we need help, because we’re broken much more so than we’re bad. And we beg for others because we remember how much it hurts to hurt.

I wonder. Jesus thinking (humble thinking) seems less of a reversal and more of a merciful levelling.

There is a way of reading the parable in which the point is that the tables are turned and the down-trodden get to lord over the ones who brag about their own self-righteousness. The previously humble now get to look down at others. But that seems like an odd ending and hardly in keeping with Jesus’ own teachings about God, reconciliation, and enemy love.

The point of the Pharisee doesn’t seem to be that justice is served by his failure to receive justification, as if that’s being withheld. It’s more of a sadness at failing to understand what justification is – a gift of mercy. The Pharisee’s failure to receive it isn’t so much punishment as it is the result of a failed posture – it’s hard to receive a gift that you don’t understand, don’t think you need, and won’t ask for. Comparing yourself to others, competitively engaging spirituality and seeking to be better than others, creates its own harsh reality. It leaves you without a safe-place to call “home.” Did you notice that in the parable?  Both have the temple but only one has a “home” to go to (vs. 14). What is a home but a place where we are loved without conditions, with all our flaws, where we can be ourselves, even when we are at our worst. The world system wants to make love and God a competition, a worthiness algorithm, a contract, that is won by having the best moral resume. But you should never need a resume for “home” You should never have to get all As to earn a parent’s love. Mercy is what makes a home. So if I were to offer an explanation about the ultimate fate of the prideful and the humble it would look like this. For all who exalt themselves by thinking they’re better than others will one day recognize how foolish and lonely that is, and they will be mercifully confronted with how that spirituality hurt them and harmed others, They will painfully recognize the need for forgiveness and mercy and in doing so will be brought down in order to find a home. And the humble will discover that they are so much more than the worst of their deeds, so much more lovely than they thought or imagined. They will come in their need and be delightfully surprised by an ever-giving and merciful God. They will speak to those who have been prideful, who hurt them, and will tell them of their hurt and receive an apology, and be able to offer forgiveness in return. They will be raised up, stand eye to eye and toe to toe with those who thought themselves better and discover that they always had a home. Each would discover that we’ve heard this story before, we know these two guys, they’re brothers in the same house. Each, in other words, will discover the deep truth about humility, taught by Jesus, that he humbled himself so that we might all stand together. Jesus humbly announces that God wants a house of mercy for us all.

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Mercy! How to think about and read Scripture like Jesus ~ Matthew 12:1-14


 

 

 

 

 

 

We should begin with Jesus’ haunting question – “Have you not read” which he asks twice (vss. 3 & 5). The question is also a double whammy for it exposes a reality that challenges us and not simply the Pharisees: Do you know your Bible? Are you aware of Jesus’ examples? Can you guess the book of the Bible that they come from? TAKE THE QUIZ & DON’T CHEAT! The answers are below.

1.     Which book of the Bible narrates David and his men eating the bread of Presence?

2.     Which book of the Bible speaks of the rules governing the bread of Presence?

3.     Which book speaks of the priest performing   work “on the Sabbath”?

4.     Which prophetic book is Jesus quoting when he quotes, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”?

 

 

 

 

 

ANSWERS: 1. 1 Samuel 21:1-6; 2. Leviticus 24:5-9; 3. Numbers 28:9-10; 4. Hosea 6:6

To be able to love and converse like Jesus you must know your Bible well (in this passage alone he quotes from the three main sections of the Hebrew Scriptures (Torah [law], Ketuvim [writings], Nevi’im [prophets]. And Jesus had no special knowledge – he was a human being just like you and me. He had to learn it. And friends, I want you to purge one thought out of your head right now that the Old Testament is somehow graceless and devoid of mercy. Every merciful act of Jesus, every challenge of grace to the Pharisees, Jesus supports by quoting from the Old Testament. If you read carefully like Jesus, you must read everything, because everything can be read as gospel, everything becomes good news.

Jesus first uses a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6, which does not concern the Sabbath directly. It’s about David and his men eating bread from the temple that Scripture (Leviticus 24:5-9) expressly forbids them to eat. The bread was specified by God as only being for the priests yet David and his men violated this direct commandment when they ate the bread of Presence, which was a thank offering placed in the temple. Of course, David had already violated the law by entering this part of the temple not to mention that David lied to Ahimelech that he was on a secret mission commissioned by Saul. So why would Jesus use a law-breaking story from Scripture to challenge Scripture? He read the Bible carefully . . .


Jesus connected with David’s story because of the awareness of human need and frailty in the present. We hear in both vs. 1 and vs. 3 that both the disciples as well as David and his men “were hungry”. By placing human need front and center Jesus reorients not simply how we read but what we read. Focusing on need will lead you to Bible passages that you had not thought to use or apply but that speak with new authority.

The second Scriptural argument that Jesus uses comes from Numbers 28:9-10. It’s a more relevant yet obscure reference. Here, Jesus points out that the priests technically perform work, “[O]n the Sabbath,” but are considered innocent. So Jesus is using an idea implicit within that text that temple service – the liberating work and healing practice of forgiveness, takes precedence over Sabbath observance. So, Jesus and his followers, like the priest, represent a group who are not bound by such legalistic readings because they too are about the work of God. Jesus reads this passage in light of a new day dawning in which everyone assumes a priestly role because he is Lord of the Sabbath. So don’t use Scripture to correct him.

So Jesus is reading Scripture and keeping human need front and center. You’ve got to love Matthew as a narrator. These guys were first rate artists so you need to always pay attention to the nuances. He wants to clue us into the real problem with the Pharisee’s reading of Scripture: they don’t know where to “look”, they don’t know how to see.  In vss. 2 and 10 Matthew wants us to notice where to “look” or “behold.” 

