He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The 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. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But 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!' I 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." (Luke 18:9-14 NRSV)

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The Pharisee had gone into the temple to pray.
The Pharisee had gone into the temple,
in accordance with the law,
to attend to the public worship of the one True God.
The Pharisee knew what he was doing there,
he knew that he had every right to be there,
in the temple,
unlike some others who might also have been there.

The Tax Collector had also gone to the temple to pray.
Tax Collectors, as many of us might agree,
are normally thought of as a rather unsavory lot.
I know of very few people who actually like the IRS.
For Jews, Tax Collectors were traitors.
They were acting against the people of Israel,
They were working for the Emperor
They were awful sinners

But even the Tax Collector had come to the Temple to pray.
He came because he knew he needed to come.
He came because he knew he needed God’s forgiveness --
God’s mercy and Grace.

Before God stood two men:
One, the Pharisee, thankful that he wasn’t like the other,
proud of his achievements
sure of himself
in control of his own righteousness.
The Pharisee could stand tall,
proud,
righteous in God’s presence,
because HE had done everything right --
not like that sinful tax collector.

The Tax Collector probably didn’t even have time to notice the Pharisee.
All he knew was that he was insufficient,
That he was a sinner,
That he needed God.

"Those who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exulted."

Would you pray with me?

Gracious God, move among us this day so that we may always know that we are never alone; and speak to us so that we may always hear, understand, and remember -- give us your word by which you mold and shape our living; in Jesus Name we pray. Amen.

One anecdote always provokes some smiles.
It’s the story of a man who falls over the edge of a cliff
and manages to grab onto a branch that stops his fall.
Hanging in midair, he calls on God in desperation:
“Is there anyone up there?”
Eventually, of out the blue, a booming voice replies:
“Let go of the branch.”
The man hangs there in dead silence for a few moments,
looking up and down at the deep canyon beneath him.
Finally, he looks up again and cries out:
“Is there anyone else up there?”

We sometimes laugh at this point because we have just heard
a perfect description of where we stand --
or, rather, hang--
in the matter of being able to trust God.

Take your bulletins, again, and look at the opening prayer.

I am sure that most of you will have noticed, by now,
that the prayer with which we open our worship services changes from week to week,
and that, very often,
the prayer is in some way related to the Scripture readings and to the sermon.
It’s not an accident.

In the Book of Common Prayer there is a wonderful collection of prayers
-- called “collects”--
one for each Sunday of the Church Year.
Each Collect is designed
to address the issues
found in the lectionary readings
for that day.
The Collects are designed
to collect our thoughts
and prayers together so that,
as we enter worship,
we might be prepared
for what God has to say to us.

What is God saying to us, today, in and through Scripture?

The prayer today has us ask: “Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts.”

Can we, by our own strength, really do that?
Of course not.

Now, don’t misunderstand me.
There are some great souls in the Church who have risen to a tremendous level of trust --
of faith --
in God.
They are the saints of God
whom Christians have long-recognized as
examples of Christian faith.
But, for most of us,
our level of trust in God is quite limited.
I’m not being harsh on anyone here
... just realistic.

At the same time,
I find it quite extraordinary that we,
as neurotic as most of us are,
can show the amount of trust
that we do in our everyday affairs.

There are some people who have a deep trust in life itself.
They trust that, somehow, it --
whatever it is --
will see them through the storms of existence.
Consider, for a moment, the trust that we all have,
at some time or other,
placed in another human being --
our parents, for example.

Admittedly, this is frequently when we have no other choice,
such as when we leave our homes to drive anywhere,
or when we climb into an airplane to fly half way around the world.

Consider the trust a rock climber puts in a companion,
or the trust both of them place in a piece of equipment.
We all have had some real experience with trust,
and with misplaced trust.

What do we mean when we speak of trusting in God?
Perhaps a good way of getting at this is to recall
the moment Jesus hung on the cross.

