Joel 2:23-32

Sunrises are significant. I remember the sunrises I have seen with more vividness than the sunsets. I remember the sunrise I witnessed after spending a night at Duke Hospital with a family whose newborn was dying. The newborn baby was premature and wasn't expected to live long. The father called for a chaplain to come baptize the infant. I ended up staying with the family as their infant died to be there to help break the news to them. I remember the first rays of morning coming through the hospital windows as those parents mourned their child. I also remember the sunrises the mornings that both our children were born. Melissa had been in labor all night. Both Mary and Kaitlyn were finally born early in the morning. And the sun rose once again through hospital windows.

Sunrises are significant because they come after long dark nights. Sunrise is that moment when the light touches the darkness and the light wins out. Sometimes during those dark parts of our lives when all seems to be going wrong when all hope seems gone, there is a sunrise. Suddenly in the darkness of our situation, there is a color and light in the distant sky. Then in an instant a bright light floods over the horizon dispelling the darkness.

Sunrises are significant because they are signs of hope. In the midst of hopelessness a light shines. A sign of life in the midst of death. A glimmer and then a blaze of light in the midst of darkness. Sunrises are significant.

Joel the Old Testament prophet saw a sunrise on the horizon of Israel's future. Joel lived 400 years before Jesus. During his lifetime Israel was going through a period of darkness. 600 years before around the year 1000 BC, Israel had been a great economic and military power. During the reigns of King David and King Solomon, Israel had been a great power in the Middle East. Their wealth grew and great programs of building temples and palaces were undertaken as their borders expanded.

But all that changed quickly. After Solomon's death the nation was torn in two by a power struggle. The now divided kingdoms were never again as strong as when David was King. Both kingdoms went through a steady moral, economic and political decline until first the north and then the south were conquered. Pagan armies and powers came in and demolished their grand cities and their great temples and palaces.

It was a punishment from God. They had repeatedly forsaken God, so God stopped protecting them and allowed their enemies to win. Almost a generation later those were had been taken into captivity were allowed to return to Israel. The Israelites left behind had forgotten worship of the one true God and had become pagans. When they did rebuild the temple it was so puny that the old men who remembered the great temple of Solomon wept.

About a hundred years later Joel was born. Israel was still just a province of a foreign power. The temple was no bigger and the people had no more freedom. The night of Israel's long oppression was still just as dark. Pagan government officials who knew nothing of God's holy laws told them how to live. They were allowed kings but only as puppet of a pagan king.

In the midst of this darkness Joel saw a light from heaven. It was a hope for the people of Israel and he preached that hope. He told the children of God that they should rejoice for showers of God's blessing were on their way. No longer would God allow these pagan insects to infest their land. No longer would they go hungry but would have plenty.

But Joel's vision entailed much more than these material blessings. He also speaks of God's spirit being poured out on human hearts. He says that all God's children, men and women, young and old, slave and free will experience and proclaim the Good News of God's love. God's judgment will come upon all those who had oppressed their neighbor. And we who have looked to God will be saved in a great Divine Day of Judgment and vindication.

The "Son"-rise which Joel foresaw came to pass about 400 years later. A dark night while humanity was under the oppression of sin and death, a light came from heaven. It was a small glimmer at first. First one, then many angels bringing glory from heaven and good news of glad tidings for all the earth. Then suddenly there was a great light as a child was born in humble surroundings. The Son of the God of light had come upon the earth to bring light to people's hearts.

But people rejected and killed the light. But at sunrise some women were at the tombs; the place of death. They were preparing to anoint a body for final burial they walked through darkness. But suddenly light. First an angel and then the risen Lord bringing them good news of life.

50 days later at about dawn more of Joel's prophesy came to pass. God poured out the Holy Spirit and men and women, young and old, slave and free experienced the joy of God living in their hearts. And from that day until today the church has boldly proclaimed the Good News, and dreamed dreams, and saw visions.

But Joel saw more than that. He also saw a day yet to come when God's light would shine even greater still. A day when all evil would be done away with and all who had looked to Christ would receive the full blessings of their salvation. We believe this day will happen when Jesus comes again in glory.

Today we live in a dark world. A world where people kill one another. A world where people are enslaved by drugs, abuse, materialism, self-centeredness. This world is currently occupied by the forces of wickedness. But God's word tells us that a light will break through the darkness. Just as it did in the past a light will again shine in the darkness.

What kind of darkness do you face? Is it a boring life, a dead end job, unemployment? Do you face the darkness of domestic violence, a failing marriage, a family falling apart? Are you facing the darkness of financial problems, or credit piling up? Do you face the darkness of a self centered life, or the turmoil of no inner peace?

