JESUS SHATTERS THE “US” AND “THEM” MENTALITY
TEXT: Luke 18: 1-14
Sunday, February 24, 2002
We continue our series on “Celebrate Jesus,” and someone suggested that it looked awfully cheerful for a Lenten series. Aren’t we supposed to be repentant, aren’t we supposed to be a little darkened, aren’t we supposed to be a little solemn in our Christian life during this Lenten season as we approach the great triumphant day of Easter. I would say that historically the church has been a little morose when it comes to Lent, but not in the early church.
The whole purpose of Lent was to set aside 40 days in order to fast. The intent of fasting is not to deprive yourself of food. The intent of fasting is to devote yourself to prayer and study of the scripture. The whole intent of Lent is not the taking off but the putting on. I try to take a more positive approach to Lent and to put on something that the Lord would call me to.
What we are going to do in this series is to take on seven or eight attributes of Jesus. In the process, you will discover ways in which your life doesn’t match up. That is where repentance comes in.
Last week we talked about the first quality of Jesus that was so attractive and that was that he was so spiritually connected. He not only modeled being spiritually connected, he is the connection itself. Of all the qualities of Jesus, I think this one is the primary one that makes him so exciting to us and why we are drawn to him. When we put our faith in him, we find this dynamic presence of God in our lives, and it changes us.
Today I would like to talk about a second quality of Jesus. It is illustrated all through his life and his dealings with people like the Samaritan woman, like Zacchaeus, like the Centurion, like the leper and the lame. It is also illustrated in his teachings, as well. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a current illustration from the day that makes one spiritual point which was simply, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus shocks them by defining the term “neighbor” in terms that were very foreign to them. They expected Jesus to define the word neighbor according to geography, but he did not. He did not define it by nation or by family. He did not define it according to our personal feelings. Jesus doesn’t define neighbor according to the terms that we do. He simply says this, “Your neighbor is whoever you come across who is in need and you are able to do something about it. That’s your neighbor.”
When it hit Jesus’ audience in his day and the implications of that definition began to sink in, I think the crowd probably gasped. That would mean a Samaritan is my neighbor. That would mean that a Jew is my neighbor. That would mean that someone of a different nation, a different color or a different religion is my neighbor. That would include the Romans as my neighbor. Wait a minute!! You can’t mean that! That would mean the poor, the leper–all these people are my neighbor. How can that be?
I think this reaction of the crowd was very common because Jesus’ words took them by surprise. God does not think the way that we think, and over time Jesus pondered why people have such a hard time getting together and loving one another. Why do we categorize and label people in certain ways. As Jesus thought about it, he discovered that we think very differently than he does. We have a certain way of viewing the world that is very foreign to God. In Luke 18: 9-14, I think Jesus addresses this paradigm. This is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector:
TEXT:
John Reilly of The Reilly Factor says, “Now I warn you, you are about to enter God’s no-spin zone.” God comes very directly at us here and challenges how we think and how we define things in our lives.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector illustrates the terrible human tendency to think in terms of “us” and “them.” You see what the Pharisee says and does. He talks about the tax collector. He does not talk to the tax collector. He does not talk with the tax collector. He talks about him and objec-tifies him. He has no relationship with him. He is just pointing to him and telling God, “That’s not me. That’s not us. That’s them. That’s those type of people.” In verse 9, it tells you why he thought this way. The whole purpose of Jesus telling this parable was to deal with those who were self-righteous, people who felt that they deserved God’s grace and forgiveness because of how good they are. The result is that they became proud and began to compare themselves with others.
The Pharisees began deciding who was worthy of them, thus fostering the perception of “us” and “them.” Let’s be very clear–the Pharisee was very right about what he said about himself. He was very honest. There were some things he did not do. He was the ideal believer of that day or church member of this day. He did not commit the big sins. He kept his passions under control. He lived a responsible life, not like those other people, not like robbers, not like an adulterer, not like this tax collector. He was responsible and did what he felt God wanted him to do. He fasts twice a week. It was required for Jewish person to fast only once a week, but he would fast twice a week. What’s the purpose of fasting? Spending time in devotion to God. So, the Pharisee is saying that he at least had two intensive devotional times with God. He was in prayer and scripture study. Better yet, the Pharisee does more than tithe–he tithes everything. They only had to tithe certain types of money, but the Pharisee tithes everything meaning that he tithes probably 15%. He may even be a double tither. Even more than that, he is in regular worship. He has given everything up for his Lord because he is a Pharisee. He takes all this to heart and begins to become prideful and sees people as unworthy of him and unworthy of God.
Where did he make his mistake? He made his mistake in that he saw his good works, his lifestyle and the things he did not do as the basis of his salvation rather than as a benefit of his salvation. All these things do not benefit God at all–that the Pharisee fasts, that he is responsible in his life, and that he tithes. These things don’t matter to God at all. God taught these things for our good. The purpose for his fasting was for his benefit so that he would draw closer to God and know God’s presence in his life. The purpose of living a responsible life is so that life would go well for the Pharisee and that he wouldn’t experience the hard knocks of life. It was for his benefit. The whole benefit of tithing is to shake us loose of material wealth so that we are free to live our lives in the world of the Spirit.
God tells us that we are wrong if we try to see our works and our goodness as a basis for our salvation. The Old Testament testifies to this whole attempt to live a perfect life, and no one could. When God compares people, he compares them with himself and in comparison to God no one is good. God even says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We are called to be holy, but no one can live by the holy standard from God’s perspective.
God sees that all of us are human and are equally sinful. All of us need forgiveness. All of us need the cross of Jesus. All of us need God’s grace and mercy. All of us need God’s new birth and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Everyone needs God.
