Tithing and Fasting and Prayers! O My!

Luke 18:9-14

Just before I entered my senior year in college my parents sent me to Europe for the summer. I was then majoring in history at Eastern Michigan University, in Ypsilanti. E.M.U. was offering several courses in European history that would be taught at Munich by some our professors and some professors of European history out of the university at Munich. The courses would be taught for five weeks. So, I got a cheap ticket on a cheap airline that would get me to London and allow me to stay over there for nine weeks before returning home. I also bought a Eurail pass that would allow me to ride the train system for the summer.

Packing a small suitcase, I went down to Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Flint and boarded my airplane and flew to Heathrow, England. Then I took out my Eurail pass and used it to get to Dover and onto the boat to Calais and onto another train to Munich where I spent five weeks taking my courses.

But, after my courses were finished I had four more weeks to wander around Europe. So, again, I used my Eurail pass and went to Vienna, Austria. And, it was there, in the beautiful city of Vienna, that something happened that really made me think. Walking down a busy street, I noticed some teenagers who were out on the streets passing out literature to people who were walking by. Most of the people weren't taking their literature, but were simply passing by without much more than a scowl on their face. But, still, others were accepting their literature and stuffing it in a pocket, or reading it as they walked along. I took some of the literature, myself, and discovered that it was simply some fairly typical evangelical Bible tracts, similar to the material that the Navigators or Campus Crusade for Christ might pass out on a college campus. And, so, I stopped and decided to talk for a while with these young persons. In fact, I spent a whole day with them, just for the fellowship and the learning. And I was amazed to find that these young persons, about 20 of them, were from all over Great Britain, and that they were there in Vienna as members of an inter-denominational evangelical youth organization for the purpose of helping young people explore ways of sharing their faith. And, as I got to talk with these teenaged persons and their adult counselors, they invited me to join them as they passed out their literature. And so I joined them for the afternoon. And it was something of the likes that I had never done before. But, for most of the young persons I had met there, this was a new experience for them, as well. So, for several hours, I stood with them on the streets of Vienna, passing out the five spiritual laws and other evangelical Christian literature, all of it written in German, to absolute strangers as they walked by.

And, as I stand here over thirty years later I am amazed about what I did and what those young persons were doing. For sharing one's faith on the streets or anywhere else either requires quite a bit of intestinal fortitude, or a fair amount of callousness to what people may think about you, or just simply a lot of love for the unknown millions who must yet come to grips with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Of course, since those days I have learned that there are many ways by which a person may share his/her faith meaningfully. And in those years I have seen about all of them. Some people think that sharing their faith is something that we only need to do in church and with church people. Other people think that sharing one's faith is something that only the clergy are supposed to do. Still others think that sharing one's faith is something that can only be done verbally. There are others who even limit the sharing of their faith to the displaying of a bumper sticker on the back of their car.

In fact, several years ago I remember driving down the street and stopping at a traffic light behind a car which had a sticker on the bumper that read, "Honk if you love Jesus." Now, I'm a literal kind of guy, so I honked my horn. I mean, I just gave it a little toot. And the guy in the car ahead of me, that fellow who had presumably been the one who put that bumper sticker on his car, that person who I thought wanted to have the affirmation of others, who like himself loved Jesus, lifted his right hand and lifted a finger in what most of us would consider to be a common and universal gesture of utter contempt for your fellow human being. Evidently the man had given only the bumper of his car to Jesus, but not his heart. And I was reminded in that incident of how much we compartmentalize our lives, of how we partition those things in our lives which we will give to Jesus from those things which we would keep for ourselves. And, so, it is necessary from time to time for us to ask ourselves what part of our lives have we given to Jesus and what part have we kept for ourselves? How do we love the Lord our God? With only the bumper of our car? With only a small portion of our income? With only an hour or two on Sunday morning? Or, as the Bible suggests: with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Our scripture lesson for today talks about two persons who went to the temple to pray. One of these persons, a Pharisee, used religion as a means of showing others in his community how good he was but ignored the brokenness in his life and in the world. He used his religion as a means of judging others. If he could make it look like the rest of the world was going to Hell, so much the better for him! And he refused to pray for others in their hardship as he figured they probably had it coming, anyway.

