First Reading:
7Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in
speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for
you—so we want you to excel also in this generous
undertaking. 8I do not say this as a command, but I am
testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of
others. 9For you know the generous act of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
poor, so that by his poverty you might become
rich. 10And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is
appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something
but even to desire to do something — 11now finish
doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it
according to your means. 12For if the eagerness is
there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not
according to what one does not have. 13I do not mean
that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it
is a question of a fair balance between 14your present
abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your
need, in order that there may be a fair balance. 15As it
is written, The one who had much did not have too much, and the
one who had little did not have too little.
Second Reading:
9He also told this parable to some who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with
contempt: 10Two men went up to the temple
to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was
praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other
people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax
collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all
my income.’ 13But the tax collector, standing far
off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast
and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man went down to his
home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves
will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.
There are two players in the parable a Pharisee and a tax collector.
For some background, tax collectors were generally not well liked and
not thought of very highly. And there was good reason for that. The
way the tax collection system worked was that someone would buy the
rights to collect taxes from a certain group of people or a certain
geographical area and then that person was responsible for producing
the amount of money that was assessed. So first, in ancient
Palestine, tax collectors were always associated with Rome's economic
oppression but then, even on top of that they were also allowed to
collect as much as they could. Anything they collected that was over
the amount they were required to turn in was theirs to keep…
So, they were often rich and they were just as often despised. That's
one of the players; the other is a Pharisee… for those of us
who have grown up in the church, we tend to know the Pharisees as bad
guys… we remember the times Jesus rebuked them and how often
Jesus turned them into a negative object lesson. Even in our modern
everyday language, to call someone a Pharisee would be equivalent to
calling them a hypocrite. But really they were incredibly
faithful… and they've been recognized as such by lots of
scholars… Richard Swanson says, The Pharisees [are the ones
who] preserved faith in God even under the crushing force of Roman
military domination, and they preserved it by maintaining clarity
about the way the goodness of God ought to shape all of faithful
life.
Raymond Bailey calls them good elders, stewards, or
deacons
he says They are the ones who do the work of the church
and provide the financial support necessary to [maintain] religious
institutions. Pharisees were devoted to God and righteousness…
[true] Their zeal was often misguided, but at least they had zeal in
their desire to please God.
So in verse 10, when we hear Two men
went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a Tax
collector, I can almost imagine what the original hearers of the story
were thinking… almost certainly they expected the Pharisee to
be the one they should emulate — but they didn't get what they
expected, Jesus has a way of turning things upside-down with his
parables…The tax collector is the one who prays humbly and the
Pharisee is the one who says Look how good I am…Thank you
God that I'm not like that guy.
Now, with all parables there are a number of different interpretations
and a number of different take home messages that are possible. There
are a couple that immediately come to mind for this parable: works
alone aren't going to make you right with God
— the Pharisee
did everything right, but the tax collector was the one who went home
justified. Another possible message is pray in humility rather
than in arrogance
— apparently that's what made the tax
collector justified. And you could make a strong case for either of
those messages from this text and they are both important messages to
hear, but I think they're only part of the picture.
I think part of the purpose this parable serves is to show us just how
easy it is to enter into a mindset where we define ourselves, our
actions and even our relationship with God by comparison to other
people. The Pharisee proclaimed himself righteous because he followed
the law of Moses well in comparison to others. And immediately we
think… or maybe it's better to say immediately I thought
something along the lines of: That's not how he should pray.
And there's the trap I was talking about because the moment we're
ready to condemn the Pharisee for his prayer, the moment we're ready
to compare our prayer or our spiritual life to anyone else's …
we become the Pharisee in the story because our attention has been
placed squarely on what he's doing wrong rather than what we should be
doing right.
Now to be fair, I think it's human nature to judge by comparing ourselves to others. We do it internationally whenever we attribute pure or good motives for what our country's doing in the world while at the same time we think other countries are being selfish and dishonest in what they say. We do it in the national media every time there's an election… (I tell you what, I don't watch very much TV at home… and so I end up pretty sheltered from the political ads, but this week I was stuck in a room for 3 hours where a TV was on constantly and I was blown away by the number and the tone of those ads… there were a few that celebrated the positive aspects of a person or an issue, but the vast majority of them were targeted at a base level of comparison and it was as if their primary message was… vote for me - at least I'm not as bad as that guy…).
