Difficult words

There’s an Elton John song that has the lyric, ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’. And it’s very true that sorry can be difficult to say sometimes. But I would also add another word to that list of hard words to say: and that word is “Help!”

Asking for help can be incredibly difficult for many of us. Why? Well, there can be lots of reasons.

• Cultural - our culture prizes self-reliance and self-sufficiency so saying we need help can feel like signalling our failure to our peers.

• Previous experiences - when people have let us down in the past, we can feel that it's best not to take the risk of being disappointed again. So, instead of asking for help we just get on with it ourselves.

• Pride - it can be hard to admit we are struggling. We can worry how it would look to other people if they know that we aren't on top of everything in our lives and need some support.

It can be very humbling to admit to ourselves that we need help and then to ask for it. You are putting yourself at the mercy of someone else.

In today’s Gospel reading we see a man who also finds that "Help!" seems to be the hardest word.

This religious Pharisee goes to God to pray and is not able to see his true position before God. Instead he proudly lists his credentials, a full CV of all the good things he does that makes him a good person. He even takes time to compare himself favourably with the taxpayer praying beside him. He’s not as bad as that guy or the guys who cheat on their wives, or criminals. He is fine. He is self-reliant. He is righteous.

I wonder why he even felt the need to go to pray to God. From what he says, he seems to think that he has everything under control and has no need of any help from God.

The sad thing is, this poor Pharisee was in need of help but, because he couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge it, he went home unjustified.

In contrast, the tax payer is only too well-aware of his true position before God. He recognises that he is a man doing a despised job for the occupying rulers, collecting extortionate taxes from his own oppressed people.

He recognises that he is trapped in an unjust system, and needs to feed himself and his family, and so has made compromises in his choices and actions. So he comes to God in humility and asks for mercy, knowing he has no works of his own to qualify him as a “righteous” man.

·Jesus says that this man goes home justified by God while the other man does not.

These two examples Jesus gives us can serve as a picture of how people respond to the Gospel message when they hear it.

Just as the temple was open to both men, God’s righteousness and salvation is available to all people. We all have equal access when we hear the Gospel but that access depends on our response.

Will we choose to trust in our own righteousness, our own good works, our own credentials. Or will we acknowledge that we need help? Can we admit that, rather than compare ourselves with people we think are worse than us, we need to accept God’s truth that all have sinned and come short of the glory and holiness of God? Will we acknowledge that we cannot do enough good works to reach the level of perfection required to enter the Kingdom of God?

The message of the Gospel is simple and offensive. We need to be perfectly righteous to enter the kingdom of God. Yet we are incapable of being perfectly righteous – always doing the right thing and never doing the wrong thing - and so we need help.

We need the help of Jesus Christ the promised Saviour, who came to earth, took on human flesh and lived a perfectly righteous life. And then took the consequences of all our failings and sins, and offers to exchange our unrighteousness for His righteousness; our imperfection for His perfection.

Just like those two men in the Gospel passage had a choice as to whether they left the synagogue justified or unjustified, forgiven or unforgiven; We too have a choice to hear the Gospel and respond by admitting that we need help or respond by trusting in our own self-sufficiency.

In St Paul’s life we see both of these responses. Before his conversion he trusted in his religious credentials and his zeal for persecuting people he believed were worse than him. Following his conversion we see that he describes the things he used to trust in as dung compared to knowing Jesus.

In his letter to Timothy, as he contemplates the imminent ending of his life, St Paul acknowledges that a crown of righteousness has been reserved for him – NOT EARNED BY HIM – and he acknowledges that the Lord God, the righteous judge, will give it to him and not only to him but also to all who long for Jesus’ appearing: To all who recognise that they need Jesus’ help to be justified in God’s eyes.

Asking for help is hard when we are going through our struggles. We have all been let down at times when we have expected support. As Paul acknowledges, when he was going through his trials and struggles, his friends deserted him and didn’t give him support. But when he was on trial, God stood by him and gave him the strength to endure it. And even through the trial God enabled him to spread the message, the Good News, that help is available, so that all the Gentiles heard it.

Paul believed that God would rescue him from every evil attack and save him for his heavenly kingdom. And that is what we must believe and encourage ourselves with as we go through our trials and evil attacks. God will stand with us even as others desert us in our time of need. He will rescue us from danger, and – when we depart this world – we will be saved for his heavenly kingdom.

Let’s not let “HELP!” be the hardest word for us to say. God’s mercy and love is available to all equally and we are all equally in need of it. Whatever we are going through at the moment, whether we are struggling with health concerns, family difficulties, bereavement or financial difficulties, or whether we are struggling to admit that we are sinners in need of Grace: God wants us to come to him for help. And he will be our help in this life and the next.