22 Pentecost 2007 Zion, Washington

This parable is probably the second most famous parable of Jesus, after the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It was also probably the second most shocking parable that Jesus told, after the Parable of the Good Shepherd. Just as Judaism was amazed and disconcerted by the idea that one of the people they most-casually hated would be the one person who would help a Jew who was physically and financially in need, so it was most-shocking to hear that, between a pious, devout Pharisee and a tax collector that the thieving, traitorous tax collector went home justified, while the magnanimous, proud Pharisee when home without God's blessing.

Of course, in both parables, Jesus reveals that our race, our popularity, our social status, our religious status are all secondary to what's in our hearts. The Good Samaritan disregarded the Jew's innate hatred for him and his people and went to the aid of the battered and bruised, now penniless, Jew who lay on the roadside, having been passed by a priest and a Levite, because the Samaritan's heart was such that it was his nature to help someone in need; even someone who hated him. And Jesus said to his audience, "To love your neighbor as you love yourself is to do kind and very generous things even to those who hate you, without any other motivation or feeling in your heart than to do them good, because you are a person who does good reflexively."

We've all seen people who are kind and who always present a gigantic, broad smile to the public, with the appearance of doing good out of a sense of generosity, but who are only massaging their own ego and, in fact, don't much care what the project is or who is being helped, so long as they get every last shred of credit for doing even the least significant chore, under the heading of "loving their neighbor as themselves", when, in fact, Christian love, agape, had nothing to do with any of it at all.

In the case of today's parable, Jesus used the two most-extreme examples within Jewish society to make his point. When the Roman Empire conquered new territory, they recruited opportunistic men to collect the Roman taxes. Furthermore, they provided those men with a few good Roman soldiers who would both protect the tax collectors and enforce the collection of the taxes. And it was the custom of the Roman Empire to occupy territory with soldiers from a distant part of the Empire, who had neither affiliations with nor animosity toward the occupied people, whom they were just as happy to kill as to protect from other enemies of the Empire. On top of that, the Roman Empire didn't care how much money the tax collectors collected, so long as the Empire got the money it needed to maintain the Empire; so tax collectors were notorious extortionists.

Too, because Israel and Judea considered God and Country to be on a par with each other, anyone who was considered a traitor and collaborator with the enemy was also considered to be a great sinner against God. So, in this particular case, the tax collector was the perfect example of someone who was not only not patriotic, but also was a great sinner against God. Consequently, tax collectors and other collaborators, like St. Matthew, were shunned by the Jews and ignored by the citizens of the Roman Empire (which was a precise status that came by birth or by purchase and which entitled a person to rights and privileges that non-citizens of the Roman Empire did not have... like being executed by decapitation with a sword rather than by being crucified.) So the tax collectors and other collaborators hung out with each other - and the women who loved them. And it was to these people that Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son, to the horror of Jesus' own Apostles and disciples, who thought tax collectors were irredeemable.

Pharisees, like Nicodemus, on the other hand, were people who were at the extreme other end of the Jewish social continuum and who were most-admired as much as the tax collectors were most-despised. The leaders of the Pharisees were men with the time and money to follow all of the laws of the Old Testament and to do more, if they were especially devout and pious. Furthermore, it was believed that God blessed those whom He loves with health and wealth and happiness; so it was clear to everyone that God really liked Pharisees a lot... regardless of whether they were most-pompous and most-public about their piety and generosity or not.

But one of the more serious problems with the Pharisees was that they were prone to get all caught up in the laws - in and of themselves - and ignore the point that all of the true Laws of God and man can be summarized in the two phrases, "Love God completely" and "love your neighbor as yourself." Consequently, they were more concerned with precise obedience to the laws as they were written than with any charitable interpretation of the laws as tools for love, rather than rules to be obeyed.

This is the reason why Jesus included in this parable the Pharisee's list of good deeds, "I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get."(Jews were required to fast only once a year on the Day of Atonement, but there was an optional weekly fast on Mondays and Thursdays; in the same way that Christians are enjoined to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but there is also an optional weekly fast on every Wednesday and Friday of the year.) And, whereas the Law of Moses required a tithe of 10% of all grain, fruit and herds to be offered to God, this Pharisee gave 10% of his total gross income to God and was proud of it. And, as today, there was always a lot of debate about what really was for God and what was not.