There are comparisons all over the place but the ones that have the most impact on the way we live our lives happen closer to home… As parents and grandparents we compare how cute our kids and our grandkids are when they're young and how successful they are as they grow up. As teenagers we compare cell phones and clothes and video game systems. As adults we compare cars and lawns. As a church we compare ourselves to other churches and as Christians we compare ourselves to other people in the pews… No matter where we look, or when, it's probable that there will be comparison going on. And there are some pitfalls to the comparison game that we should be aware of and I want to highlight two of them that have particular implications for how we live our faith.
First: Often times we use comparisons exactly like the Pharisee did in
our scripture passage… we use them to make ourselves look
better. No matter what we use to define success, if we look, we can
find someone who doesn't measure up as well as we do… so if we
want to, we can prop ourselves up by comparing ourselves to those
others… no matter how ridiculous the comparison may be. I
don't know if they still do it but I used to love the segments on the
Jay Leno show where they would go out and ask random people on the
street if they thought of themselves as good people… and they'd
get a whole range of answers but they'd focus on answers like: well
I don't go out and kill people, if that's what you mean.
Kind of
like the Pharisee comparing himself to thieves, rogues, and
adulterers… it doesn't matter that that the comparison doesn't
even really make sense, it serves the purpose of holding us up at the
expense of someone else, giving us higher ground than an honest
assessment might.
The second pitfall I want to highlight actually came to mind because of something that's written in the first scripture lesson for the day. You see, I think another way that we tend to use comparisons is to relieve ourselves of responsibility. Just like there are always people we can point to in order to prop ourselves up, there will also always be people we can point to who have a greater ability to make a difference. There will always be the famous person who is able to go on TV, host a telethon and raise a million dollars. There will always be the billionaire who can give away more money than you and I can imagine… and so it's easy to say, I'm no Bill Gates, I'm no Warren Buffett, I'm not going to be able to make a dent in world hunger… I'm not going to be able to make a dent in national poverty. But in verse 12 of the passage from 2nd Corinthians, it says that gifts are acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one doesn't have, and again the comparisons just don't make sense because their ability to make a difference doesn't really have any bearing on your ability to make a difference.
There's an old story from the Hassidic tradition about a Rabbi named
Zucia who was nearing death when one of his students found him crying
and asked, Rabbi, why do you weep? If there's anyone who is
guaranteed a place in heaven, it is you!
The Rabbi replied If
I stand in the courts of heaven and I'm asked, ‘Zucia, why were
you not Moses?’ I will be able to reply with confidence that I
was not born to be Moses. If they ask me ‘Zucia, why were you
not Elijah?’ I will reply I was not born to be Elijah…
but I weep because I fear that they may ask, ‘Why were you not
Zucia?’
You aren't asked to make the same difference that someone else does… your aren't asked to be Bill Gates, you aren't asked to be Moses or Elijah, but you are asked to make the difference that you can.
The question that frames our stewardship season this year is: How
can I live faithfully and how can I give faithfully in a world that's
so engaged in getting, spending, accumulating and filling the
calendar?
And both of our scriptures today point to the fact that
faithfulness in life and in service requires avoiding the trap of the
parable… who you are can't be based on comparison with
others… Who you are and the unique contribution that you're
able to make to the life of the church but also more importantly to
God's mission in the world can only be found in relationship with God.
The hero of the parable was the tax collector. He stood before God
without excuse, without expectation, and without claiming anything
except trust in God's mercy… and though we don't get to know
what was to become of the Tax Collector we can imagine that when he
went home, he was a changed man because he's the one who went home
justified. He's the one who found the way to be in right relationship
with God. And friends, I tell you that it's not by comparison but
rather by relationship where we come to know God's guidance, God's
glory and God's grace. And that's my prayer for all of us in this
season. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on October 24, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
