The Gospel for October 18, 2004 (St. Luke)
Luke 18:9-14
He spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being upright and despised everyone else, ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again justified; the other did not. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, but anyone who humbles himself will be raised up.’ -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
In the Gospel named after Matthew, Jesus comes to the same instructive conclusion aboiut humility after telling those around him to listen to the scribes and the Pharisees, as they occupy Moses' seat, but then going on to warn them against acting as the two groups do. The thrust of his warning is clear: such acts, performed only to gain acceptance or praise from men, are without merit in God's eyes. For those who picture Our Father as The Great Scorekeeper, there are probably some severe consequences for acting so perversely, as well.
A Reflection
Not only the Pharisees, but the people themselves despised these tax collectors. They were easy to despise, since they represented the oppressing power which taxed commerce and occupations and even life itself, with the "head tax." And the tax collectors took a portion of the levies for their own income. It is easy to see how even an honest tax collector could be assumed to be a criminal, especially as he worked on behalf of the "bad guys," anyway, and was the instrument of taking a portion of what little remained to a hard-working man after his labors.
Those who belonged to the Pharisaic sect were the ones who could point out every little flaw. Their lives centered on minutiae, they were surely the ones of whom Jesus spoke when he told of the man with the beam in his eye pointing out the mote in the eye of his neighbor.
It is somehow fulfilling to hear such people criticized so roundly and so well. But there is some Pharisee in each of us, and I suspect a lot in myself. In any society formed around rules and adherence to those rules, those who violate the rules draw attention. When they are the rule-enforcers, the attention they draw is merciless when they are caught in a violation of the rules. Picture for a second the glee reflected in a news account of an IRS employee arrested for tax evasion!
Yesterday our class at the College of Preachers attended church at Epiphany in downtown Washington, DC. Their 8AM service is followed by a breakfast for about 300 homeless people. When we walked in, after the first service and the breakfast, there were many pews occupied by people asleep in them. Epiphany had fed the hungry and given them a brief time in a safe, warm place to rest.
It is easy to conjure up the "Church Lady," from Saturday Night Live, being horrified at these bottom-dwellers surviving in a place we set aside for clean, proper worship. It is easy to hear in our mind's ear the prim, prissy, proper ones reacting with horror at such a "desecration."
Yet it is obvious that there is no better use for a church than the one this congregation has identified.
"When did we feed you, Lord?"
The Collect
Almighty God, who inspired your servant Luke the physician to declare in the Gospel the love and healing power of your Son: Graciously continue in your Church the same love and power to heal, to the praise and glory of your Name; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
6:02:56 AM 
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