Community Church of Durham
Luke 18:9-14 (The 4th Sunday in Incarnation)
1.
The Pharisee in this morning’s parable is a cautionary figure for all of us in religious life. For his religion justifies hubris and detachment. Because he shows up for church every week, or because he pays his tithe every year, or just because: he distances himself from ordinary folk, from the un-churched, from the flawed and the compromised who turn out to be just about everywhere.
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| The Pharisee & the Tax Collector (Bryn Gillette) |
And it’s this seemingly minor detail—where Jesus says that the Pharisee is ‘standing by himself’—that sets us up for the lesson in the parable today. Because this fellow’s detached himself from the rest of the crowd, and particularly scoundrels like the tax collector, in order that his moral purity not be corrupted by lesser men, or crude spirits. There’s a temptation in religious life—no matter the tradition—that makes a sacrament of holiness, or an idol of faith itself; and that temptation often drives a wedge between the enlightened and the so-called unenlightened, or between the believer and the so-called nonbeliever, or between the upright and the scandalous.
And Jesus knows that this kind of pride is indeed the enemy of spirituality, and a barrier to God’s grace and peace. James Baldwin once said that “people who believe that they are self-made and masters of their own destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception…” Specialists in self-deception! Jesus understands that pride distorts the whole point of his gospel ministry: which is a beloved community where divine love transforms and divine mercy reconciles and only service is sacramental.
And lest I get too full of myself, at this point I should confess that I am, all too often, that same Pharisee. The one in the parable. A specialist in self-deception! When watching the evening news and the madness that’s taken hold in our politics. I am filled with contempt. When standing in line at the supermarket, as a guy in a bright read MAGA hat and a machine gun tattoo buys a couple of six packs. I sniffle with disgust. Even, sometimes, when driving into Durham on a quiet Sunday morning and lamenting all the folk who don’t come to church anymore. I feel a great distance. It’s easy to wish that the rest of the world would shape up. And easy to drown in my own self-righteousness. Not sure this rings true for the rest of you. But it’s my confession. I too can specialize in self-deception.
But Jesus, thank God for Jesus; because he seems determined first to diagnose this disease and then to aggressively heal it. Both characters in this morning’s parable—the Pharisee and the tax collector—both are imperfect, flawed, complicit in a bunch of ways. Both are involved in systems of control and extraction: the Pharisee on behalf of religious elites, and the tax collector for the empire itself. Neither lives a pure and perfect life.
And yet—while the Pharisee boasts of his own genius and purity—the tax collector begs, begs for mercy. He’s much less interested in comparing himself to others, or in justifying his actions against the cruelty or even the stupidity of others. He aches only for a deeper, richer, and a radically honest relationship with God. After all, only God, only God—proves master of this imperfect man’s destiny. So he turns to God. Or more accurately, he hurls himself into God’s open arms. Beating his breast. Crying out. Begging for mercy.
Now, in the fullness of Luke’s gospel, we’ll see that this kind of confession necessitates new behaviors, new commitments to kindness and justice and generosity. The begging here is just a first step. If the Pharisee’s faith drives a wedge between himself and others, grace liberates the other’s heart for courageous relationship and even solidarity. “For all who exalt themselves,” Jesus says, “will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” His life is in the process now of total transformation. And if you’re curious about what that might look like, look no farther than Luke’s brilliant Parable of the “Good” Samaritan.
2.
Last weekend I officiated at a niece’s wedding, on a green and sun-soaked field, rolled out across a California valley. And I watched two remarkable families (one Indian and the other Mexican) celebrate one another there, rejoice in one another there, and join the son of one and the daughter of the other in marriage.
The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.
Ashish and Elizabeth had spent months, even years, building their marriage on a foundation of mutual respect; and their wedding incorporated ancient Catholic traditions from Mexico with ancient Hindu traditions from Mumbai. A stunning fusion of ritual and grace and even transcendence. “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God…” And in their sweet vows, Ashish and Elizabeth, they promised not to erase the cultural and spiritual differences between them, but to explore and cherish those differences and the values beloved in their two remarkable families. Humility. Kindness. Curiosity. Reverence.
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| Exalting the Humble / A Wedding Feast |
As they shared those vows with us, the rosy orange sun setting over almond trees and grape vines, I saw Indian sisters dabbing at their eyes and the Mexican mother of the bride burying her head in her hands for the joy of it all. You see, Jesus is absolutely right: “…that all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” To be exalted is to seek only love, to rely only on grace, and to discover in kindness and humility the mysteries of eternity. So it was in that sun-soaked field last week: two families finding light in one another’s traditions; two families delighting in one another’s children; two families stepping (shoeless) into one another’s worlds, rather than recoiling in righteousness and misunderstanding. When you see all that, when you understand that’s who we are, you bow down to the Power at the heart of it all; you praise the Name of the Architect; and then, and then, you take off your shoes. And praise God.
