The Gospel for November 20, 2004 (Edmund of East Anglia)
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
The people of Israel had inherited from the legend of Noah (and all that built upon it) the concept that good works, and absence of apparent evil, convert to uprightness or righteousness or justification -- take your pick of the exact word. For the upright person in this parable, reciting before YHWH all the good he saw in himself made perfect sense.
He got onto thin ice when he assumed that it was he himself who provided the means of his salvation, however; and he fell through the ice when he compared himself to the tax collector. Everyone found contemptuous behavior to be unrighteous.
And it is on this point that Jesus strikes home. God is the source of any salvation, and any upright appearance we may show forth. When we humble ourselves before Him, "walking humbly with ... God," we are putting ourselves to appear at our very best.
A Reflection
One of the old saws of business is that "better is the enemy of good enough."
Substitution of a fancy new machine and a complicated process to replace a tried-and-true solution might feel good and look good, but the results often are worse than before.
Here, "better" is a trap. In the Law, the people of Israel had an absolute standard. One could be "good" by obeying the law. It was impossible however, to obey the law more. It's a yes/no thing, not a sliding-scale of goodness.
The first man in this story fell right into Screwtape's trap, by trying to compare himself to the other man. It is likely that neither man had achieved perfection to the standard of the Law, so neither was likely even good, and for one to consider himself better than the other, according to Jesus, was an affront to God.
Moreover because the first man considered all of his "better-ness" to be the product of his own doing, he added to his insult to God.
In contrast, the second man knew and confessed his many shortcomings, begging for mercy, comparing himself only to the unattainable standard set by the Law.
Jesus boils both of the great commandments together here: we love God by seeking the Law, and we love our neighbor by helping him to seek as well, not by throwing stones at what we might see as his inadequacies.
The Collect
O God of ineffable mercy, who gave grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for your Name: Bestow on us your servants the shield of faith, with which we can withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
7:33:57 PM 
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