 

 

Look at vs. 2: “When the Pharisees saw it they said to him, “Look!” What is the “this”? Where are we to “Look!”? The “this” refers to the supposed offense. The Pharisees see the conduct of the disciples as a violation of the Scriptures clear command not to work on the Sabbath (Deut. 5:12-15; Exodus 20:8-11) – “plucking grain” was considered harvesting, a form of work clearly forbidden – connecting to one of thirty-nine classes of work prohibited in Exodus chs. 34 & 35. But, it could have said, “When the Pharisees saw the hungry disciples” or “the ones who were in need”. In vs. 10, though the NIV unfortunately doesn’t translate the word, but it also says “Look or behold a man was there who had a withered hand. And they asked Jesus, “How should we help him?” No, they asked, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Matthew wants to clue us in that their way of reading Scripture didn’t see people only sin. It didn’t see opportunities to help but issues to debate. They could only see the offense. It’s as if Matthew is saying, Be wary of Bible readers who refuse to look at or behold people’s needs and rather focus only on Scripture. Be wary of those who read the Bible and ignore the hungry, avoid the hurting, who refuse to acknowledge a “need.” So we must read the Bible carefully like Jesus with need . . .


Augustine defined “mercy” as taking another’s misery to heart. Jesus sets up mercy being a way of reading Scripture by quoting from one of his favorite books and passages, the prophet Hosea ch. 6:1-6, specifically, “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” He uses this passage to explain his associations with tax collectors and sinners, c.f. Matt. 9:13) and now declares that careful law observance and the sacrificial system must give way to the priority of God’s new work of public love and justice – that welcomes people, feeds them, liberates them, unbinds them, and heals them. Later Jesus will say the same thing when he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:37-40) We must stop trying to replace Jesus’ command to love with others words that we prefer like, “Reverence the Lord your God” or “Defend the Lord your God, or “Fight for the Lord your God.” We are to love and be merciful. Mercy as a reading strategy reminds us that the purpose of Scripture, the commands that apply, the reading that works, the words to be spoken, must be lovingly lovely to God, neighbor, and self, or not to be spoken at all. 

Immediately after this confrontation over plucking the heads of grain, Jesus will encounter a man with a withered hand, and the Pharisees will watch him carefully to see what he will do — will Jesus break the Sabbath again!? Jesus responds with a question, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep!” I believe that Jesus’ argument clues us into the significant difference between how he reads the Scriptures versus how the Pharisees read them. See, the Pharisees’ theology works from the abstract: Is Sabbath work forbidden in Scripture? Yes. Is plucking grain work? Yes. Is healing work? Yes. Then we have our conclusion—plucking grain and healing on the Sabbath are forbidden. Jesus’ reading of the Bible, however, involves the inherent value of the person (God is love + God made us = how to read): Here is a hungry group or a hurting person in front of me. What do they need? How can I help? Ah, but it’s the Sabbath. Let me now take this person’s unique situation to the Scriptures—and when we do that, we can see even more clearly that the Scriptures themselves address real human faces (e.g. the story of David; the story of the woman caught in adultery, John 8). They mercifully accommodate and address human need. And Jesus will argue that the Sabbath itself aims to serve people and NOT the other way around (in Mark and Luke Jesus will say this strongly, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath)!

 

Reading the Bible like Jesus, acknowledging need, always with eye for mercy will always have us asking “Where is it written?”. But while that is often the first question we might ask it must never be the last question we answer because just reading the Bible does not make you a good Bible reader. The Pharisees did know where these passages came from. However, because they failed to read the Bible with the hungry, to study the Bible with people in need, to look with a God who desires mercy for those whom God has made, they would never have thought to go to these passages, would have never read them in this way. They could never truly embrace others with Scripture the way Jesus did but chose rather to weaponize and fight with Scripture. 

 

After these two Sabbath encounters, Matthew will reflect on the Biblical controversy with Jesus and the Pharisees and, not surprisingly, quotes from the OT, Isaiah 42:1-4, which details the work of God’s anointed. It says, “He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick . . .” Because the Pharisees see no human face when they read Scripture, they are quite willing to break reeds and snuff out wicks. Is it any wonder then why they missed the word of God with a human face in their midst? Is it any wonder that because Jesus does not read Scriptures like they do, vs. 14 says they wanted to literally “assassinate” him? Because their reading lacks mercy, they would rather hold their Bibles like sniper rifles than read their Bibles differently.

To think Christian is to read the Bible carefully like Jesus with a need for mercy. Here are some important questions:

1.     Do I read my Bible carefully like Jesus? “Carefully” may be one of the more important words. The Bible is helpful and dangerous thing. Wield it with care; not “defensively,” “aggressively,” or “haphazardly.” And for those of you who have harmed by Scripture – don’t give it up. It was a critical tool in the healing and loving ministry of Jesus. You need simply to use it and know it well.  

2.     Do I read my Bible well aware of other’s needs? Do I read as a friend? When I think about the Bible others do I truly know them? Do I know divorced people when I seek to understand what the Bible says to them? Do I know immigrants? Do I care about them? To fully see a need you must truly know a person. You must know their name. If you don’t, don’t read to them.

3.     When I read my Bible do others wince? Do others feel more broken, snuffed out, or unloved?   Do the people I read for feel loved? If you don’t know – ask them.

4.    Where do I sense the Spirit asking me to read my Bible carefully again?