Every person who is born into this world, who lives and learns and grows, who works and worships and plays, who grays and grows old and dies, has one fundamental question that underlies his or her whole life: \u201cDo you love me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are created for connection: connection with others, connection with the universe, and connection with God. Being hardwired for relationship, we seek communion and reconciliation with all people, with the cosmos, and with God. This desire is the search for love. All of human life is a quest for love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, the fundamental question \u201cDo you love me?\u201d is soon transformed by genetics, by socialization, by original sin, by whatever, into a different question, \u201cAm I worthy of being loved?\u201d or even more tragically, \u201cWhat can I do to be worthy of your love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these distorted questions the unfortunate soul soon seizes upon answers provided by family or society or even the church: I will be famous, I will be rich, I will be powerful, I will be elected, I will be esteemed, I will be ordained. In the process, we manage to convince ourselves that we will be happy if we achieve these goals, and by happy we mean that we will be loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The funny and sad thing is that humans continue to persist in these delusions even after experience repeatedly has shown them to be false. Maybe the next promotion or the next home or the next prize will bring true happiness. Throughout our lives, we continue to make the same mistake of trying to find in the finite and limited things of the world the response that is found only in the true object of our desire. Tragically we make idols of our strength, our money, our fame, and our power. Perhaps most tragically we make idols of our religion. We latch on to the things that should be pointing us to God and make them into idols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our gospel lesson for today, we hear the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the form of a parable, Jesus presents the central theological conviction of God\u2019s justification of sinners and the ultimate futility of self-righteousness. Two men, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector, go up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee stands by himself and he really is quite impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although centuries of Christian interpretation have led us to think of Pharisees as the bad guys, this is not fair. They are often presented as Jesus\u2019 opponents in the gospels, but we need to remember that they were society\u2019s good people. They were dependable, honest, upright, good neighbors, contributors to the community. Quite frankly, they were the type of folks we would all like to have as members of our parishes. The Pharisee is a man at home in the temple. He says his prayers. He gives more than he has to. Although the tithe on income was standard, he tithes on everything he has, and many people would have benefited from his generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stands in the correct posture for prayer in the temple, arms raised and head lifted. But \u2013 and this is a big but \u2013 in his prayer, he has nothing to ask of God. He\u2019s basically giving God a progress report. As far as he can tell, he\u2019s got it all under control, and he\u2019s happy about it: \u201cGod I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, unrighteous folks, adulterers, or even like that tax collector over there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, standing off at a distance, is the tax collector. He has got nothing to show for himself, and he knows it. He earned his living by working for a foreign government collecting taxes from his own people. For years he has collected high taxes from his Jewish neighbors to give to the Roman government. He gives the Romans their flat rate on every head, and makes his money by charging an excess and keeping it for himself. Basically, he is a crook, a traitor, and a lowlife. He is guilty and he knows it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He keeps his head lowered as he comes into the temple. We don\u2019t know why his guilt has got the better of him today, but there he is in the temple, full of remorse, beating his breast and saying, \u201cGod be merciful to me a sinner.\u201d He doesn\u2019t even promise to shape up. All he does is ask for God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The surprise ending of the story is that the Pharisee, who gives a wonderful performance in the temple, goes home empty. He came asking nothing of God and he goes home getting nothing from God. The tax collector, despicable fellow that he is, shows up empty handed asking for God\u2019s mercy, and goes home justified, that is, in right relationship with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We may hear this parable as a lesson on humility: don\u2019t be proud like the Pharisee; go home and be humble like the tax collector. And just like that, we fall into a trap. We take a parable about God\u2019s amazing, unconditional grace and acceptance, and turn it into a story about how we can earn or merit God\u2019s love. We\u2019ve got the answer now. If we can just be humble like the tax collector and not be puffed up with pride like the Pharisee, then God will accept us and love us. We may even find ourselves praying, \u201cGod, I thank thee that I am not like the Pharisee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trap here is that we ask the wrong question of this parable. It\u2019s that distorted question \u201cWhat can I do to be worthy of your love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Pharisee in the parable asks this question, and he thinks he has the answer in his religious observance. He fasts, he prays, he tithes, he lives an upright life. The tragedy and the irony is that in the very act of demonstrating that he is worthy of love, he is cutting himself off from his neighbors and from God. The tragedy and the irony of trying to make ourselves worthy of love through our supposed virtues, even the virtue of humility, is that we end up casting a sideward glance at others and measuring ourselves against them. If I need to earn God\u2019s love, then I will have to be better than the other guy. In the fire of God\u2019s love even our supposed virtues need to be burned away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if we ask the right question, the question \u201cDo you love me?\u201d then the parable gives us an answer. To the question \u201cDo you love me?\u201d God replies resoundingly and forever \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tax collector\u2019s humility was not a virtue that earns him God\u2019s love and acceptance. The tax collector\u2019s humility is a posture of openness in which he is able to receive God\u2019s love. Ultimately, the Pharisee and the tax collector are the same. They both need God\u2019s love. The difference is that the Pharisee doesn\u2019t know it and the tax collector does. The tax collector goes up to the temple with nothing to show for himself. His hands and his heart are empty and he knows it, and therefore he has room to experience the gospel and the good news that there is nothing we need to do, nothing we can do, to earn the grace and love of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The love that moves the sun and the other stars, the love that creates, sustains, and redeems the cosmos, is always uttering its eternal \u201cYes\u201d to our question \u201cDo you love me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only thing we need to do is open ourselves to that love and return it. Everything else is a veil before our eyes, thrown up by our culture, our career, and our churches. All self-flattery and self-importance and self-righteousness ends in futility. When we stop reciting our resumes in the temple, the incarnate love of God meets us and embraces us, saying I know your pain, my beloved, and I forgive your sins. I know your emptiness, and I will fill it and I will fill you with my melting love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by the Rev. Joseph S. Pagano<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every person who is born into this world, who lives and learns and grows, who works and worships and plays, who grays and grows old and dies, has one fundamental question that underlies his or her whole life: \u201cDo you love me?\u201d We are created for connection: connection with others, connection with the universe, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[359],"class_list":["post-511894","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-25c"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":359,"label":"Proper 25C"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3477427,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511894\/revisions\/3477427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}