You Can't Do It On Your Own

The Rev. Sara Warfield

Scripture: Luke 18:9-14

It’s no secret that our American culture has become more and more individualistic, and its people have become more and more isolated. Like I preached about a few weeks ago, fewer and fewer people are going to church. But also, fewer and fewer people are joining bowling leagues. Fewer and fewer people stop by to meet the neighbors who just moved in next door. There are fewer block parties. Just fewer ways overall to connect repeatedly and casually with the people who live in our neighborhood, in our town.

What has filled that void is social media. Which actually serves to isolate us even further. It isn’t news at this point that the algorithms on Facebook and Instagram and TikTik are designed to entrench us in what feels familiar—culturally, socially, politically—and to pit us against those who are different.

The more time we spend on Facebook, the more we start narrowing our view of who our neighbors are, which are those people who post things we like and who like what we post. And our actual neighbor who may have a political sign in their yard that you don’t agree with no longer seems like a neighbor.

So not only have we become physically isolated, staying at home on our devices more, encountering the actual physical people in our community less, we’re also becoming more ideologically isolated. The word you hear most is “polarized,” but I think “ideologically isolated” is more accurate. Actually, I’d go even further: I’d call it “ideologically self-sufficient.” We’ve come to believe that we don’t need other different people to challenge and reshape our perspectives, we don’t need other different people to grow. Which has brought our country down the path of believing that we don’t need certain other different people to survive and thrive. In fact, we need certain other different people to be banished in order for us to survive and thrive.

This is the opposite of faith, at least according to Jesus’ parable today.

In today’s gospel, we hear a lot of I’s from the Pharisee: "I thank you that I am not like other people: I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income." Now fasting and giving of your income are both lovely spiritual practices—and it’s stewardship month, so I should mention that giving of your income is essential to St. Luke’s survival. The problem isn’t the actions the Pharisee is taking, it’s that the Pharisee felt justified in his faith, worthy of praise and reward in this life and the next, because of his own actions.

Meanwhile, the tax collector can’t even look up as he beats his chest in remorse. The only reference he makes to himself is as a sinner begging God to have mercy on him. He is the one who is justified, Jesus tells us.

A quick word about what justification means theologically: it basically means the way God stands in judgment of our sins. How God exercises justice. And in our Christian faith, there is nothing we can do to or lose earn justification. Jesus already died because of human sin and then rose again, fully forgiving all the sin that brought him to the cross and all the sin to come. His resurrection destroys the power of our sin and transforms it through grace. Which means God exercises justice, or justifies us, through grace. Not eye for an eye, not punishment on the third and fourth generations, just forgiveness. Right now. The only thing justification requires on our part, then, is trust in that grace, trust in God above any of our own efforts, trust that there is nothing we can do to lose God’s love or to earn it.

So let’s return to our Pharisee and tax collector. The tax collector isn’t justified because he is beating his chest or because he is confessing to being a sinner. He’s justified because he says “have mercy on me,” acknowledging that only God can transform his sins, whereas the Pharisee is ideologically self-sufficient, thinking his own actions will earn him justification—that he’s in control, not God.

I think that our biggest sins often stem from trying to do everything on our own.

Last week, I talked about salvation as liberation in this life. Good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. None of these things happen when we prioritize self-sufficiency above all else. Indeed I would argue that poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression thrive in places that value self-sufficiency above all else.

In fact, I believe that faith, boiled down to its very essence, is the deep knowledge that we can’t do any of this life on our own which then leads to the profound trust in something beyond ourselves. For us, that’s God. That’s the Body of Christ.

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There is another extreme to ideological self-sufficiency. And I apologize to the Bible Reflection group, because they’ve already heard this story a few times:

So there is a man marooned in the middle of the ocean. He’s treading the water, struggling against the waves, fighting for his life. But he considers himself a man of strong faith, and he prays to God, “God, I know that nothing is impossible for you. I know that you are capable of miracles. I believe you can rescue me. I have faith that you will rescue me. Thank you, God. Amen.” And then he waited. He didn’t have to wait long before he heard an engine over the waves. A small boat came up to him, and the two people in it told him, “We spotted you in our scopes. Our ship isn’t far away. Get in!” But the man said, “Oh, no thank you, I’m a Christian, a believer, and I have faith that God will rescue me.” The people in the boat argued with him, but the man insisted, and finally the people honored his wishes and went away. The same thing happened a few hours later. Another ship had spotted him and sent out a boat. And the man refused, and they turned away. This has happened one more time before the man couldn’t keep himself above the waves any longer. He slipped into the water and died.

When he got to heaven, God greeted him, and the man said, “What happened? I had faith that you would rescue me! I believed that you could perform miracles and rescue me.” And God said, “I did come! I sent three boats, three teams of amazing people to help you.”

This other extreme of ideological self-sufficiency is what is called “spiritual bypass.” Spiritual bypass is the tendency to use our spiritual ideas or beliefs to sidestep addressing problems in our lives. Often, it looks like resigning yourself to the problem, accepting the situation as it is, because “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” or “everything happens for a reason.”

People use spiritual bypass to justify not seeing a therapist, not addressing issues in a marriage, not getting the medical help they need. Spiritual bypass is expecting problems to be solved in a very particular spiritual way. It is to say, “God’s got me” while refusing to see when God sends help your way over and over again through thoughtful, skilled, and compassionate people.

It’s a way of saying, “I pray all the time. I read the Bible every day. My faith in God is enough.”

But once again, ideological self-sufficiency is the opposite of faith.

Because God works through other people. God works through community. So faith is the profound trust that God will send us the people we need in our times of trouble. Faith is the profound trust that liberation and healing can only happen when we come together as the Body of Christ.

This is the reason we come to St. Luke’s. To build up our faith in God, which is to build up our trust in the Body of Christ, which is to know that none of us have to do it on our own. When you’re struggling and you ask for help, you are giving someone else the opportunity to step into their gifts and their compassion. When you share your gifts and compassion with someone who may be struggling, you are giving them the opportunity to learn that they don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love.

We practice this when we share our joys and troubles with the gathered Body during Community Prayers. We practice this when we sign up to deliver a meal on a meal train, AND when we share that we ourselves could use a few meals during a particular rough patch. We practice this either when we say no to participating in a particular ministry, because we know we just don’t have the time to give it right now, and when we joyfully say yes when we do.

We practice this when we stretch to give of our financial resources to this church, knowing that some can give more than others, but that when we all give together, all of our needs will be met.

That is what faith looks like. That’s what the Body of Christ means. That’s who St. Luke’s is. That’s who WE are. Amen.