The only category God uses to differentiate between people is whether or not they need his grace and his mercy. Who here does not need God’s grace and mercy? All of us need his grace and mercy. Therefore, all of us stand equal before him. There isn’t anyone who is outside of our arena of friendship and fellowship.
Before we are too hard on this Pharisee, note this. I have a lot of affection for him because he makes a differentiation between people based on high moral and religious grounds. Think of the reasons why we label people “us” and “them.” What do we use to categorize people and determine whether we can fellowship with them. Go to any city and what do you find? You find a north side and a south side. You find a rich section, and you find a poor section. Why don’t rich people and poor people fellowship together? Why aren’t we intermixed. Aren’t there as many good people in poor sections as there are in rich sections? Aren’t there as many irresponsible people living in rich sections as there are in poor sections? Is it simply money that divides us?
Why in every town and city are there black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods and Asian-American neighborhoods? Is it simply over skin color that we make this differentiation that keeps us from fellowship? In 1959, James Baldwin did not believe that this could possibly be, so he changed the color of his skin to black. He was the same person but he discovered that people did decide things about him simply based upon the color of his skin. He wrote a book called Black Like Me.
We even differentiate between fashion. In my day there were preppy people who wore those Izod shirts. I never did like them very much. Then there were the cool people. They wore the current fads of the day. Then there were the weirdos. They wore the long pants, the tie-dye shirts and the hippie look. Then there were the people that you really feared, and they were the polyester people.
There are other ways that we differentiate between people. There are the jocks who love sports, there are the freaks, there were the special education people, and then there were the geeks who were smart. They always carried pencils in their pockets and Texas Instrument calculators. There were subgroups that got together and liked each other.
Why do national boundaries exist? Who drew the lines, and why can I as a human being live one mile inside the border of one country and am loved and accepted. If I cross the border into another country, I am hated and despised.
We differentiate people who have an extra X chromosome or who have a Y chromosome. We think that people who have an extra X chromosome are not very smart and are not fit for ministry in God’s church. We do the same thing with those who have a Y chromosome. Many times there are courses on a feminist perspective on the Bible as though because as a man I cannot see God’s word in an impassioned way and that I can’t possibly interpret scripture correctly. My commentary on this is that we should not look for a feminist perspective or a masculine perspective on anything. We are called to seek a divine perspective, a Biblical interpretation of scripture.
We differentiate between theologies. If you believe certain things, you are a Methodist. If you believe other things, you are Episcopalian or Catholic. It is the same Jesus Christ that we all serve, and it is like pulling teeth trying to get people of different theological beliefs together. Churches cannot get themselves together.
We even differentiate between worship styles. We talk about people in the 8:15 service or the 9:45 service or the 11:15 service as though these are “those people” and “our people” and never do the two mix it seems. Why is that? What’s wrong with our thinking in all these categories? Does God place about the labels we place on people? No, he does not! There is no “us” and “them.” There never has been in his book and there never should be. The only “us” and “them” is defined by who needs God’s grace, and that’s everyone. So everyone is in need of God, everyone is acceptable to God, God loves everyone, and how can we not accept them and love them as well.
Who do you fear? Who do you talk about as “us” versus “them”? Who do you refrain from relating to? Who do you wall off in your life? How about the church? Who do we reach out to? Who is the average White Clay Creek church member? What do they look like, and why do they look like that?
In one church where I served, the church was defined this way: “Anyone who appreciates a conservative, traditional reformed worship service in a gothic building.” How many people fit that definition? Not many. Why do so many churches define “us” so narrowly when God defines it as “Whosoever will....”
How do we shatter this “us” and “them” mentality? First is to realize how foreign our thinking is to God and to give it up. We need to stop thinking in “us” and “them” terms. We need to stop believing there are certain people I can relate to and should not relate to. We need to accept God’s new way of viewing the world and understand that everyone is open to a relationship, everyone is open to our love, and that we should reach out to everyone.
I believe that most of us know this intellectually. We know we all need God’s grace. We know we are to reach out to everyone. We know what John 3:16 says. We just simply haven’t lived that way. So how do we live that way? Simply do what Jesus did. God being holy decided to come and fellowship with very unholy, very sinful people so that he could get to know us. In a relationship, he could discover our hurts, our sorrows and how we think. As a result, he would be able to care for us and reach out to us and talk to us.
This is what Jesus did all his life. He puts himself in a place where he will meet people who are very different from himself. When he encountered the woman at the well, he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. She was very sinful and he was sinless. He put himself in a place where he could discover who she was and relate to her on a personal basis. He offered God’s care and word to her.
The practical suggestion in our journals is called “Lighting our Streets.” Here’s the challenge: Once a week for seven weeks go on a prayer walk around your neighborhood. You can apply this in any arena. Perhaps your hang-up is race or the lifestyle of another. Your job is to get to know them and understand them. You are to be like Jesus to them. Perhaps your hang-up is young people who wear all black and have a hundred piercings all over them. Perhaps you need to find one of them and develop a relationship with them. Whatever it is, do as Jesus did. Find a way to have a relationship with people who are different from yourself and get to know them. Begin to love them and open yourself up to them as Jesus did.
Imagine what would happen if every Christian in America took a walk and prayed for their neighborhoods and in the process actually got to know some of their neighbors. What an impact it would have. It is much like that one song “This Little Light of Mine.” You can’t let it shine if you are stuck behind the four walls of your home or the four walls of your church, the four walls of your color or the four walls of your situation. You need to get out into the world and let your light shine. It is time for us to get out from under the bushel and let our lights shine.
Let’s pray.
