WHO IS WORTHY?

June 1, 1986, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

"Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy
to have you come under my roof." --Luke 7:6b (RSV)

Scripture
Luke 7:1-10

In the popular biography of Pope John XXIII, there is a poignant
description of his first public appearance after his election. Thousands
of people were crowded into the-great piazza of St. Peter's to see the new
Pope. "They watched as a huge tapestry was unfurled over the edge of the
balcony. It was the coat of arms of Pius XII. They saw windows thrown
open on either side of the balcony and groups of Cardinals, having just
come from the Sistine Chapel, standing and watching too. Now bugles...cut
through the murmuring night...almost unexpectedly he was there, a solid,
thickset figure in white. Other Popes had been born in portable thrones
amid the full splendor of the Vatican Court. John XXIII came alone and on
foot and he stood there so still] and unassuming that seconds passed before
most of those below were aware of what had happened." [I Will Be Called
John, Lawrence Elliot, pp. 8-9] 7 _

It was the first of many refreshingly humble gestures by.a man people
thought was to be an interim caretaker, but who became one of the most
disarmingly winsome and influential persons in the Twentieth Century. The
Roman Church is a different institution today because of him. And, in many
ways, he was the most influential Roman Catholic leader - for
Protestantism, since the Reformation. The Protestant establishment is
different because of John XXIII. His gift and his extraordinary influence
derived, in part, from the humility of his perspective. He was not
enarmoured with the trappings of his office. He expressed a sense of
unworthiness with some regularity, often with a wry sense of humor. For
instance over the centuries the custom had evolved of genuflecting three
times in the presence of the Pope. When one of his aides who was also a
close friend did it, Pope John asked him not to. His friend protested that
the gesture was deeply a part of him and the Pope said, "Very well, but
once is enough. Don't you think I believe you the first time?" [p. 251]
Norman Cousins recalls the Pope's opening remark when they were together
for an interview. “Just remember, I'm an ordinary man: I have two eyes, a
nose - a very large nose... You must feel completely relaxed." [p.. 297]

The papacy of John XXIII was graced by his own sense that whatever
the regal trappings of the office were about they had nothing to do‘with== ~-~
his own worthiness. It was that sense of perspective, that authentic and
honest humility that made him, in the eyes of millions of people, Roman
Catholic, Protestant and non-Christian alike, somehow worthy of his high
office. Acknowledging his unworthiness - tapped into something in the
hearts of millions of people who knew what unworthiness feels like.

Religion is very interested in the matter of human unworthiness. Our
entree to the topic is ordinarily our sensitivity to sin. We are good at
telling people why they are unworthy, inadequate, guilty, damned. Our
interest, further, in the topic, takes the form of a modest proposal that
religion itself is the remedy for unworthiness: engage in the prescribed
rituals and rubrics, repeat the proper formulas, believe the right stuff
and you will be suddenly saved, not guilty, worthy. And sometimes -
happily - but not frequently, religion announces that on the topic of human
unworthiness there is a word from the Lord. It is not always perceived as
a religious word. The word from God on the subject is Grace.

But, first, let's Took again at an incident in Luke's Gospel which
presents the issue...

It is a story of a remarkable soldier, a Roman Centurion,
stationed in Capernaum, assigned to the puppet King Herod Antipas.
Centurions were the backbone of Rome's occupying army. They were the
equivalent of modern non-commissioned officers, career men. They were good
at their work - which involved commanding 100 men, keeping the peace and
maintaining order. That was neither romantic nor easy in Capernaum. There
was no love lost between Jews and the Roman army of occupation. To the
Romans, the Jews seemed fanatically nationalistic, going on and on about
how the land was theirs because God had given it to them. Revolts were
common-place. In addition, their religion was peculiar and rigid and
exclusive.

Many Roman soldiers detested the Jews. Sometimes they intentional ly
violated religious custom, like the time they carried the Roman Eagle into
the Temple Courtyard.

The Centurion in Luke's story did not fit this stereotype. It's hard
not to like him. Apparently he had grown to appreciate the religion of
the people of Capernaum. When the village needed a new Synagogue, he
raised the money for it. The residents liked him. He liked them. The
incident in Luke's Gospel is about this soldier's concern for one of his
house servants, a slave actually, who was critically ill.

