Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scriptures: Luke 18:9-14 and Joel 2:12-14
News Release (May 6, 2000)
In a May 4 service that included the symbolic wearing of sackcloth and ashes, United Methodists confessed the sin of racism within the denomination.
The act of repentance, together with a call for reconciliation, was an attempt to recapture the spirit of Methodism lost when some African Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries felt compelled to leave the church’s predecessor bodies and formed their own congregations.
In words and dramatic imagery, the Rev. Anthony Alexander, a Central Pennsylvania delegate, and the Rev. William B. McClain, a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary, told the stories of the discriminatory acts that led to the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal churches.
But racism remained for African Americans who stayed. When the Methodist Episcopal Church North, Methodist Episcopal Church South and Methodist Protestant Church united in 1939, a separate jurisdiction – the Central Jurisdiction – was created for Black members. Retired Bishop James S. Thomas, who remembered the sorrow of that period, noted that God has now given the church the opportunity “to climb a higher mountain than we’ve ever climbed before.”
Responding to the call for confession, participants received a strip of sackcloth to pin onto their clothes and a rubbing of ashes on the wrist as signs of penance.
Bishop McKinley Young of the AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church responded that he couldn’t speak for his grandparents but added, “I wish they could hear your confession tonight. I believe that there is a balcony in heaven, and that there are clouds of witnesses who bend their ears to hear.”
“It is my hope that we will be deeply committed to making this symbolic act a reality.”
(“United Methodists Repent for Racism,” Daily Christian Advocate, The General Conference of the United Methodist Church)
The Sermon
Let me begin with a simple question: “What does it mean to pray well?”
There are people who say that I pray well. Earlier this week, someone said to me over the phone: “We certainly appreciate your prayers….because everybody knows you have a direct line.” Which I take as a vote of confidence, even though I am not comfortable with the theology that lies behind it.
Other times, I’ll be out for dinner and someone will say (as it comes time to bless the meal): “Oh, good, we have an expert here tonight.” Or else the host will pray after making some comment about giving me the night off, before adding: “Of course, it won’t be nearly as good as you would do.” Which makes me feel badly, even though I do appreciate “the night off” and truly enjoy being the one hearing the words rather than the one saying the words.
I have had a book of prayers published. Which made me feel good….especially when people said nice things after reading them. But which was a bit awkward, given that prayers aren’t something that should be reviewed for their literary quality or theological content. There is something slightly odd about being the “designated prayer” for a college. I can understand “poet laureates.” But I have never heard of a “prayer laureate”….although that’s how someone at Albion once introduced me.
The other day, I actually had a prayer applauded. It was at Albion, where we were dedicating a softball field. I stood on home plate and offered the dedicatory invocation. At the conclusion, the team applauded. And then went on to win. Not that there was any connection between those things. But upon leaving the home plate area for the comfort of the bleachers, someone said: “I bet that was the first time that you ever had applause following one of your prayers.” Unfortunately, I had to tell him it wasn’t.
The problem, of course, is that any prayer offered in public is a prayer with an audience. But true prayer should have an audience of one. I’m talking about God. One recalls the sarcasm employed by a reporter who described a preacher’s invocation as “the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience.” So again I repeat: “What does it mean to pray well?”
Keeping that in mind, let’s turn directly to the text. It’s a parable….meaning a story told by Jesus. Which means that it may be true. Or may not be true. As concerns the characters, they could be people Jesus actually knows. Or he could be making them up as he goes along. Fortunately, for purposes of character analysis, there are only two. One, a Pharisee. The other, a tax collector. And the text says that both of them went to the Temple to pray.
The story says that the Pharisee prayed standing by himself. Don’t make a big deal out of that. Standing was the customary posture for prayer. And separating oneself from other people was a fairly common thing to do. The Pharisee is depicted as saying:
O God, I give thanks to You that I am not like other men….robbers…. swindlers….adulterers….or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of everything I get.
Immediately, we find ourselves standing in judgment of his prayer. Too haughty, we say. Too proud, we say. Much too focused on self, we say. Which I suppose it is. The Pharisee is giving eloquent testimony to everything he isn’t, followed by a recitation of everything he is. And we are disinclined to like him.
