Proper 25 - 2025

Sermon for Proper 25, Year C
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Who are you in this weeks Gospel story?

It’s a simple question, but the answer is not. When you hear this parable, do you see yourself in the posture of the Pharisee? Standing by himself, praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

Or do you find your heart beating in time with the tax collector? Standing far off, unwilling to look up to heaven, beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

So, who are you? Be careful. That question can be a trap. If we immediately, instinctively answer, “Oh, I’m the tax collector, of course,” have we not, in that very moment, become the Pharisee? We thank God that we are not like that prideful, self-righteous Pharisee. We pride ourselves on our humility.

This is subversive nature of Jesus’ parables. Just when we think we have the answer, the ground shifts beneath our feet.

New Testament scholar, Amy-Jill Levine, offers us a key to unlocking this puzzle. We just heard

“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.”

She points out that the Greek word used to set the Pharisee and the tax collector against each other doesn’t primarily mean “rather than.” Its primary use is one of juxtaposition—"next to."

Therefore, she writes, “Without Luke's tag line about those who humble themselves, the parable should conclude, 'This man went down to his home justified alongside the other' or even 'because of the other.'”

Justified alongside the other. Justified because of the other.

This changes things. The story is not simply a morality tale where the good guy wins and the bad guy loses. It is a revelation of the Kingdom of God, where our fates are intertwined.

Remember, every time Jesus says something to the effect of “the first will be last and the last will be first” or in this case “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted,“ Jesus is using an old Semitic idiom meaning that in a certain sense, "we are all equal," that God values all people with equity regardless of their position.

The tax collector is not justified instead of the Pharisee, but alongside him. The Pharisee’s very presence, his litany of his own virtue, might have been the very thing that drove the tax collector to his knees. And the tax collector’s raw, desperate plea for mercy might have been a silent witness to the Pharisee of a grace he didn’t know he lacked.

So, who is the “other” for you? Who is that person, or group of people, whom you secretly (or not so secretly) thank God you are not like? Is it someone who holds different political views? A different theological stance? Poor or rich? A certain vocation or profession? Someone whose life choices you find confusing or distasteful?

In a world and a nation fractured by deep division, this parable pierces us with the question: Are we able to see the Divine alive within all people, especially in those we "thank God" we are not? The Pharisee could not see the image of God in the tax collector. He only saw a stereotype, a category, a sinner. When we cannot see the Devine in the “other,” we not only harm them, we impoverish our own souls.

We exalt ourselves inappropriately when, like the Pharisee, we use our own virtue, our right doctrine, our correct politics, or our moral track record as a measuring stick to judge others. We humble others inappropriately when we dismiss them, demonize them, or place them outside the circle of God’s love and our concern.

But there is an appropriate humbling and exalting. It is the great leveling of the Cross. It is the humbling that comes when we, like the tax collector, acknowledge our own brokenness, our own complicity in systems of sin, our own desperate need for mercy. It is not self-hatred; it is realism. And it is "right-exaulting" when we see those same needs in our neighbor and stretch out a hand to lift them up. We exalt others appropriately when we recognize the Divine alive within them, when we listen to their stories, when we honor their dignity, even when we disagree.

We are justified, made right with God, not by the purity of our doctrine or the perfection of our record, but by the sheer, unbounded mercy of God.

So, come. Come to this altar, not because you are worthy, but because you are loved. Come, not as a Pharisee or a tax collector, but as a child of God, humbled by your need and exalted by God’s grace. Come, and receive the mercy that makes us whole, the mercy that binds us to one another, the mercy that sends us back down to our homes justified, alongside one another.

Amen.