“Comparisons
are odious,” it is said, but comparisons can also be revealing.
The comparison the Pharisee makes with the Tax Collector is certainly
odious, but Jesus’ comparison of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
is surely revealing..
The first
comparison is one the Pharisee makes between his piety and moral uprightness
to a tax collector who is also in the temple praying. The Pharisee is
specific about his moral uprightness in comparison to that of thieves,
rogues, and adulterers as well as to the tax collector who in his gouging
practices we might be tempted to compare to the IRS from time to time.
The Pharisee
is also specific in his piety, namely fasting twice a week and tithing.
There is perhaps some irony in today being Stewardship Sunday (the Rector
added parenthetically). To all outward appearances, the religiously
fastidious Pharisee is offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God for
preservation from sin and an account of his faithfulness. Also, to all
outward appearances the tax collector was a legitimate object of scorn
and abhorrence. He was a middleman for the Romans, and as such was considered
unclean by the Jews and banned from their religious and social life.
But Jesus
isn’t interested in outward appearances. He is interested in the
human heart and soul. He is interested in motive. He is interested in
honesty. And so while the Pharisee’s comparison would make absolute
sense to the average observer, the comparison of Jesus reveals the mind
of God who rejoices in the one sinner who repents over and against the
99 who need no repentance. For in the final analysis, the tax collector
in his humility will be exalted and the Pharisee in his self-righteousness
will be humbled.
There
is some irony that on this Stewardship Sunday that a tithe—which
is 10% of our income and a stretch for those not used to tithing—would
appear to be not enough by Jesus’ standards, or at least not the
only thing. It reminds me of the story about Stewardship Sunday at St.
Paul’s Church, Darien, Connecticut, a charismatic evangelical
Episcopal church that enjoyed tremendous growth and notoriety in the
1970s. That parish’s aspirations have been more modest in recent
years, but it was a very exciting place back then and particularly so
on Stewardship Sunday when the Rector announced that those who had not
given their lives to Jesus should rip up their pledge cards because
if they didn’t want Jesus fully in their lives, Jesus didn’t
want their money. Calling it a dramatic moment could be an understatement,
to say the least.
What the
Rector was trying to say was that money cannot buy a relationship with
God, but is rather one outward sign among many outward signs that we
do live in relationship with God and that what we are doing today is
fundamentally an act of thanksgiving.
Actually
the Pharisee had it partly right when he began his prayer, “God,
I thank you…” If the Pharisee had then gone on to pick up
the tax collector’s piece of it by expressing his sorrow and his
repentance, then he would have got it right. The spirit behind our giving
is what Jesus wants us to cultivate—the condition of our hearts
and our souls.
The Episcopal
Church and the Anglican Communion are struggling with issues of humility
and exultation as the result of the election and consecration of a gay
man living in a committed relationship, Gene Robinson, as the Bishop
of New Hampshire. Last fall the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a
commission under the chairmanship of Dr. Robin Eames, Archbishop of
Armagh, Anglican Primate of All Ireland, to consider ways in which communion
and understanding throughout the Anglican Church worldwide could be
enhanced where there are serious theological differences. In short,
what is it about our Church we want to thank God for, and what is it
about our Church we would express our sorrow? Also in short, how is
it that our relationship with one another can mirror the relationship
we have with God despite differences of opinion and ideologies that
emerge from different cultural contexts?
The so-called
“Windsor Report” is the result of the Commission’s
work and can be read in its entirety on its own website, the address
of which is in your bulletin. Bishop Persell’s press release in
relation to the Report is also included in your bulletin, and I recommend
it to you as well. The Windsor Report is an extraordinary historical
document that I hope we’ll be able to discuss in some depth when
the dust settles after the first of the year.
And so
my hope for the Church and for the World, my hope for our nation and
every house of worship in it, my hope for Christ Church and for you
and for me is the hope expressed as that part of the Pharisee’s
prayer when he got it right: “God, I thank you…,”
and that part of the tax collector’s prayer which he assuredly
got right: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
As we
thank God for the beauty of the Created Order, the inspiration of music
and art and literature, the great benefit of science and technology
when used to relieve suffering and promote the wellbeing of all, the
love and the sacrifice of those who seek a better world—especially
for those who are most at risk, for our opportunities to worship God
and to give thanks for our families and our friends, for prayers of
concern, for prayers for healing, for education, for play, for leisure,
for work: “God, I thank you for these things.”
And yet
we acknowledge and offer our sorrow that divisions in the world and
in the Church are not what God intends for us, that hunger and racism
and selfishness and violence bring joy to the Devil’s heart, that
corporately and personally it is only when we can say, “I’m
sorry,” that a climate of healing and peace can wash over us and
cleanse us and bring us safely home. For you and I are that Pharisee
and that Tax Collector as often as we can pray, “Thank you, God,”
and “I’m sorry.”
Amen.