People hearing Jesus would not have agreed with us. They would have viewed him as a pretty good guy. Jewish literature has preserved for us the prayer of an unknown rabbi, spoken around 70 A.D. It begins:
I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast given me a place among those who sit in the House of Study and not among those who sit at the street corners. I rise early. They rise early. But I rise to study the words of the Law, and they rise early to engage in vain things. I live for the life of the future world. They live for the pit of destruction.
Which means that the Pharisee’s prayer is not unusual. Nor would Jesus’ hearers view it as surprising. And I concur. All told, the Pharisee sounds like a pretty good guy. The vices he steers clear of (stealing….swindling….fooling around with women) are vices we all ought to steer clear of. And the spiritual disciplines he undertakes are disciplines we all ought to undertake. I don’t know about fasting. But I do know about tithing. And concerning both fasting and tithing, this fellow goes everybody else one better. He fasts twice as often and tithes twice as much. I could build a church on people like him. In fact, I have built churches on people like him. Say what you want about his attitude, but don’t knock his behavior. All told, it’s pretty darn good.
But there’s this other fellow praying in the near vicinity. This guy is a tax collector. Which, as you know from other stories in the New Testament, makes him a dismal and despised creature. Everybody looked down their noses at tax collectors. Notice how many times the occupation is linked with a discussion of sin….as in “tax collectors and sinners.” There’s a reason for this. Israel was an occupied country. Rome was the taxing authority. Meaning that you paid taxes to a government you couldn’t stand….in amounts you couldn’t afford. What’s more, you didn’t have much to say about it. It was clearly “taxation without representation.”
But Romans didn’t handle the collection part. They hired Jews to do that. And each person they hired was given the right to collect taxes in a certain region. In short, the Jews who were hired to collect taxes were given a franchise over a specific area. And the amounts to be collected were left unspecified. The tax collector knew how much the Romans expected. But anything he could get on top of that figure could be kept for himself. And it was not uncommon for tax collectors to keep a lot….lining their pockets with the shekels of their countrymen. If Jewish citizens objected, the Jewish tax collector could appeal to Roman authority to back him up. And Rome generally came to his defense. Because the alternative was finding Romans to make collections. All in all, the system worked pretty well if you were Roman….worked pretty well if you were a tax collector….and worked pretty poorly if you were a Jew making payment. Can you see why tax collectors were hated?
But back to this fellow’s prayer. It’s pretty short….pretty simple….pretty humble. He beats his breast (a sign of penitence and mourning) and says: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In fact, there is legitimate reason to translate his prayer: “Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner”….as in “chief of sinners.” All of which sounds lovely, 2000 years removed. But it doesn’t obscure the fact that everybody hated his guts. And you and I wouldn’t like him much, either. To whatever degree this fellow is hanging around the church, he probably has his hand on the collection plate….taking out rather than putting in. And having met a few of his kind in the four churches I have served….including the lady who put her hand in the till at Nardin Park to the tune of $151,000….I know that you can’t build many successful ministries on the backs of people like him.
When you really look at these two people, the choice is obvious. You’ll take the tither and try to humble him up a bit. You aren’t going to take the crook on the basis of one grandstand play for mercy. Except that’s what Jesus does. Takes the crook, I mean. Blows off the tither. And says that when both go down to their houses, it will be the crook who will be “right” with God. Which is not what you would expect. And certainly not what Jesus’ hearers expected. Put it this way. What if Jesus had begun his story by saying: “The Pope and a pimp went into St. Peter’s to pray.” You wouldn’t expect (nine lines later) that the pimp would be the one to come out smelling like a rose.
What’s the issue here? Spiritual pride is the issue here. And how can you tell spiritual pride when you see it? By its lack of contrition, that’s how.
Contrition: the ability to be genuinely sorry for what one has done….or failed to do. Sorry to lovers. Sorry to neighbors. Sorry to deity. Sorry to history. Dress it up in theological language and call it “repentance.” Dress it up in psychological language and call it “remorse.” Whatever you call it, it’s still about being sorry to someone for something….and being capable of saying it as well as feeling it. In Jesus’ story, that’s what separated the two guys in the Temple. And one suspects that’s what separates us still.
Once upon a time, in a tear jerker of a movie called Love Story, Ali MacGraw looked at Ryan O’Neal and said: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Which sounded so incredibly romantic, until you sat back and realized how stupid it really was. I can’t imagine being in love with someone who could never be sorry, and say so. And were I afflicted with a similar inability to express remorse, I can’t imagine anyone being in love with me. Apart from God, I mean. Because that’s his job. But, even then, our love relationship….God’s and mine….wouldn’t amount to a hills of beans, given the arrogance of my self-righteousness.
