One of my favorite stories from childhood was the story of King Arthur and his nights of the round table.  As a child, I would watch the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone constantly.  We even had the record recording of the movie. For those of you who don’t remember records, they are giant CDs.  Later on in life, I was still fascinated by the King Arthur story and it was then that I read the book The Once and Future King which is T.H. White’s modern retelling of the classic story whose first chapter serves as the base  for the Disney movie.  The fantasy story of King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere and all the other knights, is a extraordinary story of heroism, faith, betrayal, and the search for redemption.  Of all the stories connected with the knights of the round table and King Arthur, probably the poignant is this: Late in Lancelot’s life, after having betrayed his king by having an affair with Queen Guinevere, a man comes to Camelot with a magic sword through his head in desperate need of a miracle. Only the best knight in the world could remove the sword. Now Lancelot’s greatest hope for all of his life was to do a miracle. But as the other knights tried to pull the magic sword from the man’s head, Lancelot hid in the castle.  The hope of doing a miracle had left. His sins were too great.  There would be no way that he could do the miracle.  He was no longer the greatest.  In this moment of supreme doubt the other knights came to bring Lancelot to try his turn at the sword.  I will always remember how White describes the scene: “As Lancelot reached for the sword and began to pull, it came out of the man’s head.   And Lancelot wept as he did forever after.  He knew a secret that was hidden from everybody else.  The miracle was that he had been allowed to do a miracle.” 

          Seldom are there times when our sinfulness is made so apparent.  More seldom are those moments of true remorse and true joy because of forgiveness.  Miraculous forgiveness.  And yet at the heart of who we are as Christians, is the knowledge that Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected for us and for our sins, so that we could be forgiven.  But is it only knowledge? Is it not our experience?  Is it not our faith? The crisis that has plague mainline churches like ours for generations, is that we live without a sense of our forgiveness.  The vast majority of us in the Presbyterian Church grew up here or in another church.  We rarely felt that deep conviction of sinfulness and uplifting joy of forgiveness the way that others who have never been inside the walls of church would feel.  That was actually my first experience of the church and God.  Standing in the presence of infinite forgiveness in awe that I had managed to live without this for so long.  That was nine years ago tomorrow.  In the intervening years, however, I had forgotten that feeling and amazement, until I came to today’s passage in Luke. 

          Today’s passage deals with a topic we tend to shy away from S-I-N.  It is the theological elephant in the room.  We know it is there, but we do not want to talk about it.  It is enough the we confess our sins as part of the worship, right? We don’t have to think about it the rest of the week.  We are comfortable knowing that we are forgiven and that’s enough.  Unfortunately, that is really not enough.  This is the sin of the Pharisee in our story.  He goes up to the temple to encounter God and basically says, “you know God I am fine.  I’m not a sinner like that guy.  I fast and tithe.  I do my part.”  And you know what?  I bet you he was telling the truth.  I bet he wasn’t sinning and he was doing his part fasting and tithing.  But that is not enough.  He forgot the most fundamental part of our humanity and our life in faith.  We are sinners.  He might not as sinned as much as that guy over there, but he did sin.  The same way you might not have sinned as much as your neighbor down the pew, but you all and we all sinned.  That is the truth the tax collector knew that the Pharisee had forgotten.  The Pharisee thought the process was over.  He thought he was good when he wasn’t.  The tax collector knew it wasn’t over.  He knew he was a sinner and that God was still working on him. 

          When I say process, I really mean process.  Faith in God and receiving forgiveness are not the last steps.  They are the first.  And we forget that in the church today, especially in our churches where we like to hear how God forgives us and then think the story stops there.  It doesn’t.  This church thing we do here on Sunday and throughout the week is not just about being reminded that we are saved, reminding us that we are not like the extortion, the unjust, the adulterers, and those tax collectors. It is about relationship and growth with God.  This is the far graver sin that the Pharisee commits.  Not just thinking that he is better than tax collector and sinless, but thinking that he needs that relationship with God less than anyone else.  Because it is in that relationship that we grow. That we grow in love with God.  That we grow in faith.  That grow more connected to all those other forgiven sinners we sit with on Sunday morning.   Let me drive this home for you: Besides worship, by what actions have you tried to grow in faith and relationship with God this week?  Let me repeat that: Besides worship, by what actions have you tried to grow in faith and relationship with God this week?  Bible study? Reading?  Prayer? Personal devotion? Service? Outreach?  I’m not asking because I want to shame you.  I’m asking because as sinners we often think that we can do this whole faith and religion thing by ourselves without God.  And we can’t. Because we end up at the temple telling God we don’t need him. One of my favorite theological quotes:  “How do you know we can’t save ourselves?  Because we never have.”  We need God and we need God every day.  Not just to rain down forgiveness upon us and pat us on the back and say that we are saved, but to grow us in faith and discipleship continually whether your are 8 or 80.

          Now if we do that, if we are church like that then everything changes for us as a church.  We start to recognize the value and importance of what we have in this life of faith, but we also remember that we are sinners.  And not only that we realize that there are a lot of other sinners out there that need the same relationship and the same process of growth that we have. I heard someone suggest a naval metaphor that made this point the other day: he said  churches need to go from being cruise ships into being aircraft carriers. The typical church today, ours included, is a cruise ship, like the Love Boat. We all get together to have a nice time with the pastor as cruise director. We love each other. We love our ship and, of course, we love God too.  On the other hand, the church as aircraft carrier means people come on board not to have a nice time, but instead to receive a deployment beyond the mother ship. Our mission is to launch God’s people out into “enemy territory.” Of course, the military image is faulty because our enemy is not flesh and blood, but injustice and exploitation, the abuse of power, hopelessness, unbelief, materialism and all the false gods that stand against the righteousness of God’s kingdom. In this model, we, elders and pastors and members of this church, are like naval officers who train the pilots to launch and establish air dominance, thereby extending the influence of God’s kingdom throughout the city. Each goes out to fulfill her or his mission to extend the reach of God’s love, authority and kingdom in Oklahoma City and beyond.[1] We are saved and sent sinners.  Saved to live a life of discipleship, to grow in faith continually, to love God and our neighbors, but we are also sent.  Sent into the world to take the same message of sin and salvation, forgiveness and growth that we have been gifted with ourselves.