In Capernaum there lived another man, a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, whose
reputation as a teacher and a healer was spreading throughout Galilee.
People were talking about him. One time, when he was returning to
Capernaum he was met by a delegation of his neighbors, who had come on
behalf of the Centurion, to ask Jesus to heal the critically ill servant.
“The man is worthy" they said, meaning of course, the Centurion. He has
paid his dues. He is a decent human being. He deserves this
consideration. So Jesus headed for the Centurion's home, but was
intercepted by another delegation, this one from the Centurion, hearing a

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different message. "Don't come. Don't trouble yourself. I am not worthy
to have you under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be
healed." He had remembered that it was not legal for Jesus, a Jew, to-
enter a Gentile's home. He, the Centurion, was not worthy - racially,
religiously.

Now something in that impressed Jesus very much. Almost everybvody
agrees that Jesus was taken by the Centurion's utter confidence that the
healing could be affected from a distance. “Not even in Israel have I
found such faith," he said. The more I think about it, however, the more I
want to entertain the possibility that Jesus was astounded with “I am not
worthy to have you under my roof." That was unusual. The whole weight of
social custom and religion, after all, was on the other side of the
equation.

The purpose of religion, it seemed, was to make people feel worthy,
deserving of God's attention.

Religion deals with it because our sense of worth - worthfulness - is
a deeply human dilemma. The psychologists keep telling us that we human
beings have a very difficult time feeling good about ourselves.

Dr. Thomas Harris, Psychiatrist and author, writes: "I believe the
universal problem is that by nature every small infant, regardless of what
culture he was born into, because of his situation, decides on the
position, ‘I'm not OK.'" That, Harris concludes, is the most important
fact about us. We believe we are unworthy and we spend the rest of our
lives trying desparately to convince others, but mostly ourselves, that we
are worthy - or OK. He has a lot of support for that position.

Classically, religion has presented itself as the way an individual
can be "put right with God," feel worthy or OK about himself or herself.
Paul Tournier suggests that it is a matter of basic economics. Do good
things and God will love you. Religion is the way one accumulates worth.
First century Judaism was guilty of that, but no more so than religion in
every age.

Now once you make the assumption that your religion confers
worthiness on you, it is almost inevitable that two new dynamics go to
work. First, it is really impossible not to conclude that your neighbor
who doesn't share your inside position because of your religion, isn't
going to hell. Second, once religion understands its own power, know that
people have trusted it to deal with their most critical psychological -
spiritual problems - i.e. how to feel worthy about themselves or right
with God or saved, it is almost impossible for religion not to work with
that a little bit, get a little mileage from it; raise a little money for

instance, on the outside chance that it might enhance one's position with
God.

I believe Luke uses the story of the Centurion to propose an entirely
different way of thinking about this matter. I don't believe the
critically 71] servant is the main point at all. Hes not unimportant, but
I believe the focus is the soul of this Roman military man, far away from
home but trying to be civil, and the souls of the religious elders trying

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so desparately to get right with God by obeying all the rules.

I think Luke's point is that everybody is a little bit wrong in this
incident, but wrong enough to miss the very good news which is Jesus
Christ. The Jewish friends of the Centurion were wrong when they proposed
that he deserved the attention of Jesus because he had been generous. And
the Centurion was wrong when he announced that he was not worthy of Jesus’
attention, on the basis of his race or religion. The radical and new word
Luke is straining to express here is that no one is worthy of God's grace -
you get it anyway. Worthiness is not part of this equation. The new word -
the good word is Grace - God's unconditional love for people which is
based, not on their worthiness, but on God, God's love.

There are two magnificent ideas which thread their way through Luke's
Gospel, often conveyed by outsiders - Shepherds, Samaritans, Roman
soldiers. The first is reconciliation - that the coming of Jesus Christ is
God's way of breaking down all the human barriers that separate people -
race, nationality, sex, religion. The second is the universality of God's
Tove. No one is outside it. God intends his love to be experienced by the
whole world, not just a select few.

It's no accident that Luke tells us about a Christ whose compassion
knows no boundaries, who is moved by human suffering whenever he encounters
it. Luke wants us to remember the compassion of Christ which is triggered
by the outsiders - the nameless slave of a Centurion, for instance.

That is still radical: some would say naive. Everyone knows you have
to be careful in this world. There are people out there who are
dishonest; people who don't even try to work, people who have made an art-
form out of bilking the weifare agencies and soft-headed do-gooders. The
simple mandate of the Gospel, however, is that love is not connected to
worthiness. If #t is, we are all in trouble. People are to be helped, not
on the basis of merit, but because they are in need. And if loving them is
more than we can manage, we are called to help them so that God's love has
a channel to heal and restore and reclaim.

