[Year C, Proper 25]
Before I begin the sermon today, I’d like to offer up a short prayer:
“Oh Lord, I want to thank you that you have made me such an amazing specimen of holiness. I am in the church five – sometimes six – days a week, and I pray at least ten times a day – sometimes more! I observe all the Holy Days, and spend a lot of time reading my Bible and looking for ways to make sure that other people do exactly as you have taught us; and if they don’t, I pray that you would smite them. I am thankful that I’m not like some of those spiritually lazy heathens out there. Honestly, Lord, you should count yourself lucky to have me as one of your followers!”
<shines a fake apple>
Now… I hope you know that this is just a joke. A put-on. A farce. I would never pray this way. But, hearing this, I hope you think to yourself, “Wow! That’s some wackadoodle stuff right there.” And, I would hope that you would also think, “He’s got to be exaggerating. Nobody does all of that. And besides, who cares if Fr. Mike is doing all that stuff. He’s being an arrogant jerk right now.” And you’d be right. There’s a lot of exaggeration in that little prayer. Because it’s supposed to be an example of what not to do.
That’s exactly the point that Jesus was trying to get across with the parable about this Tax Collector and the Pharisee. It’s an exaggeration intended to point out the difference between those who truly understand their sins, and those who are way too confident in their own moral performance. Those who view other people with contempt, because they look at what they themselves are doing and find it superior to others. Those who compare their behavior to other people, and somehow always come out smelling like roses.
You see, the parable is concerned with how we understand justification. Now, in theological terms, to be justified means to be “righteous in God’s eyes.” And, justification is the word we use to describe how we become righteous in God’s eyes. That is, the word justification is all about what God sees when God looks at us, and this word – justification – is interested in explaining what it takes for any of us to become righteous in God’s eyes. How do we get there? How do we end up looking good to God?
This Pharisee was looking at all the fantastic things he was doing and was comparing himself to this Tax Collector. He was rattling off all of the things that he was doing, all of his wonderful moral accomplishments, as if to tell God that he, the Pharisee, had earned the right to stand before God and be called righteous.
But then there is the other man – the Tax Collector. In this time in history, Tax Collectors were considered traitors to their own people, because they would make agreements with the Roman Empire to collect the taxes that Rome requested. And, these Tax Collectors were expected to take their own pay out of what they collected for Rome. As you can imagine, the more ambitious the Tax Collector, the richer they became, by collecting way more than what Rome asked for. Rome not only turned a blind eye to this practice, but actually encouraged it. Because even if you’re the one doing evil, if you can get one group of people to hate another person or group, and blame those other people for everything, then you have adequately deflected their anger. Better to let the people hate each other than to hate you, after all. By creating division and hatred among them, you can keep doing all your wicked things while people are distracted.
But back to this man, this Tax Collector, a sinful, hateful person, who has likely cheated many people out of more than they needed to pay, stands off to the side of the temple, and he just beats his chest in remorse, and says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Which of these two men was justified? That is, which man was righteous in God’s eyes?
The Tax Collector.
And the Pharisee? We know that he did not go home that day in God’s good graces. To God, this Pharisee was not righteous. Instead, the righteous man was the one who beat his chest, and in an abundance of humility acknowledged not only his own shortcomings, but looked to God for the salvation of his soul, and the forgiveness of his sins.
Now, imagine if you were one of the people that was listening to Jesus as he was telling this story. In their eyes, the Pharisees were considered the most righteous of the righteous. They were the ones that kept the Law of Moses in all its many forms. They were the ones that were able to pull off the seemingly impossible in an age when even day to day life would cause you to break some of the more complicated commandments several times a day. After all, if your sheep fell into a ditch on a Sabbath, you would break the Sabbath regulations to pull it out of the ditch. You certainly wouldn’t let the sheep wait until the following day, just to keep the law. So many things in daily life could affect the keeping of the Law, and yet somehow, the Pharisees managed to keep the laws. To the ordinary people, the Pharisees were spiritually invincible in their eyes.
Until Jesus told everyone otherwise.
You see, the Pharisees were the type of people who relished in the idea that other people thought well of them. They relished in the power that comes with being able to tell other people whether they were righteous or not – whether they had been granted entry into God’s good graces. They liked the idea of being the ones who determined what made people righteous in God’s eyes. That is, they enjoyed the idea that they could determine who was justified, and who was not.
This change in attitude can happen to any of us. It’s very subtle. When we begin to believe that our own work is what makes us righteous, we begin to think that everything is going well in our own lives because God has blessed us. And we believe that God has blessed us because of what we have done – things like attending church regularly, praying for people, giving alms to the poor, or volunteering for some good charity event. On the flip side, then, we begin to think that other people are not blessed because they have acted sinfully, or done the wrong things. Maybe we say things like, “If only he had read his Bible more. Or if only he had gone to church more. Or if only he had volunteered more or pledged more. Then that man would be blessed. Like me.” And when we begin to think this way, we begin to hold contempt for other people.
To hold contempt for others means that we are claiming that “justification” is a characteristic that belongs to us, rather than a characteristic that belongs to God alone. That we are the keepers of the scales of justice who determine whether someone is justified – righteous – or not. To hold contempt for others means that we are claiming to be the one who justifies. And, more importantly, we are also claiming that we are not in need of justification. Or, in short, we are making ourselves equal to God.
And just in case you don’t know: that’s blasphemy.
I don’t think any of us want that, do we? I know I sure don’t want to pretend I’m the one who judges the whole world. Or at least thinks he has the power to do so.
But that man, that Pharisee, was doing just that. By looking with contempt at the Tax Collector… That man, the Tax Collector, stood far off in the temple and in humility, beat his chest, acknowledged that he was powerless over the temptations of this world, that his life had become unmanageable, and that he had to look to God alone for mercy.
What exactly is mercy?
The simple rule of thumb is to understand both mercy and grace is that mercy is not getting something that you do deserve, while grace is getting something good that you don’t deserve. The Tax Collector recognized that he probably deserved some punishment as someone who had cheated people out of money, which is why he was begging God for mercy. Begging God not to punish him as he deserved.
This is part of the reason why we do the confession of sin almost every Sunday. We know that we are powerless within ourselves not to sin. And we, like this tax collector, have the opportunity each Sunday to confess those sins to God. And we too, ask God to have “mercy on us and forgive us, that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name.”
That about sums up what this parable is about.
When we live in the understanding that it is only through God’s mercy that we are made righteous in God’s eyes – that is, justified – then our lives begin to flourish. This is the curious economy of God’s world. It is by acknowledging that we are powerless within ourselves not to sin, that we subject ourselves to the mercy of God. And it is through the mercy that we do receive that we begin to be transformed by God. We start to delight in the will of God. We begin to walk in God’s ways, and our lives become a beacon of God’s glory in the world.
We can say, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.”
Or we can pray, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Because when we can face the truth of who we really are, who God really is, and who we are in relation to God, that’s when God declares us righteous – justified. And that’s when God pours out an abundance of grace, and our lives begin to transform – from glory to glory.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on October 26, 2025.]