In other words, the Pharisee compartmentalized his religion to make it work only for himself. He was only concerned with what was in it for him, of how good it could make him look or feel. And, yet, God knows that this is not the purpose of the Christian faith. God knows and wants us to know that Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we can brag about how good we are and neglect the lost. Persons who worship and pray like that Pharisee are nearly useless to God.

That's why Jesus' parable continues by introducing us to a tax collector, a man like Zacchaeus in Jerry's sermon a couple of Sundays ago. This man came into the Temple, kneeled before the altar and laid it all out before God, confessing that he was a sinner in need of God's mercy. Unlike the Pharisee, this tax collector had a pretty accurate definition of who he was and who God was. Kneeling there, he realized that his life was meaningless without God's mercy; that there was nothing about him that was worthy of salvation. And so he opened himself up completely and unreservedly to God in prayer. And, my friends, it was in this condition that the tax collector, unlike the Pharisee, became someone that God could use.

But the question for us is still, how do we love the Lord? Certainly, not by compartmentalizing our lives in a way that reserves only a portion for God and the rest for ourselves. Rather, we must love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, and neighbor as ourselves.

Possibly the first and foremost means of loving God with our whole being may be based on our life style. Living our lives with a consideration for others, using resources in such a way that there will be enough for future generations, caring about those for whom we have a responsibility, being loving and faithful parents, spouses, employees, and friends is indeed a witness to the kind of covenant community God wants us to have and pass on to others. To live our lives and use our resources recklessly, to care only about ourselves, to be concerned only with getting what we think is rightfully ours may be a typical mind set for an overwhelming multitude of people. But, God calls us to a different kind of life style -- a life style of caring and giving and living that is the result of Christ being at the very center of our being.

And when we live our lives like this, when we allow Christ to enter every fiber of our existence, then the way we pray our prayers and think our thoughts, the way we spend our time and the way we spend our money will be vastly affected.

Now, I have come to the point in this sermon where I am reminded of the part in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow must pass through a forest. And they realize that there are certain challenges that they may have to face up to as they follow the yellow brick road towards Oz. And, so, they begin to chant, "Lions, and tigers, and bears! O my!"

Likewise, as we journey together on the path that leads to eternal life there are times when we have to talk about "tithing, and fasting, and prayers! O my!" And its probably the part about tithing that affects us the most.

There are some people who become very uncomfortable when the church starts talking about money. I wonder why this is. As I look at it, money is the one thing that affects just about every part of my being -- the things I like to do, the things I like to eat, the things I want to have, the places I like to go, my good habits and my bad ones, and even the things I would like to have hidden from God. Money is the one thing that supports all these things. And I only have so much money. So I have a system whereby I allocate my funds to all these things in my life. And I don't like to have demands made upon that system. For that system reflects the priorities of my life.

Jerry wrote in our church's newsletter a couple of weeks ago, "If you want to see a person's priorities for life, just look at his or her checkbook." How true this is!

And, so, it is natural, even expected, that I might feel a little bit uncomfortable when the church talks about money. For when the church talks about money, it is starting to get at the very crux of who I am, of what I am, of what God means to me, of what is important in my life.	The Pharisee who went into the Temple and prayed like he did thought he was a pretty decent guy. But the fact is that he didn't want to come to grips with the real condition of his soul as he stood in the presence of God. Likewise, it is when the church talks about money that I am asked to take a real look at the condition of my relationship with God. And there is often nothing more disconcerting than to look into a mirror and see yourself for what you really are.

But, the tax collector had done this. He couldn't even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

And Jesus said, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Amen.

Let us pray: O God, help us to look honestly at ourselves and to deal honestly with our priorities as you ask us to live for you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.