Justified: A Sermon for Proper 25

Parables oftentimes hold up two extreme opposites to communicate a point. Last week, we looked at justice through the perspectives of an unjust judge and God. This week, we are looking at prayer in the temple through the perspectives of a tax collector and a Pharisee. As is usually the case, Jesus doesn’t employ much nuance in today’s parable. It is easy for us to hear this story and discern that we do not want to be like the self-righteous Pharisee, nor do we want to associate with anyone who acts like that. It is easy for us to discern that humility is better than arrogance, pride, or self-righteousness. So, beyond this helpful reminder, what else are we to make of this parable?

The irony of today’s parable is that it is the Tax Collector who is able to recognize the truth about himself as it pertains to his relationship with God and his neighbor. Meanwhile the Pharisee – who on the outside is doing all the right things in terms of living a holy life –is entirely out of touch with his own need for God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

I recognize that most of us here today are not going to come to church presenting ourselves as outwardly desperate and troubled at the Tax Collector. And likely for good reason; while we may not be as holy and righteous as the Pharisee, we certainly couldn’t be as bad off as the Tax Collector, right?

But such self-assuredness is where we go astray. The minute that we believe that we are pretty much “ok” is the minute we have cast our lot with the Pharisee in today’s parable. And thus, we end up coming to worship to reinforce what we believe to be true about ourselves and our fellow Christians – “I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all pretty much ok. So, let’s give thanks to God for making all of us ok. But let’s not forget to pray for those other people who are not ok.”

I wonder if, on a much more subtle and less offensive level, most of us – myself included - live and worship as if we’re the Pharisee in today’s parable. Many American Christians today have a high anthropology – meaning that we believe that we are essentially good people who from time-to-time might make some mistakes.

This sort of theology was articulated by German theologian Richard H. Niebuhr all the way back in 1937 when, in his work “The Kingdom of God in America, he described this misguided Christian worldview as believing that

“A God without wrath

brought [people] without sin

into a kingdom without judgment

through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

It was as if Niebuhr was anticipating the birth to the therapeutic model of Christianity which arrived in the 1960’s and 70’s. In many mainline seminaries, there was a shift in the curriculum to train clergy to be, among many things, quasi-therapists. The pastoral focus of many clergy shifted to affirming people and making them feel comfortable, without inviting any sort of real transformation. In the Episcopal Church, this theological shift coincided with the transition to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

No please don’t get me wrong - I love the 1979 Prayer Book, and most of its revisions were timely, important, and necessary. But one thing we lost in the transition from the 1928 to the 1979 Prayer Books was a robust doctrine of sin.

I recently read a blog post about the decline in the Episcopal Church. And one person in the comments section pointed out that during the era of the 1928 Prayer Book, when she went to church, two profound things happened – she felt acutely aware of her sin, but she also felt a profound sense of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Compared to the worship of the 1979 Prayer Book, she said the entire worship service of the ’28 Prayer Book felt more cathartic. It took her both lower and higher. That is why some folks – myself included – prefer the Rite I liturgy of the ’79 Prayer Book, which retains some of the vestiges of the 1928 Prayer Book.

Whichever version of the Prayer Book you prefer, and whether you prefer Rite I or Rite II of the current Prayer Book, what is most important is for our liturgy to assist us in recognizing the truth about God and the truth about ourselves. In today’s parable, Jesus tells us that it was the Tax Collector who went home “justified.” Fleming Rutledge likes to use the word “rectified,” meaning “to put right” or, interestingly, in electronic terms, it means to be “converted.” This Tax Collector, who was “standing far off, not even able look up to heaven, and beating his breast and saying, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” went home feeling the power of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Something profound happened to him that day in the temple. He was transformed. He went home justified by God.

Meanwhile, I imagine that the Pharisee, who didn’t appear to feel like he needed anything from God, went home feeling no different than the way he felt prior to worship. He was so sure of his own righteousness that he didn’t feel like he needed anything more from God. Perhaps he was like of lot of folks who seek to be affirmed and comforted for who they already are as opposed to seeking to be who God is inviting them to become.

A recent reflection on this parable in The Living Church Magazine points out that “There are many good reasons to attend the Sunday liturgy, but one which has been somewhat eclipsed in recent years is the importance of repentance and the acknowledgement of one’s transgressions.” The article declares that, “The beauty of God’s house,

the holiness of the temple,

the awesome wonders recalled…

[will] cast a blazing light upon sins known and unknown.”

The reflection goes on to say that “The church is a confessional, a humble reckoning with oneself before God. It is a step down. It is the lowest place. It is the bowed head and the beaten breast. Repentance is a broken and contrite heart, and a broken heart is an open door.”

This open door allows us to discern that, “All this is a gift. Thus, we pray, “I know, dear God, that I am just like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, even this tax collector.”

In a recent article for the Mockingbird newsletter, Todd Brewer points out that “…Thomas Cranmer, versed as he was in Martin Luther’s theology, believed that the church was … akin to a hospital, whose attendees might limp to the pews to find Good News. If church is like a hospital, and Christians more like wounded patients in need of care, then the preaching therein aims to provide more than mere information. Proclamation aims squarely at the those wounded by sin and the world, offering balm for the soul.”

Cranmer’s understanding of the church is one that I think we need to reclaim. The Tax Collector came to the Temple with a broken and contrite heart. He came seeking reconciliation with himself and with God; and he left with the healing balm of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. He left justified.

God healed the broken, wounded, sin-sick soul of the Tax Collector because the Tax Collector had the humility and wisdom to ask for God’s mercy. God never leaves a contrite person to fend for him- or herself. God is lovingly waiting to receive the offering of our confession. And when God receives it, he will bless it, break it, and feed it back to us in the Body and Blood of his son Jesus Christ. And as we take Christ’s Body into our own, he dwells in us and we in him, and we are made whole again. We are able to go home justified. Thanks be to God.