It's about God - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 18:9-14

⁹He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church on October 27, 2019. You can read the manuscript below or listen to the audio recording (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. 

Merciful God, fount of every blessing, remind us that you came among us to turn our expectations upside down, that you are God because of your unmeasurable and unexpected grace. Amen. 

Everything I read about this text this week has been something like 

TURN BACK 

BEWARE 

IT’S A TRAP! 

Which, of course, made me feel REALLY good about preaching this Sunday. But, here I am, trying my hardest not to walk into the trap that is this parable. 

Typically, I think parables are often more straightforward and honestly more fun than some other biblical passages. For the most part in parables, there are good people and bad people (and the moral of the story is mostly that you want to be the good person). Or if it’s a parable about God, then we are usually the lowly ones and God is the forgiving and wonderful one.

So obviously, where I want to start is: who are we in this particular parable? There are only really two people in the parable, three if we count God, but I don’t think we are meant to be God. So let’s think about it for a second: there’s a haughty pharisee who is so glad he is not like the tax collector. Then there is a tax collector who seems to be deep in sin but ultimately is leaving everything before God and humbling himself. Who are you in the story? 

Wait! Don’t think about it for too long! It’s a trap! 

If we say we are the humble tax collector, then we are probably saying something like, “I’m humble! I’m certainly not righteous like the pharisee!” But then, we are saying the exact same thing the pharisee prayed: Thank God I’m not like THAT person. 

And if we say we are the pharisee, we might be being more honest with ourselves, but it is pretty obvious that, in this story, we don’t *want* to be the pharisee. Because the pharisee divides God’s people into “me” and “them.” And that doesn’t sounds like the ideal Christian role model either, does it? 

So I could preach about how we need to humble ourselves before God, but then we run into the trap of how do we know how humble is humble enough? And once we become humble enough, we run the risk of being proud of how humble we are— and then we aren’t humble at all! 

The reason we encounter a trap everywhere we turn in this parable is because we always try to make it about us. And as long as we make this parable about us, we will always be the over-righteous pharisee instead of the humble tax collector. 

No matter which way we try to slice it, it doesn’t seem like we can put ourselves into this parable, like we are often inclined to do. 

Instead, we are invited to open this parable up and see that it is really about God. It is about our God who is so merciful and so world-altering that God is going to humble the exalted and exalt the humble. 

God can and will take the lowest of the low and exalt them — I mean tax collectors were the worst of the worst during that time. They were hated by people because they often cheated the poor out of the little money that they had. Tax collectors were also some of the only people that everyone had to answer to— the rich and poor alike paid taxes, so it ended up that tax collectors probably had very few friends and lived on the margins of society. 

But this humble tax collector is not the subject of this parable, God is. 

God, who came to us as the lowest of the low, a baby born of a virgin in Bethlehem. A fugitive from birth, and a nomad, traveling around with his pack of fishers and sinners. God, who heals women and widows, sent out demons, and was pushed to the margins… is the subject of this parable. 

Not us. 

This parable is about God— The God who creates light from darkness, raises the dead to life, and pulls us all— Pharisees and tax collectors, righteous and sinful, the law-abiders and the criminals, disciples and those with hearts that are prone to wander— God pulls us all into a realm of unimaginable and unexpected grace, mercy and joy.

God knows our hearts, and even then, God offers us grace. The difference between righteousness and justification is all about God’s action on our behalf. 

When we puff ourselves up, when we place ourselves above others to show off our accomplishments, we see no need for God’s grace, and though we may be living “right,” as long as we think we are responsible for our justification, we will still be unable to accept God’s mercy. 

When we recognize our inability to get it right, we throw ourselves on the mercy of one who loves us more abundantly than we can imagine.

We then trust God’s promise to protect and provide for us now, and when the time comes, to make us holy and justified according to God’s mercy and the forgiveness of our sins, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.