And driving all of this, inspiring all of this, is a life of prayer. Or better yet: the spirit or intention of our prayer. The kind of prayer Jesus encourages in this parable today is honest, humble, even sometimes raw. It begins and ends not in intellectual certainty, or even theological confidence, but in awareness of our own vulnerability, of the unknowing and uncertainty that shape most every part of our lives.
This is the gift offered to us all by the tax collector in Jesus’ story: he’s not a perfect man; in fact, he’s as complicated as any, and (to be honest) complicit in a system that impoverishes his neighbors. He’s as broken and as beautiful as all the rest of us. But his prayer—at least his prayer in the moment Jesus captures here—comes straight from the heart, his deeply felt sense that something in his life isn’t right, his need for courage and blessing and transformation. And whereas the Pharisee stands by himself, the tax collector throws himself into the arms of a loving God. Praying. Hoping. Trusting that there is more to his life than his despair. Believing that there is more to the world than his complicity. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Now I’m not saying that those beautiful families in the field last Saturday were wretched or terribly flawed or even conflicted. But I do imagine that what allowed them to open their hearts to one another, and then their arms to one another’s children and cultures, is a kind of humility nurtured in prayer, the Hindu traditions of one family, the Roman Catholic traditions of the other. Those traditions—as different as they may be—inspire a generous modesty that seeks not to convert the other, but to welcome; not to belittle or judge the other, but to respect and enjoy.
Because I need God so completely, because every breath I take depends on the ‘ruah’ of God’s first breath, because I trust God’s tender care in every hour of weakness—I am open and willing to the grace of a stranger, and to the unusual expression of a neighbor’s personality, and to the opportunities for community that present themselves as gifts every day of my life. I experienced all that last week, in those two families, embracing one another in ritual, shaking it loose on the dance floor, creating a bigger family and a better nation in the process. And if America’s going to be great again, by the way, it’ll be weddings like that one that show us the way.
3.
Now it’s that season of pledging and commitment that we wander into every fall. Some of my colleagues are embarrassed by it, but I no longer am. It’s so very important, and to be honest, this pledging we do is a spiritual practice, a covenant renewed. It’s humility, and it’s kindness, made explicit in dollars and cents. And this year, we’ve been inspired by Chuck and Tom and a team of artists to think about all of this as “creating hope together.” Our deliberate choice: to be church together, to be church for one another, to be church for the world. Humility and kindness, made explicit in dollars and cents.
And we might even dare to think about church life, collaborative ministry, as a kind of marriage feast of sorts. We come from a variety of family backgrounds, religious traditions, intellectual persuasions and political commitments. At any one moment in time, some of us have our lives pretty well figured out; and others are asking really big, disorienting questions, even facing down deep despair. And of course, that can flip in an instant, and those of us who had things figured out are shaken by unexpected losses, and those once disoriented are animated anew by courage and purpose. It goes like that, round and round, in a community like this.
But we bring it all together in this place we call our sanctuary; and we commit to hold one another in care, to pray one another through hardship and sadness, to celebrate our achievements and epiphanies as one. And that’s our marriage feast. When we generously and even sacrificially commit resources and energies to a shared life, to a common mission, the respect engendered in our togetherness serves as a channel for God’s grace, for the Holy Spirit, for the hope that belongs not to any one of us—but to all of us.
A woman approached me after last Saturday’s wedding and she looked painfully puzzled. “I didn’t think Christians could do that kind of thing,” she blurted, in parts. And before I could ask what she meant, she said: “Like honoring Hindus and even Catholics. And like doing that in the same ceremony. And like praying for God’s blessing on all that.” She was genuinely stunned, even disoriented by what we’d just done together. In the name of Jesus, by the way. She didn’t even wait around for a response, but kind of stumbled off dumbfounded.
And what I took from that brief moment was her assumption that 21st century religion has to be divisive, that 21st century Christianity is especially so, and that the 21st century church is more interested in purity and conviction than it is in community and reconciliation. And that’s kind of sad, right? Jesus would agree that that’s kind of sad.
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| God's Mercy and Grace |
But what we’re doing here, at least what we’re trying to do here, has so much less to do with our own righteousness and so much more to do with God’s mercy and grace. And it’s God’s mercy that opens our hearts to one another, without judgment, without condescension; and it’s God’s grace that nurtures in every breath a sense that we’re all in this together, that the whole human family and all creation are bathed in the same light, called to the same love, invited to the same marriage feast.
So, please, give that some thought over the next couple of weeks, as you prayerfully make your own pledge to our life and ministry together in 2026. Kate and I are committing again to a tithe of our income, that’s 10%, for the new year; and that number kind of works for us, connecting us to generations past who set that example for us. You can choose some other number, of course, 4%, or 5%, or 8%. But however you figure that out, know that your pledge is like a vow you make, a way of joining the feast that is our life together, and a commitment to the beloved community, the intentional community, the humble community right here, that opens doors for all God’s children. Because God has so loved us, so will we love one another.
Amen and Ashe.