Of course, Jesus' point is that the Pharisee could have given all he had to God and lived in an even more rigorously religious community, but until his heart, his motivations for all of his piety and devotion to God were out of a true and generous and active love for God and neighbor, he was not going to find favor with God. On the other hand, there stood that tax collector, penitent, truly humble, perhaps trapped in his circumstance, perhaps begging for the inspiration to escape his predicament, unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, head down, beating his chest and only saying again and again, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" This man, Jesus said, found favor with God.

The Pharisee strode into the Presence of God at the Temple in Jerusalem and led with his ego, his consummate Pride. The tax collector went to the Temple with a "broken and contrite heart". This is not a condemnation of Pharisees. This is a condemnation of Pride and an inflated sense of self-importance. It is completely possible that the Pharisee Nicodemus went to the Temple regularly and frequently and, with downcast eyes made the very same prayer as this parabolic Pharisee, and also added the prayer of the tax collector, and Nicodemus would have found favor with God.

 It is perfectly fine for you and me to observe all of God's Laws and to go further, like tithing one's gross income and fasting twice a week, so long as these things are not done in order to impress anyone whomsoever, including oneself. Duty and Gratitude and Generous Love are the motivations God embraces and blesses. Hearty repentance and true faith are virtues that God welcomes and embraces and blesses. And although we know all these things in our hearts, and are prone to do the right thing intuitively, from time to time, it's important to take these basic teachings out and look them over once again, seeing them in the new light of our current situation, whatever it may be.

God is good. There is a distinct possibility that this parish will be without a resident priest for only about two or three months. And during that time, it will be essential for you to do everything you can to make this parish even more attractive than it is already and to go to those people who have wandered in and wandered out and let them know that this flock will not be without a shepherd for very long. That means building on Zion's strengths and resources. It means coming together as a parish family, as we did during the planning and execution of the events celebrating the Sesquicentennial of this holy building. It means being daring and generous and willing to do breath-taking things to enhance this congregation.

At the end of November, I will be going to a four-year old mission that has grown from an initial group of forty to an average Sunday attendance of over eighty, under the leadership of a priest who is there only on Sundays. He has another job that occupies all of his time during the week. He doesn't go to the hospital when parishioners are sick. He doesn't teach week-day classes at the church. Outreach, stewardship, education, and pastoral care are all lay-led and lay-driven. And they have more than doubled their membership in four years to the point that they want - and got - a full-time priest who will lead them into the next stage of their growth and development.

There is no reason why you can't take charge of growing and developing this parish and doubling its membership. It only takes a commitment of Duty and Gratitude and Generous Love toward God. Without "burning out" and trying to do it all, it takes doing a little extra beyond what's convenient, in giving Time, Talent and Treasure to the ministry of Zion Parish, to the glory of God and for the common good.

The Vestry has decided that this year, Zion will have a more traditional stewardship program because we are at the point of needing a more explicit and focused financial life here. That means that you must go within yourself and, in your heart, take a look at your blessings and determine how grateful you are to God, because Jesus rightly said, "Where your heart is, there is where your treasure is." If you see this as a calculation related to your tax write-offs or to anything like a tithe or a "modern tithe", then you will get it wrong. Our financial offerings to God are the most profound sacrifice we make, as an accurate measure of our true Gratitude to God for all those things we enjoy, unearned and undeserved. And believe me, I've heard every pious excuse on this planet for not being generous to God through the Church. "It is to me as bilge water."

We get from God so much more than we give, in terms of our daily prayers and our offerings of Time, Talent and Treasure.

Look at your our own blessings: Most of our children grow. To adulthood, to quote Psalm 16, "Our boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, we have a goodly heritage." We are surrounded by family and friends who know us and who love us anyway. And we worship in a way that draws us into a personal contact with God every week, in this room, at this altar rail; in a liturgy that embodies the phrase "the beauty of holiness".

We have so much for which to be grateful to God, as this rag-tag group of Christians who compose the parish family of Zion Church. And now God is placing a magnificent opportunity in front of you. Will you seize the day? Will you grasp the opportunity? Will you do everything that you can reasonably do to enhance this place and your life together so that this wonderful place will grow and flourish to God's glory?