For Sunday
Proper 25C
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
The evangelist gives us another clue with that opening editorial description, saying that Jesus was directing this parable, not at the disciples as he did the previous one, but “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt”. This parable isn’t a math equation of two decent choices, but a comparison of a posture of grace and one of cruelty.
One of the easiest postures we could have is one of generic neutrality — to suggest we be indifferent to the actions of others and yet also self-righteous in that posture, elevating ourselves, rendering our own decency greater than others. A close second to that easy posture is the one where we focus, not on our own greatness, but on the weakness of others, thanking God we aren’t like them.
These postures are really easy to slip into and extraordinarily tempting. They seem harmless, fleeting, maybe even automatic and natural. Almost as if it were an actual form of gratitude. Like we are truly thankful for not being ugly or stupid or deluded or pathetic, etc. As if this were an expression of gratitude and not what Jesus seems to be describing it as: contempt.
The lesson for us in reading this isn’t to compare — to place ourselves in the place of contempt — but to seek freedom from comparison. That we are in a relationship with God in which we seek to be worthy. Not to assume we’re worthy or to judge the worthiness of ourselves (or others). But to put ourselves in a posture of seeking and hoping.
It is an American obsession to want security in definitions and certainty. But the certainty isn’t in our own righteousness. It’s in the certainty of Jesus’s righteousness. And we hope that we may be worthy of God’s generous grace.