When Dick Shepherd assumed the Vicarate of St. Martin's in the Fields
the parish was dying. He began with the poor around the church and
scandalized proper Angelicans by announcing that "You can't preach Christ
to empty betlies." If you have visited Trafalgar Square in London you know
that today St. Martin's is open day and night, a center for concerts and
poetry and ministries of service and a haven for anyone who needs a haven.
One hundred thousand people came to celebrate his life and ministry when
Shepherd died. One of them was a little boy who paid Shepherd this
ultimate tribute. Told to remove his cap when he entered the church, he
said: “This ain't a church. This is St. Martin's." How sad, how utterly
tragic - when church means you have to be somebody to go inside. How
limiting and how tragic when we are convinced that our love should go only
to those we judge to be worthy. As if Tove ever had anything to do with
worth.

If you have ever been in love you know what that means. To know

yourself loved wholly and honestly and strongly by another human being is
to be humbled by the wonder and unlikeliness of it. To be loved is to

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ask on occasion: “How is this possible? How can she love me so?" To be

~—loved -is-to-know, experientialty, the reality of-grace-=~a-love-that;-thank———-—

God, does not depend on my lovability but on some miracelous strength in
the other person.

The problem in religion and in love, of course, is pride, that
original sin of ours, that compulsion in each of us which begins at that
place deep inside where we do not feel worthy, and then sets us on a life-
time of scrambling and working to establish our worthiness. The problem is
that we come to believe that we are getting it done - that we do deserve
God's love, have earned it - have become worthy of whatever we get in this
world of love, affection, appreciation. That thinking and that dynamic
gets between us and those we want to love and ultimately it gets between
God and ourselves. We know it, I believe, at the intimate center of our
own lives. We know, in social relationships, how difficult it is to
maintain friendship with someone who is utterly self sufficient, who needs
nothing from us, who is worthy. In intimate relationships we know how
deadly it is when love becomes the price we negotiate for services
rendered: when we feel that the other is obligated to love us, that we
deserve it, and when there is no longer any wonder at the grace of it all.
It is difficult to penetrate the veneer of the self-sufficient, the self-
satisfied, the worthy.

Those of us who are parents know that the best love we have for our
children does not depend on their performance, but the love which comes
welling up out of our own hearts. We know that it is not unusual or
particularly noble to love a lovable child. And we Know that real,
healing love is cailed out of us precisely when a child is obnoxious.

The miracle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the radical mandate of
Christian discipleship is this: none of us is worthy of what God has done
for us in Christ, and our unworthiness is not the point. The point is
God's unconditional love.

It is finally very personal for each of us. Frederick Buechner has a
wonderful paragraph in which he writes that "most theology like most
fiction, is essentially autobiography. Acquinas, Calvin, Barth, Tillich,
worked out their systems - And if you press them far enough, even at their
most cerebral and forbidding, you find an experience of flesh and blood, a
human face... smiling or frowning or weeping or covering its eyes before
something that happened once. Maybe no more than a thunderstorm, a dream,
and yet it made a difference...which no theology can ever entirely convey
or entirely conceal." [Alphabet of Grace.]

It is suggested that somewhere in the history of each of us we
conclude that we are not worthy. If theology is autobiography, many of us
have spent a life-time trying to find a way to resolve or at Teast live
with that conviction in our hearts - we are not worthy.

We have thought together about the story of a man, a Roman soldier,
who had come to the same conclusion.

And if we have been listening, we have heard - out of that shared
history of unworthiness, inadequacy, guilt - a word of grace. We have

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recalled the Lord who healed the servant and loved the Centurion and in

loving him saved his soutz—And-if we-Tistem we-wilt-hear-a word-of-Grace- -

for ourselves: a word of unconditional love from a God - who, we know, in

moments of occasional clarity - has loved us and saved us, too.

We come, at his bidding, to table: to remember that love: to
celebrate it, to share it with one another and with the whole world. The
table, in our tradition, is open. There are no theological tests, no moral
barriers: no criteria of worthiness. What there is here is Grace.

Hear again the traditional words of invitation...

"Dearly beloved, all that humbly put their trust in Christ, and
desire his help that they may lead a holy life, all that are truly sorry
for their sins and would be delivered from the burden of them, are invited
and encouraged in His name to come to this Sacrament. Let us, therefore,
so come that we may find refreshing and rest unto our souls." Amen.

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