Friday, July 28, 2017

Simul Justus Et Piccaator


A Reflection for VIII Pentecost                                        All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. July 30, 2017                                                                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
Genesis 29:15-28     Psalm 128     Romans 8:26-39    Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
SIMUL JUSTUS ET PECCATOR
There is a 1939 W.C. Fields movie called “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” which has Fields’ character, Larson E. Whipsnade, the owner of a disreputable circus, declare, “As my dear old grandfather Litvak said (just before they swung the trap), he said "You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump."

My father, who was a big Fields’ fan, and worried that I might be too gullible, used to quote the first part of that line as he would warn me “if something seems too good to be true, it is.” The problem with being a Christian is that swindlers assume you are not too bright, and you will fall for anything. The other problem with being a Christian is that we are a combination of saint and sinner at the same time or, as Luther says, “Simul Justus et Peccator”. 
 
In the Hebrew Testament story for today, the Jacob saga continues with Jacob, the swindler, liar, cheat, and all around no good excuse of a human being trying to save himself from the vengeance of those people to whom he lied, cheated, and swindled. He arrives at a cousin’s tent and falls in love with his cousin’s daughter named Rachel. Her father, Laban, sees how Jacob is smitten with Rachel and wonders what to do with this guest and decides a way to get some work out of him. Notice how he starts off: “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Laban knows that Jacob is not an honest man and can be easily cheated. He also knows that Jacob’s love for Rachel has turned Jacob into a potential chump. He knows that if Jacob is a “hired hand” the daughters would be out of reach, and Jacob wants to stay in the running for Rachel’s hand. Laban figures that this way he can free help from Jacob for just room and board. The plan succeeds so well that, when it is time to pay Jacob off with Rachel, Laban knows that there is no need to “smarten the chump” and there is time for one more swindle. The wedding feast takes place as the bride is veiled, as was the custom. The glasses of wine flow freely, and Jacob is three sheets to the wind and wakes up the next morning snuggling next to Rachel’s older sister instead of Rachel. Laban says, “The rules of the house did not specify which daughter, but since I am such a good guy, just work for me for seven more years and we will call it even”. The con man has been conned, the cheater cheated, and the swindler swindled. We don’t know how much Rachel knew about the arrangement, but what will happen later in the Jacob mythic saga is that Rachel will be just as manipulative as her sister, and this manipulative gene will be passed on to all of Jacob’s children. The sins that we do will have consequences.

Yet as lousy as they are, these are the people that God will use to bring God’s love to all the world. Doesn’t that sound too good to be true - that people who are sinners can be people who God uses to give blessings? In the Gospel, Jesus tells of things that seem too good to be true in the Kingdom of the Heavens. Jesus says that the tiny mustard seed grows into a tree in which the birds of the air nest. He marvels at how a little bit of yeast leavens the whole lump. He says that there may be hidden treasures in all of us that God alone sees and treasures.

Many times I have people come to me after they have been beating themselves up, finding fault in their whole being. The more we talk, the more we see that they have done some lousy thing by thought, word, or deed. They are afraid that, if it were found out that they had done or thought these things, people would hate them. Usually, if it is just an offending thought, I pass on the words of a desert father: “You can’t stop the birds of the air from flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your beard.” If it is a deed that concerns them, then I suggest that they go through the process of finding the person who they have harmed and ask forgiveness, making amends and, if possible, working for reconciliation. 
 
This is not an easy process. It’s hard and it hurts and sometimes it involves weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as the Gospel tells us. When Jesus was preaching, he saw himself as participating at the end of the age, the age where we think there is a difference between heaven and earth. If we indeed pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then it begins with us when we participate in the granting of grace to each other and ourselves. Jesus asked, “Do you understand these things?”, and they said “Yes”, and Jesus said, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Life is short and we do not have much time”, as the end of our service remind us. 
 
We always arrive back at Grace and Luther’s “Simul Justus et Peccator”. Luther came up with that phrase to remind us that we are always in the need of Grace, the unearned love of God because we are not always good. Luther had spent all of his life trying to be perfectly “good” - and failing. Then Luther saw God in a different way and kept coming back to the Letter to the Romans where Paul, who had tried to be perfect, found that he was given Grace rather than perfection and proclaims that God’s Spirit groans within us to accept that loving Grace into our lives:
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.



SIMUL JUSUS ET PECCATOR
God’s breath sweeps through me
Still breaking commands more than once
Yet angels still sing through me.

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