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You know, when I first started going to church I had some real problems with people there.  Do you ever have problems with church people? I certainly did. 

"Please God, don't let me grow up to be a Pharisee!"  Cicero United Methodist Church

                      October 5, 2008       Jack Keating        Text: Luke 18:9-14

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You know, when I first started going to church I had some real problems with people there.  Do you ever have problems with church people? I certainly did.

I was at that time ... and still am ... what some people would call a Bible-believing Christian --­I not only took my Bible to church with me every Sunday, but I normally had one in my briefcase and another in the glove compartment of my little orange Buick Sunfire.

At that time the faith was new to me and I was enthusiastic and eager.

Winning souls for God was important to me, prayer was important; enthusiasm in worship was important; and while I was in a very good congregation, a charismatic and evangelical congregation of the Episcopal church in Buffalo, I nevertheless found that I was in some kind of a minority within the church.

I looked around me at worship services ... and I saw that many people there did not read their Bibles, they did not sing the hymns, they did not seem to pray, nor did they fellowship with their brothers and sisters afterwards.

How many of you folk do that ... you know ... check out what other people are doing during worship? Looking to see if they are singing, or if they close their eyes during prayer time or lift up their hands?

I think lots of us do it. During worship and at other times in our life together.

And when I did it, when I checked things out, I noted that many in my congregation seemed more concerned that the service end exactly one hour after it began ... so they could get home and eat - than they were about the actual worship they were involved in.

I noted too that only about 10% of the congregation even bothered attending the weekly Bible studies and prayer meetings; and ... that as far as I tell by how they talked - most of them had never really grasped that the gospel message is one of grace - instead of works ­that Jesus died not so folks who treated one another decently could be rewarded - but so that sinners could approach the throne of God and find there a welcome they did not deserve.

I had real problems with some of the people in the church in other words. To my eyes the church was full of hypocrites, full of people who could barely talk the talk, let alone walk the walk.

Have you ever- made judgements like that? Have you ever thought of yourself as better than someone else?

One of the biggest issues I had at worship services in those days were the prayers of confession that were often printed in the bulletin, as one is printed in the bulletin this morning.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I still have a strong reaction to the words I find in prayers of confession that have been written by other people.

The fact that those prayers were prayers of confession didn't bother me. I knew I was a sinner. What bothered me was the kind of sins that were often listed in the prayers: things like - neglect of the poor - selfishness - ingratitude - racism - and the like.

I found it hard to pray some of those prayers because I knew in my heart that I had not done those particular things - that I was not especially selfish or neglectful of the poor, nor was I in any way racist, or ungrateful for all that God, and indeed other people, did for me.

I found it hard, in part, because I knew in those long ago days that, all in all, I was pretty much on the right track.

While I was not well off, I gave a substantial amount to the work of God each year, a tenth of my income in fact, and that little tenth was more than most others in the church gave, though they had far more income than I.

Indeed, I tithed, I went to prayer meetings every Tuesday night, I attended a Bible Study every Wednesday night, and I worshipped almost every Sunday morning, - even if I had company coming for lunch or relatives were expected to drop in for supper. I even volunteered as a camp counselor at camp for a week every summer and went caroling at Christmas at the homes of shut-ins, and helped out whenever I could with church suppers and special events, and helped lead worship when the minister was away.

Not bad, huh? I know that many of you out there have been there. You have been faithful. You have been generous. You have worked hard and asked nothing in return.

Like me all those years ago, you too have realized God needs many workers in his vineyard.

Like me, you knew too that your efforts have made a difference both to others, and in the end, to you.

Now in all this you have to understand I was not particularly prideful. Any more than the hard workers among you are particularly prideful.

I knew that there were sins that I committed - I knew that I needed God's grace and forgiveness - I believed that it was only because of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice upon the cross that I would enter heaven.

My favorite hymns in fact revolved around these ideas - and I, even with the poor memory that I have, memorized some of the key verses of those hymns: verses from songs like those we sing still today:

"Amazing Grace - how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see."

OR

"Just as I am, without one plea - but that O Lord, you died for me."

In fact, one of my favorite sayings from that time of my life, in fact it still is sometimes one of my favorite sayings, was a short and simple one that is known to you all. .... "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Those hymns, those verses, and that saying, my friends, are good stuff, they are the essence of the gospel - but I want to suggest to each of you here today, that they can easily be misused by us; that they can be, for us, songs and words that allow us to feel good about ourselves, and good about what we are about, instead of being words that penetrate and pierce our hearts!

We may, in other words, comprehend in our heads what these words concerning God's grace mean, but in our hearts, and with our feet and our hands and our lips, display a total lack of true appreciation for their messages.

In still other words, we may fail, by our behaviors and by our attitudes to really understand who we are before God - and who we are in relationship to one another.

"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!'

If you were one of the two folk described in that reading, which would you be?

You know, it is one thing to thank God for what he has done for us, for the blessings we have received, but it is quite another thing to compare ourselves to one another and to thank God for the differences, as if somehow we are better that that poor miserable tax collector over there, better than that single mother who drinks too much, or that clumsy idiot who is our fellow worker or the parishioner who sits next to us and seems to have no real faith at all.

But we do it, don't we?

We do it - whether we see ourselves as the tax collector begging God's forgiveness, or as the Pharisee - who has been diligent in all things of the faith.

I don't know about you. But I suspect that most of you do it.

Even I, so many years after I began, find myself doing it upon occasion, I still find others lacking something - which I, by the logic of the observation, and my unique ability to so accurately judge others, think I have.

Why oh why do we, do I, do such things?

Why oh why do we, do I, engage in behavior, or hold an attitude that can do nothing but end up dividing us, one from another?

And you know what? That is the mystery of sin my friends. It has power.

And while we have breath, we must continually fight that power. We must fight it - and we must trust in the Lord to forgive us when we fail.

You all know the Jesus Prayer, don't you? That famous prayer that is recommended as a mantre, which we should repeat over and over again, when we get down to serious praying?

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner." "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner." "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner."

It comes from today's gospel reading - where the tax collector - the lowest of the low according to all that was right and holy in those days - and maybe even today - beats his breast and says: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

Words to live by. Words to cultivate in our minds and hearts that we might know the true joy of salvation.

There is a beautiful promise in today's gospel lesson, my friends, and the promise is this:

"All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."

It is the promise of God, but it is also a challenge - a challenge because it is very hard not to exalt oneself, - very hard not to think that somehow or other, that I am better than that person over there: the tax collector, that sinner, that arrogant person, that cheat, that hypocrite, that lazy person, that liar, that domineering person.

We do not have to think we have the one right answer; that because we do this or that thing better, or more often than others, we are somehow better people, wiser people, or holier people than those who do it poorly or less often than we.

We do not have to think that because we work hard, pay our taxes, and refuse to hold out our hands, that we are better than immigrants from the third world, or politicians, or those who own big business, or people on welfare.

We do not have to think that because we are more diligent at serving God inside the church and out, that because we tithe, or attend worship more often than most other people, that we are somehow more important, or more faithful, or more loved by God than they are.

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

It's a promise. And it's a challenge ...

A challenge that we are all called to embrace ... a challenge that we are all called to work on.

There is an old Hasidic saying that goes like this:

"The person who thinks he can live without others is mistaken; the person who thinks that others can't live without him ... is even more mistaken."

Our prayer each day - should not be "O Lord, I thank you that I am not like other people­ like John or Jane, like my brother or my sister or my fellow worker"; but rather it should be "I thank you God that you are so good to me - me a miserable sinner, help me be good to others in the same way."

Praise be to God, day by day. Amen.