Imperfect People, Imperfect Prayers, Merciful God

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

October 26, 2025

Year C, Proper 25: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Joel 2:23-32

Psalm 65

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

Imperfect People, Imperfect Prayers, Merciful God

In today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, we hear a parable about two men praying in the Jerusalem Temple.

One is a Pharisee.

The gospels almost always depict the Pharisees in a negative light, but from other ancient sources we know that the Pharisees were held in high regard, respected for their holiness and goodness.

And the other man in the parable, the other man praying in the Temple, was a tax collector.

Now, since most people don’t enjoy paying taxes, tax collectors, past and present, are usually not the most popular people in town.

But tax collectors in first century Israel we’re particularly despised because they were Jews who were working for the Romans and their allies who occupied and oppressed Israel.

Tax collectors were seen as traitors to their own people.

So, it probably took some courage for this tax collector to enter the Temple, knowing that the people around him were likely to judge him harshly.

And, sure enough, you heard the very judgy prayer of the Pharisee.

Before introducing the parable, Luke tips us off on what he thinks is the parable’s meaning, its purpose:

“Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”

We’re not told just who those self-righteous and judgmental people might be, but we know the type, don’t we?

And, who knows, maybe we’ve even been the type!

Anyway, you heard the prayers offered by these two men.

The Pharisee thanks God that he’s not like all these awful sinners, especially that he’s not like this tax collector – and then he rattles off all his good deeds.

And, meanwhile, the tax collector, standing off by himself, eyes downcast, simply prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus concludes this tale by saying: “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.”

So, the moral of the story seems clear, right?

But…there is another possibility.

The word translated as “rather than” could also be translated as “alongside.”

So, try this on for size:

“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified alongside the other…”

I don’t know if that’s the more correct translation, but I think it points to an important truth:

Both the Pharisee and the tax collector are imperfect.

And their prayers are imperfect, too.

The Pharisee is tooting his own horn and judging the tax collector, which doesn’t seem like the kind of prayer that God desires.

And the tax collector, yes, his prayer is humble but there’s no repentance, is there? There’s no turning away from his wrongdoing.

In fact, after he was done praying in the Temple, the tax collector probably went right back to work, back to working for the oppressors of his own people.

And yet.

And yet, God is loving and merciful to these two imperfect people with their imperfect prayers.

Just as God is loving and merciful to all of us imperfect people with our imperfect prayers.

And since God is loving and merciful to us - most especially through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus – since God is loving and merciful to us - we should be loving and merciful, too.

It’s God’s love and mercy to us that inspires us to do the outreach work that we do here at St. Thomas’:

Feeding the hungry.

Teaching the children.

Welcoming the stranger.

We walk alongside one another, all of us imperfect people with our imperfect prayers, we walk alongside one another, as I like to imagine the Pharisee and the tax collector did as they left the Temple, both of them, all of us, loved by our most merciful God.

Amen.

Lamentation and Faith

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

October 5, 2025

Year C, Proper 22: The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lamentations 1:1-6

Psalm 137

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10

Lamentation and Faith

Recently, someone told me that he had just finished reading the entire Bible, from cover to cover.

Have any of you ever done that?

It’s a pretty impressive achievement, right?

It’s an impressive achievement, first of all, because the Bible is a very long book.

And it’s also an impressive achievement because the Bible really isn’t even a book – it’s a library - it’s a collection of different books – all of them inspired by God, written over a long stretch of time, written by lots of different people in many different historical moments.

And, no surprise, the books of the Bible include lots of different genres:

Just for starters, there’s history and law and prophecy and poetry.

And, of course, the Bible includes a wide range of human experiences and emotions.

There are parts of the Bible that are amazingly beautiful, inspiring, encouraging, and uplifting.

There are parts of the Bible that are downright puzzling, parts that leave us scratching our heads wondering, “How did that get into the Bible?”

And there are parts of the Bible that express what we might call our more shadowy emotions and experiences: fear, grief, rage, and even the desire for revenge.

We don’t often hear those parts of the Bible here on Sundays, but we did hear them today, didn’t we?

Our first reading from the Book of Lamentations begins with a heartbreakingly beautiful line:

“How lonely sits the city that was once full of people!”

And the Psalms alone include the range of human emotions and experiences. Sure there is much praise of God but turn to almost any page and you’re likely to hear the Psalmist crying out to God, pleading something like:

Hey, where are you?!?

Why are you letting this terrible stuff happen to us?

Come down here and fix this!

And then there’s the last verses of Psalm 137 that we read today. Some would argue that we shouldn’t ever say these words out loud in church – we shouldn’t sing this ugly song of revenge, salivating at the idea of Babylon’s children getting dashed against the rock.

Maybe so, but we’ve probably all wished bad things to happen to people we consider not very good.

Like all Jews of his time, Jesus knew and prayed the psalms, so it’s no surprise that as he hung on the cross in agony, Jesus cries out to the Father by quoting Psalm 22:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Hard for us to hear, but very real.

Now, obviously, if lament, fear, grief and the desire for revenge were the end of the story, there would not be much point in us getting together here every Sunday.

But that’s not the end of the story.

I’m told that my predecessor Bill Baxter used to say that “we are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world.”

And that is exactly right.

There are plenty of troubles all around us, there is much to lament, but suffering, fear, hate, despair, and death do not get the last word.

From the cross, Jesus quoted the opening of Psalm 22, but listen to the hopeful conclusion to Psalm 22:

“My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him; they shall be known as the Lord’s for ever. They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that he has done.”

Easter people in a Good Friday world.

Lamentation, yes, but also faith.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says something familiar but also very important about faith – that we just need a little bit – just a mustard seed of faith – to do amazing things.

And when Jesus speaks about “faith” I don’t think he’s talking so much about agreeing with certain propositions – I don’t think he has in mind something like nodding along to the Nicene Creed which we will stand and say in a few minutes.

No, I think Jesus means faith as a movement of the heart, faith as trust.

If we have even just a little bit of trust – just a mustard seed of trust – we can do amazing things, with God’s help.

And, even better, when we gather together all our little mustard seeds of faith, as we do here all the time, well, then truly extraordinary things are possible.

Just look through the pages of our St. Thomas’ “magazine.”

As most of you know, yesterday we had our second annual Jubilee Reception.

Sue and I – and my parents – were delighted to welcome to the Rectory so many parishioners who have been part of St. Thomas’ story for fifty years or more – in some cases, way more years than fifty.

It said on our sheet cake – yes, of course there was cake – it said on our sheet cake: “Faithfulness and Dedication.”

And, as I looked around the house at all of those wonderful people, I thought about the hundreds of years of faithfulness and dedication represented in the rectory dining room and living room and out on the porch.

Yes, everyone there has suffered and lamented at different times of their lives, and yet, with maybe just a mustard seed of faith, they – you – just kept going, teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, reading lessons and prayers, providing beautiful flowers for the altar and shining all that brass.

With maybe just a mustard seed-sized amount of trust, they – you – just kept going, serving on the vestry, caring for our buildings and grounds, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and searching for a new rector or two or three.

With maybe just a mustard seed of faith, they – you – have just kept going.

Easter people in a Good Friday world.

Faithfulness and dedication.

Yes, we can and should lament the many troubles of our lives, our land, and our world, but we can also hold on to that little mustard seed of faith – nurturing and growing that little gift of trust by gathering together here with everybody else with their seeds, and together, together, doing what we ought to do, doing truly amazing things.

Yes, together, we lament.

But also, with God’s help, together, we remain faithful.

Amen.