Season After Pentecost

Proper 25C – 10/23/2025

Y’alls know that that I went to Bible College, and should I be one to point out that the experience was a bit different than for those who go to college at a place like, say, Stanford. The things that we did for fun, the things we couldn’t do for fun, our priorities, values, the things that we found important, how we interacted with each other, all vastly different than if I had gone someplace more normal. 

For example, when I was a student in college, at a Christian school full of people eager to train for ministry, I noticed a strange phenomenon at work among the students there, myself included – no one ever wanted to look less than perfect, no one wanted their “sins” to be known, the growing edges of their character to be seen. Just about everyone wanted others to think they were flawless individuals, all the time. Never getting too angry, never doing wrong, never letting loose, never slipping into “sins”–at least not the big ones–and being just the kind of person that would be fit to lead a church or be a missionary and to carry the Gospel of Christ to the masses. 

You know, normal college stuff.

There were some, though, that didn’t do so, that didn’t want to play the game the rest of us were playing. To the rest of us, they were seen as outcasts, or misfits, but even worse than that really, because to us they weren’t taking seriously the call the rest of us felt from God on our lives,  because the vast majority of us were trying to be as wonderful and impeccable in character as possible. Sure, maybe their antics were amusing at times, annoying at others, but how could they possibly be serious about serving God and act the way that they did? In my estimation at the time, they would have to do a lot of growing up if they were ever going to make it in ministry, if they even intended to do such a thing. For those that I knew did not intend to go into the ministry, I wondered why they were wasting their time in college for nothing.

It’s ironic to remember that in light of today’s Gospel reading, where Jesus sets up a parable comparing the self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee and the self-deprecating posture of the tax collector. 

I’m not sure when I noticed it, but it started with realizing the tremendous pressure that came with maintaining the appearance of being perfect, when I knew that I was painfully imperfect. In fact, the more I found myself trying to keep up the facade, the more painful it was to feel the distance between how I was trying to appear and how I felt inside. It’s a frightening thing to be afraid of being found out for your failings and shortcomings. But that’s where I found myself, part of the game and trying to hide in fear of being found out for who I truly am.

That was the turning point for me, recognizing that I was being like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable Jesus told his listeners to warn them about being too confident in themselves, and that I needed to be more like the tax collector.

And lest the point of the parable be missed on us, for Jesus listeners, to be a Pharisee meant to be part of society’s elite that were upholding truth and religion in ways that others were failing at, including the priests and temple rulers themselves. We hear the word Pharisee and think that the person must have been awful, because that’s how we typically are taught to think about them and those who belonged to their group, but that wasn’t the case for Jesus’ listeners. They were often seen as pillars of society, they were the ones who were doing it right, and doing it better than the average, ordinary person could. They were generally well-regarded and looked up to for a model of how to live. And in Jesus’ parable, the Pharisee goes above and beyond what was expected of the faithful. He fasted more often and tithed more than he was required by law. He would have every right to think he would find favor with God for all he was doing.

To be a tax collector meant to be a traitor to one’s country – to God’s chosen people – to be unscrupulous, and morally corrupt. They had sold their souls to serve Rome, the pagan occupiers, so that they could get rich off the backs of their hardworking fellow Jews, serving Caesar and serving their own greedy desires. They got there by a practice called “tax-farming.” Under this system, the man would bid in an auction of how much taxes would be paid to Rome, the winner being the one who bid the highest amount. When he won the bid he paid the sum himself, and then went out to make back the money he paid to Rome plus whatever he wanted to line his own pockets. He was the ultimate at being complicit with the very system of government that was oppressing the Jews. 

And yet, in an unexpected twist in the plot, it is the tax collector whose prayers were heard, who was approved by God, who was doing it right, because it was the tax collector who depended on God’s mercy above all else, whereas the Pharisee in the parable didn’t need it, didn’t pray as though he need God’s mercy because of how satisfied he was in himself and his impeccable character. 

This is a theme that gets repeated in the Scriptures, that it’s not who you are or even what you do that matters most, but it is our dependence on the loving-kindness of God toward us that matters above all. When the people who had left slavery in Egypt and wandered in the wilderness were on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, they were reminded that it was not because they were a great and powerful nation that God chose them to be his people, but because God loved them and was keeping the promise made to Abraham. Moses himself was a murderer and afraid to stand before Pharaoh, but he was also God’s chosen instrument to deliver the people from slavery in Egypt. The Apostle Paul was a persecutor of the Church, who also became one of its greatest missionaries. And Saint Peter, the wildly impetuous young man and frequent subject of Jesus’ correction, was given the keys to the Kingdom.

Among all of these examples, there is one quality that binds them all together, and that is faithfulness. Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel, was praised for his faithfulness. And Moses, Paul, and Peter, and many before and after them, were praised for their faith. All who, just like the tax collector, knew that they depended on God’s loving-kindness and mercy to save them, in this life and in the next, and not on their own power or strength. 

That is the crux of the matter, and the lesson for us to learn from the Gospel. To remember that it’s not who we are before God that matters or what we do, but that we are loved by a God abundant in grace and mercy. That God doesn’t want us to be perfect, but to be faithful. And that we therefore don’t need to bring anything before God but ourselves. 

Next week is All Saints Sunday. As such, it is one of the days that the Prayer Book suggests is most appropriate for baptism. And today’s parable has me thinking about that, because baptism is a great example of how all these themes from the Gospel reading come together–that we all come to the same waters of baptism by faith, not because of anything we do or have done, or who we are. This act of faith of coming forward for baptism is followed by the pouring out of God’s mercy, that just as the tax collector in the temple, we ourselves now come before our God saying, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And without fail, God shows each and every one of us mercy, and we all walk out justified before God, because all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.