“Who’s sorry now,” Patsy Cline croons. And suddenly it appears that everybody is. These last few weeks have been a good time in the contrition business. Everywhere I turn, I find people who are heaven-bent on making an apology.
According to yesterday’s paper, Governor Engler is sorry he told 14 kids they had won a Presidential Scholarship when they hadn’t….at least, not yet. Robert Montgomery Knight is sorry that his “abusive and uncivil behavior” over the course of 29 years has suddenly become an embarrassment to the University of Indiana. And Sheriff William Hackel is sorry he missed his son’s birthday and his wife’s anniversary, although he neglected to direct any remorseful language in the direction of the 26 year old whose “complaint of harassment” (how’s that for descriptive restraint?) led to his conviction and incarceration.
Last week, we Methodists joined the Pope….who has been apologizing to everybody for everything, including the descendants of Galileo (for condemning him too vocally) and the descendants of six million Jews (for supporting him too silently)….by apologizing to both Catholics and African American Methodists, for sins historical and contemporaneous.
Whenever anybody says “I am sorry” to God (or to any of God’s children), somebody is certain to raise the question of sincerity. How many times have you tried to apologize to somebody who said: “You don’t really mean it. You’re just saying it so that I will get off your back and leave you alone, so things can go back to the way they were.”
Well, that’s always possible. I can’t always judge insincerity when I hear it. What’s worse, I can’t always judge insincerity when I say it. There have been times that I have expressed more remorse than I felt (given that it seemed appropriate and/or required), only to discover that in the act of expressing it (out loud), I began feeling it (inside).
Indiana University’s president, Myles Brand (whose patience and mercy must be drawn from rivers deeper than mine), said he was all-but-ready to can Bobby Knight, until the coach showed up at his door (on the eve of the Sabbath) to throw himself on the university’s mercy. Concerning those two hours, the president said:
Before the meeting, I didn’t think he could change his behavior. But I’d never seen Bobby so contrite and apologetic, or so sincere. He made me a personal pledge. He gave me his personal word. And I believe him.
So what does it matter what you and I think? For now.
As concerns institutional apologies, what can they hurt? They may even help. To the degree that they can set the record straight (as if any record can be set completely straight), apologies can serve history. And to the degree that the people voicing them are willing to stand behind them, apologies can serve community.
Let me briefly engage myself (and you, by proxy) in a little Q and A. I don’t have 20 questions. But I do have 10.
· Did things happen to African Americans in the early days of the Methodist movement for which an apology is in order?
I have researched the records and the answer, unequivocally and resoundingly, is Yes.
· Did things happen in historical encounters between Methodists and Roman Catholics for which an apology is in order?
I have not researched the record, but I will take it on faith that they did.
· These things on the historical record, was I guilty of them?
No.
· These things on the historical record, were you guilty of them?
No.
· These things on the historical record, would you and I have been guilty of them, had we lived then?
Probably….given our human propensity to “go with the flow.”
· How am I implicated in any of this historical stuff?
Professionally, my career has thrived and prospered under systems that have hurt and denied others.
· Have I ever done anything (specifically) to Roman Catholics?
If resentment is a sin, I have resented them.
· Have I ever done anything (specifically) to African American colleagues?
If paternalism is a sin, I have patronized them.
· Is sackcloth and ashes my style?
No. If I have to eat humble pie, I prefer it be sweetened with a dollop of ice cream.
· Does that mean I am uncomfortable with the contrition expressed in Cleveland last week?
No. Not at all. I’ll mount that horse of contrition and ride it gladly. If I have any qualms about all the “I’m sorrys” coming out of Cleveland, it has more to do with who we didn’t say them to….than who we did.
But it’s a start. Beggars can’t be choosers. And, in the presence of God, I guess I’m a beggar. From time to time, I need reread those texts which reduce my status.
Some years ago, the London Times ran a contest inviting readers to write in and tell them “What’s wrong with England?” They said that the answers would be judged for originality, clarity and brevity. The winning answer had but two words. It was submitted by the writer, G. K. Chesterton. Who, in answer to the question, “What’s wrong with England,” said: “I am.”
* * * * *
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
I tell you, one went down to his house more justified than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
