October 26, 2025
Pentecost 19/ Proper 25, Year C
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex CT
Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14
If the gospel were an audience participation play, we might experience it quite differently than we do some 2,000 years after-the-fact when we are not all that familiar with the social classifications and constructs of 1st-century Palestine. Maybe the Rocky Horror Picture Show is not the most wholesome example I could use, but it’s the one that comes to mind when I think audience participation, so bear with me. In that 70s-era cult classic, once people knew the storyline and the characters, everyone knew when to shout at the screen or use the props they had brought for the occasion.
If the parable of the pharisee and tax collector were an audience-participation play, when Jesus told it, the mention of a Pharisee would have been met with cheers. Pharisees, as I have explained before, were the ones who were trying to preserve traditional Jewish practice when their world was being turned upside down by Rome and the fragmenting of Jewish unity in the absence of the temple following its destruction in the year 70. If they seem humorless and judgy, maybe it’s because their ancient traditions were crumbling before their very eyes.
As for the tax collector (called the publican in older versions which I kind of like – not some buttoned up IRS agent but someone with a few too many gold rings on his fingers), at his appearance on stage, the crowd would have booed and hissed. Tax collectors were the worst. They were the enforcers of an oppressive Roman tax system, skimming what they could off whatever they managed to solicit or extort from those who could ill-afford the taxes required of them to prop up a system that brutalized them and made it impossible to find financial security.
A rich man and Lazarus. A judge and a widow. A pharisee and a tax collector. Luke gives us a series of pairs that should make us sit up and take notice. But be prepared: all is not what it seems to be. We are so conditioned to view the pharisees as sticklers for the rules, unfeeling and rigid. Tax collectors – because they are lumped in with sinners and outsiders – are seen almost as good guys. But that is just the opposite of how they would have been considered in the time of Jesus.
So, the Pharisee strides proudly onstage to the cheers of the crowd and does exactly what one would expect him to do. He is pious and he is generous. He’s also contemptuous of those whose virtues don’t quite match up with his.
The publican, on the other hand, slinks onstage with downcast eyes, hunched over with shame, and the crowd boos and throws rotten vegetables in his general direction. And he does the opposite of what might be expected. He knows he’s a sinner. He knows he’s unworthy. And he throws himself on God’s mercy.
Two men come to the temple to pray, but only one goes home justified, and it isn’t the one the audience expects, and the people watching this unfold are completely confused.
We should be tipped off by how by Luke introduces this story: “Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt…” (18:9). It’s clear from what follows which person Jesus is talking about.
And there we are, having to side with a despicable tax collector, one whom we might regard with as much contempt as the Pharisee does.
This word “contempt” shows up twice in Luke. The other time is when the soldiers mock Jesus after his arrest and put on him a purple robe and crown of thorns. They treated him with contempt, Luke says. Funny how this tax collector and Jesus get treated the same way by the people around them.
It is an awful way to treat anyone. In many, many years of counseling people as their priest and pastor, couples who come to me when they are going through a rough patch in their marriage can often be helped if, through counseling, they can begin to peel away the issues that have accumulated over the years and learn (or re-learn) how to really listen to each other. But if either one holds the other in contempt – judging, looking down on, having no regard for the other – it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s all over but signing the divorce agreement.
Sadly, churches are not immune from treating others with contempt or disdain or judgment. I attended a church long ago where a pillar of the community used to put on her gloves to exchange the peace with an unhoused gentleman who sometimes managed to invade her pew. I can’t tell you the number of times parents have struggled to get their young families to church only to be greeted with glares and cold shoulders when their kids behave like, well, kids. And the Episcopal Church, long the church of position and privilege in the U.S., continues to battle its image of exclusivity. And if you don’t believe me, how many times have you heard someone proudly say, “we don’t check our brains at the door,” implying that those other people do?
Oh yes, there is plenty of contempt to go around, and Jesus is saying to pay attention to the one who knows he is flawed and broken and unworthy.
Today is the day when we collect and bless our pledges for 2026. It is the day when you offer some portion of the fruits of your life and labors to God. I believe that you are all doing so prayerfully and sacrificially as a sign of gratitude to God’s many blessings and in hopes that the worship and ministry of this congregation might serve as a beacon of hope to a world that, in many corners, is filled with such sorrow and despair. We receive the largest pledge to the smallest with gratitude, because we know that even the humblest gift is but a seed that we plant and tend, and God can make it grow into a mighty tree that shelters and nourishes and blesses those who draw near.
If nothing else, this parable of the Pharisee and the Publican tells us that God’s economy is not like ours, that God can take the most wretched and justify them, can take the smallest gift and turn it into abundant grace. Imagine that this play we are putting on is for an audience of one, and that One is a God who is cheering us on, delighting in the ways we are faithful, grateful, and generous with each other and with those we serve.