Did you hear
that one about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates?
Three men
came by to enter into heaven.
The first
said, “Oh, you can let me right in, I’m from America
and God has a special relationship with America.”
And Saint Peter let him right in.
The second
one coughed, and kept winking at St. Peter, and passed an envelope filled with
100-dollar bills to that Old Staint.
And Peter let him right in.
And the third
said, “I did all the right rituals, and I did some amazingly hard things, like
climbing Mt. Everest and I also…”
Before this man could finish his sentence St. Peter waved him
on through.
I’m getting
blank stares—you’ve never heard this one? Well, that’s because it’s not how God
works.
I want you
to know this, God can not, in any way, shape, or form, be bribed, but God can
be thanked.
God can’t be bribed, but God can be thanked.
Prayer
God can’t
be bribed.
God can’t be
bribed by national allegiances.
Where you’re
born, what country you are a citizen of, has no bearing on God’s love for you.
Look at
Naaman. He is the military commander of the nation of Aram, a nation at war with Israel, and yet it is said, “Because of him the
LORD had given victory to Aram.”
God’s the
God of all the earth, not just Israel.
Not only has
God entered into Naaman’s actions, but as we read Naaman is healed by God.
So too, the
Samaritan—healed by Jesus along with 9 other lepers.
In both
cases, the national origin of these men do not goad God into action.
And just so
you know, there has been, quite often, in the history of Christianity a mistake
made, that ties national identity—patriotism even—tightly to faith and
even to God. Since the earliest days of Pagan Rome “Deo et Patria” “God
and Country” get entangled again and again.
In fact, one
of the most important non-biblical books ever written, St. Augustine’s City of God, was
written in response to a crisis. Christianity had clung too close to the Roman Empire, and when its capital city was sacked,
people genuinely wondered,
“Can Faith continue?
Has God abandoned us?
Is it Jesus’ Kingdom of God which lies in ruined
rubble there in Rome?”
For that
matter, in England, where there is a State Church, there are people who have
never been baptized, never set foot in a church, never even opened a Bible, but
assume they are upstanding members of the Church of England, because they are
English after all.
And I would
quickly add there are people here in America who make those same
assumptions.
But let
it be known, God is not bribed by our allegiance to country.
Neither is
God bribed by our wealth.
This is
after all one of the founding assumptions of the Lutheran Reformation. In order
to pay for St. Peter’s Cathedral people were commissioned to sell get
out of purgatory free cards—even for sins not yet committed. And
Luther saw this, and looked at his Bible and his church history, and said to
this practice loudly and clearly, “No.”
So too, if
we read verses 4-6, in 2nd Kings, we see that Naaman tried to bribe
God, or at least God’s prophet, and fails. Because God is not bribed by our
wealth.
Finally, we
read about what Naaman
hopes will happen to help his healing.
He expects waving of hands or some great quest
or task, in order to cure him of his leprosy. Instead, he is simply
told, “Wash, and be clean.”
He hopes
that some great or magical act will move God. Will make it clear that he will
be healed, that God will show loving kindness to him.
And we do
the same sometimes, we look for signs, strain to grasp meaning and earn
attention, yearn for easy, even magical, answers.
But again,
we find that neither good work nor ritual is an adequate or appropriate bribe
for God.
Yes, if
Grace is true, if Grace abounds. If God really is for us and not against us,
then no amount of bribery, will make God for us and
not against us,
No amount of bribery, will cause grace to abound
No amount of bribery, will make grace true
because it is already true, grace already
abounds, God already is for us!
Further, if
a bribery scheme is needed, we know that Jesus has already bought
us through his life, death, and resurrection.
Our pittance
of bribe to God or to the Devil, to father figures or to societal norms is
cheap.
But Christ’s
gift to us, is both expensive—even the gift of his life—and is at the same time
free—freely given.
God
cannot be bribed, but God can be thanked.
As we read
today of the Samaritan leper who returns to thank Jesus, we can notices that
all 10 lepers are made clean, but only one is made well.
Here
thanksgiving is seeing what God has done… stopping, and being
stunned by the magnificence of it.
It is also speaking
about the good thing God has done—letting people know how the good news of Jesus
has become good news for you right now, concretely.
Yes,
thanksgiving involves seeing and speaking.
And we
humans might even be hardwired to do so.
A study was
recently conducted in which subjects were asked to reflect on, and then write
about, someone they were thankful for, and why.
Then they
were connected with that person via Telephone and they read why they were
thankful for that person.
And the
results were astonishing. The people who did this, the people who expressed
their thankfulness, were less likely to be depressed for a whole month
after. Likewise they were happier for a whopping six months after having
thanked this person.
But it’s not
just realization and remembrance—seeing and speaking, that is thanksgiving, it
is service of neighbor as well.
In a sense,
we can’t thank God for God’s goodness in any concrete way—but we can pass on
those gracious gifts of God to our neighbors.
For example,
St. Stephen’s renewed interest in stocking the local food pantry in its time of
need, is wonderful. It is a witness to our thankfulness—it is our recognition
of where our daily bread comes from. We’re showing forth God’s grace through
our gracious action.
God can’t
be bribed, but God can be thanked.
Our
nationality means nothing to God/ our recognition of His goodness does.
Our money
means nothing to God/ our telling people what God has done for us does.
Our ritual
and our struggle for His approval means nothing to God/ our service of our
neighbor in need does.
Have you
heard the one about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates?
Three men
arrive at the gate. The first says “You won’t let me in, I was American.”
The second says, “You won’t let me in, I was rich.”
And the third says, “You won’t let me in, I was overly
scrupulous and fixated on working my way into heaven.”
And Jesus
comes to the gate, and ushers them in, not on their merits, but because he
loved them. And they rejoiced,
because God can’t be bribed, but God can be thanked.
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