How to Enter the Kingdom

To say it had been a long week would have been an understatement.  A long month.  A long year.  A long life time.  Some of the craziest adventures happen when you decidedly choose to live your life with other people.  Most times you stumble into it.  Sometimes it starts from the onset, but somewhere in the midst of it all - there's a moment where you look around the room and make the decision.  You learn what annoys the others, and then sometimes you use that intentionally.  Sometimes you annoy them unintentionally.  Small gifts find their way to each other.  A phone call or an email or a well placed text message to encourage one another on the really tough days.  The laughter and inside jokes that seem to make absolutely no sense.  And a level of depth because you are living and working together.  And because at the end of the day it's about Jesus.  Recognizing that no one in the circle "deserves" to be there and thanking God that you see Him, you know Him more deeply because of the others.

After a long week and an even longer year - dealing with life and death, emergencies, circumstances beyond control, and little hope looming on the horizon...  We gathered together for dinner.  Each of us trying to cheer the other up.  Trying to laugh.  Trying to live in a bubble for just a few moments to push away life's realities.  My personal confession was that I didn't want to be there that night.  I wanted to be at home sleeping.  It had been a long while since that had happened, but I knew that I needed these people and they needed me.  And anyway, I had to eat.  What I didn't expect was to trip headlong into their protective streak that night.  As dinner began, so did an "intervention" of sorts.  The best of intentions, they thought someone was trying to take advantage of my time.  They were "done" with what they said were excuses, shortcomings, and lack of follow through by another person who honestly, had just had about one of the worst lives I could ever describe.  These are people that needed to hold me accountable.  I needed people to tell me to stop.  To help set boundaries.  But that night?  Their best intentions went over the line.  Each person in that room had similar stories - they had seen the very worst the world has to offer, and are solely alive because of the grace of God.  The excuses, shortcomings and lack of follow through by this "new" person?  Unfortunately, unbenounced to those gathered, this blow up was due to a confidential situation that had nothing to do with anyone.  That person was purely a victim once again, and I was powerless to explain.  I couldn't.  I tried subtle hints, calling each person in the room to remember times where they were in similar situations.  I tried explaining that I couldn't explain.  Nothing worked.  I left, even more beat up than I had been to start with.  Hurting.  Broken.  Angry that all of the people who I had staked my personal reputation for in the past seated in that room, couldn't see the need to do the same in this situation.  The absolute best of intentions.  The only response I had left that night was to cry myself to sleep, begging Jesus to speak peace, and hope, and healing.

No matter how many times I read Jesus' parable in Luke 18:9-14, I can't help but be instantly transported back to that moment in time.  As Jesus continues to try and explain to his disciples about the expansive grace that shapes His kingdom.  To continue to help them - and us - understand His teachings on suffering, and to help them embrace Jesus' mission, as His face is turned towards Jerusalem.

Jesus' parable used a situation that was familiar to his disciples.  Atonement services were the only ones that took place daily - at dawn and at three in the afternoon.  This service began outside the sanctuary at the great high altar with a sacrifice for the sins of Israel.  As lambs' blood was sprinkled on the altar and followed a specific ritual.  The priest would then enter the outer sanctuary to trim lamps and use incense.  Finally, the priest disappeared into the building so worshippers could offer private prayers to God.  This service contained corporate (or public) worship and private prayer.

As we enter the scene, there is one person who stands at a distance.  If a person was standing by themselves, it would not be uncommon to pray out loud.  Prayer according to first century Judaism was of three types:

1.  Confession of sin
2.  Thanksgiving for the abundance received
3.  Petitions for yourself and others

As we read how the Pharisee begins, we see the traditional prayer of "thanks," but then as the prayer continues, he substitutes his own actions for God's.   He compares himself to those around him, rather than God's expectations.  His "prayer" becomes a sermon attacking the unrighteous and then sharing his own accomplishments.

The scene is contrasted with the tax collector who recognizes his defiled status as an outcast.  He purposely alienates himself, choosing to stand apart.  While normally, the posture of prayer would be to look down and cross your arms over you chest, as a servant stands before a master, the tax collector openly grieves in a way that was mainly attributed to women in the most dire of situations.

Both the Pharisee and tax collector stand apart.  But for different reasons.  The "righteous" man went to worship, confident that his own actions and achievements made him worthy of the kingdom.  The tax collector openly weeps, convinced that the lamb who was sacrificed could not have atoned for his sin.*  And to the confusion of the disciples listening, whom Jesus was clearly teaching to as the "Pharisees" in this story...  The parable takes a surprising turn as it concludes, Jesus declares that the tax collector was the one who was pronounced justified in the sight of God.

For if you construe the very nature of the King and His Kingdom, how will you enter it?  How often do we stand as the one who thinks that our sin is too great for God to forgive?  And conversely, how often do we try our best but lapse into thinking that we can get God to love us more than He already does?  Jesus breaks into our world again and again and again.  Reminding us that we don't understand.  It's not simply about breaking the "law," it's about the broken relationship.

And so Jesus continues his journey to Jerusalem, for it is the reason why He came.  What began with Adam and Eve standing apart in the garden because of their sin, and this separation between God and His people...  Jesus goes to the cross.  Enduring the abandonment by His Father, choosing to be far off, so we don't have to be.  That we may be drawn near.  That our sin may be forgiven, atoned for by the blood of the Lamb.  Justified.  Healed.  The broken relationship mended.  And that we may be set free.







*Verb used in verse 13 is not the typical Greek word used for mercy.  Rather the word "hilaskomai" is used which means "to make an atonement."