Upside Down

Scripture: Luke 18.9-14;


One afternoon a carpet layer had just finished installing carpet for a lady. He stepped out for a smoke, only to realize that he had lost his cigarettes. After a quick but fruitless search, he noticed that in the middle of the room, under the carpet he had just installed, was a bump. His cigarettes!

“No sense pulling up the entire floor for one pack of smokes,” he said to himself. So he got out his mallet and flattened the bump. Not long after, as he was cleaning up, the lady came in. “Here,” she said, handing him his pack of cigarettes. “I found them in the hallway. Now, “ she said, “if only I could find my parakeet.”

Oops.

As hard as it is to pull up the carpet, it’s harder for most people to admit their mistakes. But we makes mistakes all the time. Here are a few mistakes from actual job resumes:

“Personal: I’m married with nine children. I don’t require prescription drugs.”

“I am extremely loyal to my present firm, so please don’t let them know of my immediate availability.”

“Marital Status: Often. Children: Various.”

“Reasons for leaving last job: Responsibility makes me nervous. They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 every morning. I couldn’t work under those conditions.”


People really write that stuff because people really think that way. No one is ever at fault. Consider the parable Jesus tells about the two men who go to pray in the temple.
The Pharisee saw it as confirmation of how good he was compared to all the losers around him in the temple praying. “God! Thank you that I’m not like these (roll the eyes) people!”

The man couldn’t see his own pride. And yet pride is the deadliest of all sins. Nothing is as perilous and fatal to our souls. It was pride that moved Lucifer to think he could be like God. It was pride that made Adam and Eve take that apple. It was pride that made you feel a perceived slight this morning before church.

C.S. Lewis writes, “There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”

The answer is pride, is of course, humility, literally, humus, getting down to earth, close to the ground.

“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

And yet, there’s a danger even in this. If you recognize that you are humble, and spend any amount of time thinking about it, then, either you lose it and become proud again, or you somehow manage to make humility a badge of honor for which you are rewarded with heaven. Is this the Gospel, be sufficiently debased and you will get heaven? Is this the point of the parable?

No, I think there is more at stake than that. Dallas Willard likens our situation to the pilot, some years ago, practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent – and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.

We are flying upside down morally and spiritually. Our frame of reference is so out of whack that even the virtues we can still see clearly, must be put into proper context, pointed in the right direction again. Humility, generosity, mercy, justice, all these things must be seen in the light of our dire need for God.

I know a lot of people that I think, deep down, are relying on their pharisaic credentials, if you will, to see them through for the long haul. The credentials vary slightly but the emphasis is the same. Hey, I believe in God and I’m trying to be good, so what else is there?

But nominal belief and nominal trying is not the cry of the tax collector is it? And later on, Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to the little children who have no other reason to come to Him except that they want to.

“Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never come in.” Luke 18.17

See, the point is not just that we’ve made mistakes or that we’ve sinned. It goes beyond that. We can longer see what is truly beautiful and good anymore for ourselves and others. If we could, then desiring God constantly wouldn’t be something we would have to be told we should do. That word, even to churchgoers, sails off into oblivion most Sundays. It’s religious talk, doesn’t mean much. We think.

It’s like all the fuss over MRSA lately. You know what MRSA is? It’s something. It’s stands for something but I can’t tell you. It’s some infection that you can get and a certain percentage of people who go into the hospital get it. Now my wife tells me that it’s not much to worry about, its always been around along with a lot of other stuff. And she’s right. But I read in the paper about that woman who is pushing the CDC and AMA and such to make testing for MRSA mandatory before a person is checked into the hospital. When asked why she thinks most doctors are reluctant to do that, the woman replied, “Because doctors don’t like to be told what to do.”

None of us like to be told what to do. When it comes to our personal autonomy, we all have Ph.D’s. If this were not true, I would be out of a job. You wouldn’t need a preacher or a pastor. But you do. And I do too.

There are, however, occasional moments of clarity. There are times in our lives when it is so obvious, we don’t need a preacher to tell us that things are not working out. We can sense maybe we’re upside down, or at least, sideways. Maybe there is a way we can get right side up again. Sometimes, this even leads us to try God again. And then there are those of us who think we have been “trying God” and our lives aren’t working any better than anyone else’s. And this road following God is hard, and we want to quit. Is this you?

What did you think following Christ would be like? Lots of resorts? Lots of Beds and breakfasts? Where did you think the road was leading? It it’s no place you want to get to, then quit, by all means. Don’t let me talk you out of it.

But what if this is the only road home?


The road is not rules, and it’s not good works or superior attitudes. The road is Christ himself, Christ himself. The longer you follow Jesus the better you understand that tax collector crying out, “God have mercy on me!”

Here is another prayer that may help you on the road:

So far today, God, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over-indulgent. I’m really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help. Thank you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.