For Scoffers

Luke 18:1-14

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? 

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

While growing up, I always loved Columbus day because it either landed on my birthday or was sometime throughout the week and I would get a three-day weekend during my birthday. So it was great. I was not made aware of the terrible person that Christopher Columbus was until many years later; like Hitler on steroids. America was already “found” by Europeans, he just made it popular to enslave and kill the inhabitants. So when Seattle decided to change the name of the holiday to Indigenous people’s day, it was the first time I was proud to be a resident. Because before moving here, my impression of Seattle was that it was famous for it’s music, but upon arrival I found that the Christian radio stations are just terrible and Seattle is really, really big on sports and coffee which are two of my least favorite things. So all that was a bummer, but the Indigenous day was really cool and I also found out that Seattle is actually a native american name. Double Kudos.

But when the holiday name change happened and in years since then, I’ve heard people start complaining, “darn PC culture ruining/complicating everything”. And it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. Because I only ever hear it from people who claim to be Christian, but the Bible says to seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God, that’s how you win people for Christ. But in this situation, the attitude is basically saying, “what you care about, the suffering of your entire race, and it being celebrated by your oppressors, it’s stupid. Its stupid for you to fight over a name, also come to church for potluck!” It makes no sense right.

Furthermore, the people who complain about this name change often seem to be the ones who a month later start preparing battle for the War on Christmas. The War on Christmas is the idea that people are deliberately removing the “Christ” from Christmas and that’s something worth fighting about. How ironic. How hypocritical. How similar is it to the parable Jesus tells about the religious guy, who prays Look at me Look at me I care about Christianity! And they really do care about Christianity - the word, not practice. Could it be that Christians don’t want to talk negatively about Christopher Columbus because his actions were done under the approval the Christian community? We continue to model ourselves as underdogs in the world, but whenever the Christian leadership has held any type of political power horrible things happen. Way worse than any Muslim extremist has done. 

Want examples? If we keep under the theme of the Indigenous people, there’s battle of Wounded Knee, The Walk of Tears, even as recent as the seventies when native women were sterilized and children were stolen from their homes and put in Christian homes all in the name of Christianity. It happened to my wife’s grandmother - the kidnapping not the sterilization obviously. Can you imagine being sterilized, having your child stolen from you, or just being killed because you disagree with someone’s lifestyle choices of wearing boring clothes and listening to terrible music. Listen, I play in the brass band at Seattle Temple and it has nothing on the drums of a Pow Wow. So have all that happen to you And then for your oppressors to call your complaints stupid, would you be a Christian if that was your introduction? But let’s take it a step further, the witch trials, the crusades, All for Jesus they say.

The whole idea of Christianity immediately creates a dichotomy of believers and nonbelievers and the practice of testimony is the bridge in between the two. It’s the idea that the scars of my past show people that I’m not lying when I say that Christ has changed me and the change is worthwhile. And with God it seems like everything is a symbol or can be used as a metaphor. One body is the same as a whole community. So why don’t we take the idea of testimony and take it full scale to the entire body of believers. So when a group of people who were oppressed by Christians, we should feel sorry for them because we hold the banner of being Christian. We, the church as a whole, have a lot of reasons to be humble yet we exalt ourselves. Churches are confused about why “millennials” don’t go to church or don’t respect church as a center of morality. Maybe because my entire childhood was filled with news stories every day of pastors and priests molesting little kids, and then the church body trying to cover it up!

Not only should we apologize because we claim this faith as our own, this family of believers as our own family, but also because God told us to fight for the oppressed. We shouldn’t scoff at people who cry out for justice and tell them that we’ve decided their needs are merely political corrections and not real. That’s not for us to decide! That’s not for your pastor to decide or the Christian radio DJ’s to decide or the leadership of Family Life Radio who constantly sends me political emails. Justice is to be decided by God. Right now people who neither fear God nor care about Justice are helping the people who are suffering in the world while Christians argue about words used by stores on holidays and scoff at the oppressed.

Luke 18:14B For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.