At one point, someone yelled:
“He trusted in God. Let God deliver him if he will have him!”
Actually, that hateful and vindictive shout
says a great deal about the idea of trust
held by the person who yelled it.
In his view, the result of trusting in God should be
that God keeps us from all harm
and from all pain
and from all failure.
Presumably,
if that does not happen,
then we are entitled to stop trusting in God.

Sounds like a common-sense approach to trust, eh?
A hard-headed, realistic approach to trust.

Obviously -- this is not our Lord’s view of trust.
It is precisely because he trusted totally in God
that Jesus opened himself to the possibility of suffering.
He was on the cross because he trusted in God.
Allow that thought to digest for a moment.

He died because he trusted in his Heavenly Father.

On what might such an immense degree of trust be based?
What is the root of our Lord Jesus Christ’s faith?

-- Stay with me for a moment--

Might it be based upon the belief that if we commit ourselves
and our lives to God,
then whatever happens
-- and this is the point --
whatever happens
--it is no a reason to cease trusting in God?

Instead -- with such a powerful faith,
our response to evil is to have even more trust
... even more faith ...
in God.

Trust of this kind,
the kind we see all throughout our Lord’s life,
is the capacity to live life as something
that is continually,
lovingly
held in hands other than our own.
This kind of trust is convinced that those loving hands
will always bear us up
will never ever drop us.
We might try to jump out of God's hands,
but God loves us so much that he will
never let us go.

We cannot trust in ourselves because we will fail.
that’s a fact.
But we can always trust in God, because God will never fail.
and that’s also a fact.
We, in our ignorance
We, in our short-sightedness
We, in our human limitations
May believe that we're spiralling out of control
That everything is going to pot
But God is still there,
and eyes of faith can look through the tears
through the fears
through the pain
and can see the loving hands of Jesus
reaching out to us with all the Divine Grace
that we could ever need.

The prayer for today says that God: “always resists the proud who confide in their own strength.”

Now, this does not say that God resents human self-confidence
and sets out to crush it.
It does say, however, that those who claim
that they are their own source of strength and ability,
that they are in control of their lives,
will surely discover the delusion of their belief.

This is even more certain if they disregard
and look down upon
those who seek the help of God
those who seek the grace of God
those who seek the help of others
in trying to live this life.

This is what our Lord is telling us in the story of the Pharisee
who boasts of his own moral achievements,
while the tax collector behind him acknowledges his own spiritual poverty.

In the terms of this prayer, it is the Pharisee who confides
in what he perceives to be his own strength.

God never forsakes those “who make their boast of [his] mercy.”
Simply stated: the prayer is telling us that
confidence is without question a Christian virtue
but the important question we must ask is:
where is that confidence rooted?

Faith in Jesus Christ does not involve destroying the self.
Indeed, our Lord offers us a relationship with himself,
not so that we may become less ourselves
but so that we may BE ourselves in Christ.

In Christ we have been granted the gift of coming to know God
at an intimate level,
at the level where we can realize that
who and what we are and can be
comes from God.

Our confidence is not in ourselves as something distinct from God,
but in God himself
who gives us the freedom to be ourselves through him.

That is what Jesus meant when he said:
“Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exulted.”

Trying to live as if we can rescue ourselves
--and that’s the Pharisee’s tactic --
will only result in our own failure.
But if we live in the knowledge that
Christ is our only source of salvation and righteousness,
then we will be truly free.
And that, my brothers and sisters, is what is going on at the Table of our Lord.

In Holy Communion we are expressing our realization that
we are in need of God’s Grace,
we are in need of the Real,
life-empowering,
life-transforming,
life-giving Presence of Jesus.
When we come to the altar
and eat and drink the elements with faith,
we make contact with Christ,
we are re-membered to the Body of Christ
we are given the Grace which we need to live.

Come to the Table of the Lord with Faith.
Let go of the branch, to which you are clinging with all of your might,
and let God hold you
and support you
and carry you home.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
-- Amen.