Competitive Religion

A sermon preached with the people of St. James Episcopal Church in Arlington, Vermont.

This morning, Jesus tells us that there once was a Pharisee. And this Pharisee thanked God for his own piety – for the fact he fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of his income. He thanks God that he is not like those other people – the thieves, rogues, adulterers, or tax collectors.

And at the same time, there stands … a tax collector. Who, in contrast, asks for God’s mercy and acknowledges his sin.

And Jesus says, it’s that tax collector who is justified – “the humble shall be exalted.”

So this week, when I first considered this parable, as I prepared for this morning’s sermon, I thought, “YEAH Jesus, that’s right! Those people shoving their piety in everyone’s face, thinking they’re better than everyone else. They’re the worst. Thank God I’m not like them.”  

And just like that, I entered the story. And I sure didn’t enter in as the humble tax collector. I entered the story as the one who exalts myself.

Jesus is like that, isn’t he? Reaching through the cosmos to teach us the lessons he knows we need to be taught, and retaught, and taught again.

It’s so easy to start forming our identities as people of God by articulating who we are not instead of who we are.

This is the pattern Jesus is holding up for us this morning. It’s a pattern of prejudice. At best, this pattern of behavior leads to arguments on social media and hurt feelings. At worst, it leads to violence and death.

That the person I was rooting for Jesus to criticize in this parable is a Pharisee is significant.

Because the moment I, a Christian, started harboring ill will against a Pharisee – specifically for the way he expresses his faith – I set one foot on a very dangerous, and unfortunately well-trodden path.

The Pharisees were faithful people with whom Jesus – a fellow Jew – related and engaged. Jesus was in community and in relationship with the Pharisees in a way that we, as Christians – with over 2,000 years of bloody history behind us – cannot be.

Distortions of Jesus’ message that assume his project was to criticize the Pharisees and that this somehow excuses criticism, and worse, of contemporary Jewish people is one of many lines of thought borne from the Christian tradition that has and continues to give rise to antisemitism.

And this week -- a week during which we heard antisemitic commentary from public figures including a famous recording artist and a former president – Jesus’ lesson was even more chilling for me to take in.

How close am I – how close is any one of us – to stepping foot on a path toward hate in the name of our faith?

I have been watching – maybe some of you have too – Ken Burns’ excellent new documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust. One of the most effective and terrifying things about it is how familiar it all feels. We like to tell ourselves we’re very far from that kind of horror. But, I’m afraid, we never really are.

Which is why Jesus is here this morning. Telling us he knows something about us. He knows that most of us are good people. That most of us want to do the right thing. And to love God. And he knows that we are apt to get confused in our effort to do those things – he knows we want to “measure” our faith and our goodness. And when we start measuring, he knows we start needing something, or someone, to measure against. And that is where we get into trouble; binary thinking and generalizations that lead to every kind of “ism.”

One reason I think we fall into this kind of “competitive religion” that results in exalting ourselves is that the concept of God’s boundless unearned grace is so, well, unbelievable. It is so counter to most of our experiences as human beings. We can’t even imagine that in the end, grace is not a competition.

So, Jesus is here thing morning reminding us we are all – all of us – sinners. I know that doesn’t sound like the most hopeful message, but I promise, we’re getting there. Most of us, I think, are sinners in the way of the tax collector. Caught inside collective systems of sin, serving organizations that do not represent our values and that cause damage to ourselves, others, and all of creation.

So much of our sin is collective. Which is why it feels so right to me that our confession of sin is also collective. Together we acknowledge our sin. Together, we humble ourselves.

And, friends, we are forgiven. Grace is real. No measures, no comparisons, no competition.

So, let us form our identities as people of God based on who are, rather than on who we are not. As who you are, St. James.

I’m so thrilled for you — for this community—moving into a new time with a new priest, Jeremy. And, moving into a new partnership with St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bennington. This collaboration is good, inspiring work. And, this partnership – this sharing, this working together – is, and I venture to guess, will continue to be, humbling work.

I can’t wait to see what comes next.