Rejoice for a light is coming. God has sent the Son to bring light into your life. God has sent the Holy Spirit to invade and possess your soul and give you peace and joy. And God has promised a day when all oppression and evil will cease.

Look! On the horizon - a light! Embrace the light! Surrender to the light! Live in the light!

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Luke 18:9-14

Sometimes when Jesus taught, religious folk would come to hear him. You know the kind: the ones that have the biggest Bibles and always carry them around for all to see, people who are just a little too proud in the wrong way of their religion. People who think they have saved themselves with their own holiness. Well when these folks came around Jesus would tell a story that might have gone something like this:

"Once upon a time there were two men who went to church. One was a deacon in the church, a Sunday School teacher and a member of the Administrative Board. The other was a gangster who was into illegal gambling, drug dealing and who knows what else. The Deacon sat on the front pew of the church and was always the first to stand up when the preacher said stand. When the preacher preached he would say "Amen" louder and more often than anyone else. Finally when the preacher asked for prayer concerns he stood up and said, "I just want to thank the Lord that I was brought up in the church, and that I gave my life to God when I was only six and that I did not end up like those prostitutes and gang members out on the streets." The gangster however sat on the back pew and never said a word. He just hung his head a cried, "Lord, I've done wrong, please forgive me."

"I tell you it was the gangster that went home forgiven that Sunday rather than the deacon; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled for those who humble themselves will be exalted."

So why didn't Jesus like religious people? I mean, he was talking bad about the religious leaders. He was being disrespectful to the authority figures. The Pharisees were the people who represented righteousness and justice and the laws of Moses. They were the preachers and doctors of theology and teachers. They studied God 's word and told people to live right.

At the same time he talking bad about a Pharisees, he talked good about a publican: a tax collector! The tax collectors were the scum of the earth. They were first of all traitors to their community. They helped the Romans gather the money that we then used to feed the soldiers and pay for their weapons. What's worse they took a cut for themselves and often lived well off of it. So on top of being traitors they were crooks too.

I tried to depict these realities in the little modernization of the parable. The Pharisees was the board member and deacon of the church: a person who leads the church and tried to live a religious life. The tax collector became the gangster. He was the scum of the earth that betrayed his community by selling drugs and stole from the poor and needy. And Jesus' parable seems to condemn the religious people while exhaling the criminals.

But if you look closely at the parable it really isn't about religious vs. criminal. It begins by saying, "He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others." It is really about self-righteousness. The Pharisees thought he had made himself righteous through his actions. He tithed and gave and worshipped regularly. He even fasted twice a week when one once was required.

The tax collector however confessed that he was not righteous. He humbled himself before God. He bowed his head and stood off at a distance form the center of the temple. In the temple in Jerusalem the Holy of Holies was the dwelling place of God and it was in the center of the temple. This repentant tax collector stood away from the center because he was truly ashamed and sorry for what he had done.

And it was the sinner who was made righteous. Well, maybe it was one of the sinners who was made righteous. You see the Pharisee was a sinner too. Maybe he didn't help the Romans or steal from widows, but he did fail to trust in God. He didn't confess his sin and ask for forgiveness while the tax collector did.

Perhaps the origin of this difference between the two is who they used to measure their behavior. You notice that the Pharisee compares himself to the thieves and adulterers. He thanks God that he is not like them. And it is true that he shouldn't be like them. But that is like a Ph.D. graduate comparing himself or herself to a 4th grader and saying, "Look how smart I am."

The tax collector on the other hand seems to have a higher standard. He could have said, " I may not be good but I am not as bad as that person over there" and pointed to a criminal who had done worse things. Instead he just beats his breast and cries, "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner." Perhaps he was using the standard of God's law to measure his righteousness. And when he looked into the mirror of God's law he could see clearly how much of a sinner he really was.

So the Pharisees' error was that he compared himself to other people. And we do the same thing. Haven't you ever heard someone was "I'm no saint, but I'm not like those people" and then they point to someone who is worse than they? But as Christians we are to judge our lives by Jesus. He is the perfect expression of the Word of God in the flesh. And compared to him we are all sinners in need of forgiveness.

So why didn't Jesus like religious folk? It's not so much that Jesus didn't like religious people as much as it is that he realized that the self righteous really weren't righteous. And that it is the repentant sinner who is truly made righteous. That is the point of this parable. You can't make yourself righteous. I don't care if you fast three times a week and 20% to the church.

Only God can make us righteous. Only he can save us. We need to stop deluding ourselves into thinking we are righteous. We need to stop looking for someone worse than us to convince ourselves or others that we are righteous.

Let's take a lesson from the tax collector. We should confess that we're sinners. Jesus said that the one who confessed was the one who went home forgiven. When you leave here today, will you go home forgiven? You decide.

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